Namibia has a natural force as vast and raw as few other places in the world.

As we cycle through the vast desert landscapes, we meet indigenous people who have lived here for thousands of years.

We are fascinated by their survival skills, but at the same time we have to think very carefully about not dying of thirst.

In the northwestern corner of Namibia, lies Kaokoland: 

“This vast tract of land is Namibia at its most enticing – and yet most inhospitable. 

Kaokoland appeals to the adventurer and explorer in us, keeping quiet about the dangers involved.”

...this is how the guidebook begins the chapter on Kaokoland, where we begin our route through Namibia. An inhospitable, impassable, but also strangely alluring mythical desert landscape that calls out to the adventurer in your soul. 

Or as they write later:

"For this you should ideally have a two-vehicle 4×4 expedition, all your supplies, an experienced navigator, detailed maps and good local advice on routes. Even then, you will probably get lost a few times."

…We had two bikes and lots of courage. 

The domain of the Himba

The first two days, we cycled along the Kunene River, up to Epupa. The heat was extreme, because the air is completely still in the low valley. Sweat dripped down onto the handlebars as we bulldozed up the steep rocky hills before we could get a whiff of fresh air every time we rolled down the other side. The landscape is raw, but the river gives life to a narrow belt of green trees and tiny villages, inhabited by the Himba. 

The Himba are a stunningly visual people. They exude great pride with their insistence on dressing in a very traditional way. The men are a bit more subdued than the women, but they still have a special system of cloth as trousers. It's two layers, one short and one longer. Their hair is styled in certain ways, depending on whether they are single or married. And they wear a very specific type of sandal, which is sewn together from old car tires. 

But the women – they have a completely different, extremely beautiful and very distinctive expression. The contrast to the modern world is enormous when you see a Himba woman in her entire traditional expression: Her hair is shaped into long sausages and both the skin and hair are smeared with an ochre-colored grease, called otjize. The Himba live in areas where there are long periods of drought, so they cannot wash themselves regularly. Many Himba have not bathed for years, but keep themselves clean with otjize, which also protects against the harsh sun and dry air, just as it protects against insect bites. Otjize is often mixed with aromatic extracts of the omuzumba bush, so that it also functions as a 'deodorant'. 

But first and foremost, otjize is an aesthetic choice for Himba women. The ochre red color symbolizes blood and the red earth, which is connected to life itself. 

On the lower body, the women wear a skirt made of goatskin. If they have children, they wear a cloth cloth, which forms a small backpack, tied around their waist. On the upper body, they wear only jewelry over their bare breasts. 

It is an extremely fascinating expression, which is very powerful. We have seen completely traditional Himba women in some of the larger cities, where the contrast between an almost naked woman in a modern supermarket is quite wild. But precisely because the Himba hold on to their traditional appearance, they appear proud and strong. We think back to the Bakers in the jungle of Cameroon, who in comparison seemed like a broken people, unable to reconcile their thousand-year-old traditions and life with the modern world. The Himba seem to be stronger in that fight. 

We of course wanted to take pictures of the Himba, but they are difficult to approach, so we didn't manage to become good friends with anyone that we could ask to take a picture. The shyness of asking if you can take a picture is undeniably greater when the person is almost naked. On the other hand, we learned that the Himba themselves see it as a business to have their pictures taken. They are used to all the tourists wanting to take their pictures. In a way, it is also a much purer barter than if we, as privileged white people, try to become friends for a while, just to take a picture. So when we met two beautiful Himba women on the dirt road to Epupa, we had no problem giving them the money they asked for in exchange for some fantastic pictures, as good memories. 

A world of difference

Many people ask us for money when we meet them. Especially the Himba in northern Namibia. And it is clear that many do not have much for themselves. Even though we think we only have a few things on our bikes, we still have a huge abundance of clothes, equipment and food, compared to an ordinary person in rural Namibia. A Himba family lives in small huts, and they still largely live from their cattle and as hunters/gatherers. That is, they eat what nature has available. During the dry periods, they have to move to where there is water and food. It is quite crazy to think that in 2024 some people, like ourselves, will live in an apartment where we can turn on the tap and clean drinking water will gush out at any time, while other people have to move their homes to get access to a water source that is not nearly as dry. At the same time, they eat leaves, roots, caterpillars, etc., while we just go down to the supermarket and tear things off the shelves. 

