Martin Buckley is given a truck, a map and a satellite distress beacon - then let loose on a rare safari into the heart of the Namibian desert
from the Telegraph Travel section August 1998

I HAD driven to Heathrow in a small runabout Rover. Now, 12 hours and 5,000 miles away, I was being introduced to its ample country cousin. The Land Rover had tractor tyres and metal plates on the bonnet for you to stand on. There was a gigantic jack, a shovel, an axe - and a satellite distress beacon. "I hope you won't need that," said Don Ridley, the Safari Drive representative. "The cost of being recovered by the Namibian Airforce is rather high."

As I was learning how to erect the folding roof tent, Bob Sinclaire, owner of the Sundown Lodge, walked over. "Are you two trying to work up a sweat?" he asked amiably, "or are you going to come and have a bloody drink?"

We joined Bob and his wife, Silke, for a sundowner by the pool. The hot day was ending. Windhoek sunsets are famous, and tonight the whole sky was stained an intense and almost alarming blood red. Silke cast her eyes over her land and said: "They call Namibia a hot place in between two deserts, you know. We've got the Namib Desert to the west and the Kalahari to the east. And in between . . . Well, they call this bit a semi-desert."
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Even semi-desert is tough to cultivate, and Namibians farm the land for a living. So it is no surprise that many farmers are turning to "guest farming". Tourist numbers are booming, and the reason can be seen staring sightlessly from the walls of many a Namibian bar. Today, though, you are more likely to be invited to photograph a wild animal than to shoot it.

By seven the next morning I was "on safari", and a day's drive out of Windhoek brought me to the Etosha National Park, one of the finest game reserves in Africa.

At Etosha's heart is an enormous salt pan that drains water from the Angolan hills to the north. Wild animals come here to drink in vast numbers - elephant, lion, many species of antelope and smaller mammals, all living in such close proximity that you feel a peckish lion could simply reach out and grab a passing gazelle.

The quality of the place was summed up for me by someone I met taking a beer at the Okaukuejo camp. Michel was a tour guide, unwinding after a fortnight spent taking a group through Namibia's north-western desert country. "This place makes me feel," he said, "as though I've stepped into the pages of the Illustrated Bible I had as a child. It's like Eden."

Early the next morning I came upon a group of elephants taking a bath, and I stopped to watch them through binoculars. Slowly, I drove closer. Never leave the car, you are told. But I decided the open scrub couldn't conceal anything too dangerous, so I did get out, and made my breakfast. It was a moment of extraordinary intimacy, the elephants performing their ablutions in the sun-shot water, and me sitting nearby, sipping tea and eating bread and marmalade.

Michel and I had decided to travel together for a few days. Namibian guides tend to look like the heroes of Hemingway short stories - big-brimmed hats, khaki shirts and shorts - and Michel was no exception. But the uniform is practical, and we were soon in the wild north-west, the last unfenced corner of the country.

I discovered that Namibia's wildlife is not - yet - confined to reserves. We saw families of ostrich and herds of zebra and antelope. One of the joys of the country is that you can camp in the bush, and at night I would sleep in the open air on top of the Land Rover, with only the sounds of the wilderness to lull me to sleep.

One morning Michel showed me recent spoors of Namibia's desert elephants - among the last truly wild ones in the world. But should I go and try to spot them? The numbers of tourists pursuing these elephants have increased sharply, and a magazine article recently published a feature complete with co-ordinates for a GPS satellite navigator. It made Michel furious.

"It means anyone can get in his Jeep, drive for a day out of Windhoek and be on top of the herd," he told me, "and these are wild animals. If some idiot goes too close and frightens them, an elephant could attack." I thought of my breakfast in Etosha. "And the next time it sees a similar vehicle, it may well attack again. So at least one elephant will have to be destroyed. People should just leave them alone!"

One night Michel, who had the scarred face of a fighter, made this point rather aggressively to three Germans who specialise in tours to see the elephants. For a moment, things looked nasty.

"These Germans still think they run this place," he said as we left. "It's time the Namibians threw them out."

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