Terrible animals

In Epupa we loaded the bikes with food for 5 days and water for 2 days. Ahead awaited gnarled, winding paths through a dry terrain of sand and stone. Silent landscapes in a shimmering heat haze. Home ground for lions, rhinos, elephants, snakes, scorpions and giraffes. Animals we wanted to see, but not be killed by. 

The first animals we saw, however, were the ultimate masters of the art of irritation: the fly. As soon as we climbed up from the unbearably hot valley to the airy plateau, the flies took shelter on our backs, from where they regularly took a frantic flight, at full speed around our faces. In the dry desert, the flies seek even the slightest bit of liquid, so they constantly crawled under the sunglasses, on our sweaty cheeks. They went for the eyes and nostrils, and even the ears had to be invaded. When 5-10 flies crawl around your face at the same time, while you are trying to balance your bike through large stones or deep sand, your patience is really put to the test. Your arms wave wildly around. Breathing and swearing also help a little. But only for a short while. The rule in Africa seems to be that the smaller an animal is, the more annoying it is, and the more damage it can do. 

We both swallowed a few flies which we spat back out. 

Only Marie had been smart enough to bring a net for her head. Kenneth had ample opportunity to practice his Zen Buddhist calm. 

Route planning

A South African bikepacker has dedicated the last few years of his life to finding a route through this deserted, but animal-rich corner of Namibia. A route that is actually possible to cycle without dying of thirst. Because there is a natural limit to how much water we can carry on our bike and how far we can cycle in a day. 

He has called the route SAND, and it has become an enormous work of art. More than 5,000 continuous kilometers through South Africa and Namibia.

In our research of Namibia, we as always put a lot of pins in the map, with the things we wanted to experience. When we saw that SAND connects almost all of these points, with beautiful cycling in desolate landscapes while avoiding the many fences, private land and national parks that we are not allowed to cycle through, it was an easy decision to let Johan's massive work benefit us. 

However, that doesn't mean we could just sit back and cruise while the GPS did all the work. On the contrary, Johan has succeeded in creating a route that is so difficult and challenging that we constantly had to think very carefully about our supplies, especially water, to make it possible. We each had 10-12 liters of water on our bikes when we were fully loaded. 

Difficult terrain

One of the most difficult sections of the route is already at the beginning, after just a few days of cycling. Van Zyl's Pass is a steep and rocky passage that took us from the high plateau, down to the flat sandy desert. The place is notorious among the 4×4 people, who consider it the ultimate challenge in Kaokoland. It is one of those places you don't go if you are only one car. If something happens to the car you are so far away from everything that help is almost impossible to get. 

But such passages are usually easier for us on the bike, and our advantage was that we had to cycle down Van Zyls, not up. But the biggest challenge for us was not even the terrain. What was far worse than large loose rocks on a steep descent, is that Van Zyls is so far away from everything that we started to run out of water. The last town was 80km away, the heat was unbearable, and we drank more water than ever before. And the worst part was that even after the challenging descent of Van Zyl, we still had 80km of cycling through a sandy uphill plateau to the next town where we could get water. All in all, we were in a bit of a serious predicament. The math for the water supply only worked out with a pinch, and we knew that running out of water here in the desert would be more than serious. 

But as if sent from heaven, we caught up with a group of four 4×4 jeeps that were snaking down on the Van Zyls. Marie rolled up onto the side of the rear car, smiling broadly, and waved to them through the side window. They were shocked, but immediately stopped the car and rolled down the window. They were a little speechless to see a couple of cyclists out here in the middle of nowhere, but they were quick to stick a couple of bottles of cold water out the window. 

At the bottom of the descent, all four cars stopped and everyone got out and breathed a sigh of relief at their successful descent. Suddenly, one of the women felt sick. She had to sit down. Kenneth got one of the others to help so we could carry her into the shade and loosen her tight warm clothes. Meanwhile, Marie found electrolytes for her and mixed them in a bottle of water. After 5 minutes, she was back on the ground. The heat had knocked her over. 

The people were very grateful for our help and they realized how vulnerable we were on the bikes. So now there was no limit to how much water we could get. We filled up our bottles, and the math for the next water station suddenly worked out much better, with a plus on the bottom line. 

The next day we met the 4 jeeps again. We were cycling up the bumpy Joubert’s Pass when we saw them approaching in the distance. Kenneth couldn’t contain himself and got to test that even uphill in technical terrain, a bikepacking bike is faster than a 4×4 jeep. 

We merge with nature

The heat haze flickers over the endless rocky desert landscape. There is not a sound to be heard. Only the rush of blood in our own bodies when we stand still. Or the sound of the tires rolling over the crunchy earth when we cycle. It is completely enchanting and breathtaking. Being alone in these landscapes of huge open sky opens the soul and mind. The eyes adjust to see far, instead of being limited to short-sightedness. The ears pick up the slightest breath of wind in the enormous silence. But it is also vulnerable, and we are constantly fully aware that small mistakes in this desolate desert can quickly grow into fatal problems. It gives a small uneasiness that constantly lurks in the back of our minds. 

We cycle for almost a whole day through a flat landscape of red sand, with scattered rocks sticking up like small islands. At the end of the day we camp up on a rock and feel how the rocks protect us with their warmth all night, even though the desert around is icy cold. Above us the stars flicker wildly in the night sky, and when the moon rises, it becomes so bright that the enchanting rocky landscape casts crooked shadows on the sand. We feel deeply connected to nature, and we think about how extremely difficult it must be for the Himba to live in this barren landscape. The skills and understanding of nature they must possess to obtain water and food are enormous. Something we, in the modern world, have completely lost. We would not survive long here if we had not brought food from the supermarket. 

When we leave the hot cliff face the next morning, we cycle towards one of the highlights of the route. We reach a hilltop and in the next valley a wild sight reveals itself before us. A riverbed with a paradise of green trees winds through the grey rocky desert. But the river has no water. It is dry. It is only white sand. An elongated oasis. Both for our eyes, and also for the animals. We do not cycle long along the riverbed before we spot a black dot between the trees. An ostrich follows us curiously. And immediately afterwards we are amazed when we see a pair of long necks sticking up above a treetop. Giraffes!!! It is absolutely crazy to see them, even though they are far away. They move majestically. A few kilometres further on, 6 giraffes suddenly run out of the riverbed and directly across the gravel road in front of us. When they run, it looks as if it is happening in slow motion because of their long necks. They stop and study us carefully. We do the same. The curiosity is mutual. 

We smile big and enjoy being here, where the animals from the Zoo roam freely. 

Wild animals – up close

A few days later we have a rest day in Sesfontein. A tiny town that does have a lodge where we are allowed to camp in the garden, for a fraction of the price. 

An Italian couple on summer vacation have booked a safari trip to the Huanib River the next day. We know that it is one of the best places in Namibia to see wildlife if you don't want to go to Etosha with thousands of other tourists. We decide to sign up for the trip. 

The next day, Ernosto, our guide, picks us up in an open safari vehicle. It takes some getting used to for us to let go of our bike identity and exchange it for “White tourist on the back of a four-wheel drive”. But as soon as we get down to the Huanib riverbed, it all makes sense. We see everything from the open vehicle and before long a large male elephant walks out onto the steppe, next to us. It is on its way to its watering hole. We are bubbling with joy at being so close to the big animal, without being in danger. After all, the car offers slightly better protection than the bike. 

We meet several elephant families with small calves. The smallest calf is just two weeks old. The mothers tear branches from the trees with their strong trunks and munch on them while the calves gurgle. 

Ernesto navigates us with a sure hand through the dry sandy riverbed. He has previously worked tracking rhinos, so he knows exactly what he is doing. And he doesn’t give up. He spots fresh footprints from a lion. He drives back and forth while trying to figure out where it is hiding, while also searching for the lion’s usual hiding places. He drives the car right into a dense bush and suddenly Marie exclaims: “There it is!” Only a broad nose and two eyes peek out from behind a bush. We must have woken the lion from a nap, so he gets up and stretches. We sit very still and watch him until he gets tired of us and sneaks into the thicket. 

There are hundreds of giraffes there. When we meet them on the bike, they become shy and hide or run away. But they are used to the car and know it won't do anything, so we can get much closer and see the beautiful animals than we have before. 

At one point we see a giraffe standing all alone in the wide riverbed. Ernesto stops the car. “It’s in the middle of the danger zone!”. A little earlier we have seen a lioness walking down the riverbed, towards the giraffe. Ernesto says that the lion will probably attack the giraffe. It has only been a little over a week since the last time. We sit quietly and wait. Nothing happens. Ernesto drives around a bit to find the lion, while we keep an eye on the giraffe, which unsuspectingly struts around like a fragrant ham at a Christmas buffet. We are torn between how wild it would be to see a lion attack a giraffe, and at the same time how repulsive it is. But we have no choice. Ernesto has the keys to the car.

After half an hour, however, he no longer believes it and drives away. After just 5 minutes of driving, we see the lion again. She has missed the giraffe in one of the overgrown places in the riverbed. But as soon as we see her, a small antelope, a springbok, comes around the corner. The lion stands motionless in the shade. The springbok looks away for a moment and the lion sneaks into the bush. We stop the car at a distance and keep the camera ready. The springbok comes unsuspectingly down towards us. It stops. Smells something in the air. Senses something moving. Suddenly the lion comes out of the bush at full speed. The springbok turns and runs as fast as it can. The lion chases it, but the springbok is extremely fast and the lion only has a short sprint before it has to give up. 

She is tired and lies down in the shade of a tree, close to us, to rest. The springbok returns, looking as if it intends to sneak past. The lion raises its head. But we never know how it would have ended, because another car appears and ruins the scene, so the springbok runs the other way. 

Bikepacking belisimo

The image most of us have on our retinas when we think of Africa is probably a fiery red sun setting over a flat savannah with a single acacia tree and a giraffe in silhouette. Africa is anything but that image. But if you want to experience that atmosphere, then Namibia is the place to go. 

We are completely in love with the vast landscapes here. And the wildlife. When we camp in the evening it is divine to see the light change in the sunset. To feel the temperature drop to a bearable level. To feel the calm descend in the enormous wild landscape. When we wake up the same scenario plays out backwards. Or forwards if you like. The sun rises and colors everything golden. It breathes life into our cold bodies with a warm wind. It is easy to start a new day when Mother Earth makes such an effort with a beautiful start. 

The SAND route that we follow is not just a gpx file, but also has a description. However, we find time and time again that the places that are described as difficult are actually quite easy. On the other hand, there are often passages where we have to unexpectedly get off the bikes and push them through deep sand, or spend a long time finding the track, because there is actually no road where the route goes. The pace is at its lowest. Most days on the route, our average speed is 7km/h including breaks. We have never moved so slowly on the bikes before. 

Map vs reality

One day we have to ride through two river beds. In the first one the sand is fairly compact. We let the air out of the tires so they have a larger tread. This allows us to ride in the sand, even though it is right on the border with the heavy bikes and relatively narrow tires. In reality, a fat bike would be ideal here. But it works and it is really fun to ride in the river bed. But in the next river bed the route makes no sense whatsoever. The sand is completely fine and soft. We sink in far too much. We try for a couple of hundred meters, but pretty quickly decide to get out of the river bed again. It is almost 20km long, and if we have to push the heavy bikes in deep sand, it will be 3km/h. This means that it can quickly take 5-6 hours to get through. Instead we find a cool 4×4 route that winds along the river, where we both have views from hilltops, but also get down to the river, where it is compact and drivable. You should never blindly follow other people's routes. Instead, it only takes us 2 hours to drive the riverbed. 

But it is all the challenges and a certain element of uncertainty that make cycling here worth it. We love when there is room for interpretation and your own planning. Namibia is a mecca for bikepacking. The best adventures are always those without guarantees, where there is a certain risk of whether it can even be done. But which reward you with unpredictable experiences of great beauty. And that is exactly what SAND and Kaokoland contain to the fullest. We love it!

Exploring new terrain

This segment of the SAND route ends in Swakupmund. We are looking forward to a small mini-holiday with luxury and lower temperatures, in the small coastal town. 

But first we have to solve a small problem on the route. 

Johan has laid out the route over a long stretch of a busy main road. For the last 1,500km we haven't touched asphalt, so we're making an extra effort to find an alternative to the deadly, and dangerous, main road. 

We also contact Johan and together with him we put together an alternative route that has not been done before. 

We set off from Spitzkoppe with big smiles and a sense of adventure. 

As we turn onto our own route, we find not only the first tailwind of the trip, but also a really good and fast gravel road. The mood is high. 

We take a lunch break in the shade under an acacia tree, and while we munch on the usual French bread with peanut butter, a young guy comes out of the blue and asks: “Are you guys lost or what?” No tourists usually come here, and we appreciate his concern for us, but assure him that we know where we are. 

Already in the early afternoon we have covered the first 70km of the day, which is normally a day's distance. But there is more energy in our legs and more time, and it is a huge advantage that we can tackle the most unknown part of our alternative route already today. 

We ask a guard at the gate of a mine if we can get some water. He shares his own water cans with us. Then we cross the busy main road and dive down towards the dry bed of the Khan River. 

We have no idea what awaits us. Whether we can cycle here. Whether there is even a way through. The feeling is good, though. 

The desert landscape changes character. The plants bear the mark of extreme drought. It is insanely hot. The thermometer on the bike computer shows 45 degrees. It is sitting right in the sun, though. But so are we. The air is completely still and is bone-dry. Our tongue feels like a clam. Rough, dry and salty. We drink and drink, but are still thirsty. A headache sets in, but we have to save water, because the route through the riverbed is 75km to the next water station, and we have no idea if it is deep sand all the way. 

We move down through small tributaries towards the Khan River itself. The sand is deep here. There is a kind of road in the sand, but it is completely plowed up, so we are forced to drive next to it, through low bushes that tear our shins. But we manage. As we approach Khan, the cliff sides stand high around us and reflect the heat. It is unbearably hot. It affects our mood, and we get angry over small things. We have to push the bikes in the soft sand. Gradually we manage to squeeze through. Even though we are pressed, we take in the beauty. It is a very special landscape. And we are completely alone here. 

When we finally emerge into Khan's wide riverbed, we feel the liberating wind in our faces. Although it's as hot as a hair dryer, it feels good. The sand compacts beneath us and we can hop on our bikes again. The speed increases considerably and our spirits rise with it. We ride from tree to tree. From shade to shade. We still ration our water, but we're more hopeful. 

We see lots of animal tracks. What makes the biggest impression are fresh tracks from a lion. We don't want to encounter one here in the closed riverbed. While our thoughts revolve around the lion hunt we saw a few days ago, we look behind bushes and rocky outcrops. The only animals we see are monkeys and springbok. 

In the evening we find a place for the tent. We are used to the temperature dropping when the light disappears. But that doesn't happen. 

We cook. We only have rice and a can of beans in tomato sauce. It tastes terrible and none of us can eat anything. Partly because of the heat, but we have also had enough of bad canned food. We throw most of it out and go to bed with a handful of liquorice for dinner. 

The heat is bothering us. Kenneth puts his mattress outside the tent to cool down a bit. But he throws the mattress on top of one of the pegs, which is pierced with a bang. The mood is at its lowest when the headlamp and the patches are found. 

In the middle of the night, Marie wakes up with a start. She shines out of the tent with her headlamp and exclaims: “There’s a fox. Tssccchhhh. Go!! Pfff. Go away!!!”. The fox sneaks off. But the next morning Kenneth discovers what it was up to. First, it has stolen our trash can, which probably had some food scraps in it. We are embarrassed that some of our trash is now floating somewhere in the riverbed. We usually tie the trash bag on, but we forgot to do it yesterday in the heat.

But what's worse, the fox has bitten the spout off Kenneth's water bottle and has drunk almost an entire bottle of water. This is quite critical in a place where we really save on water, so much so that we both have headaches from dehydration. But there's nothing we can do. 

We get up and pack quickly, to take advantage of the coolest morning hours of the day. 

Fortunately, the surface is good. And the riverbed is really cool, fun and incredibly beautiful to cycle in, with its winding course and rocky sides. 

We arrive faster than feared. In some places we can even maintain a speed of 25km/h on the compact sand. Our spirits soar when we find out that the camp where we can get water even has a restaurant with good cake. 

We are easy to please. But happiness was not so much in the cake. It was more in the pride of having opened a new part of the route. Being in unknown terrain and making it all come together, despite adversity. 

The experience gives us courage for more and instead of taking the last 20km of paved road to Swakopmund, we take a shortcut through another dry riverbed until we pop up in Swakopmund's expensive suburb. Dirty, sunburned, smelly and sweating, but with big smiles. Much to the amazement of the local pensioners sitting on their verandas with their afternoon coffee. 

Now we are looking forward to a mini-vacation in Swakopmund, focusing on giving our bodies the calories we have been depriving them of for a little too long. We will need them on the next segment of the SAND route, through the huge sand dunes of southern Namibia.