This week’s travel dream: Cruising Namibia on a self-drive safari

It’s become relatively easy to experience “one of the last truly wild corners of Africa,” said Adam Fisher in Men’s Journal. Like a lot of visitors to Namibia, my friends and I chose to launch our adventure from a rowdy bar called the Raft—“a rambling compound” that sits on a pier near the cargo ships of Walvis Bay. But while the camaraderie of other thrill-seekers was nice, our lives were depending on the 4-by-4 truck we’d rented from one of the companies now promoting “self-drive safaris” in the surrounding bush. Other patrons of the Raft would be carting surfboards off to Skeleton Bay’s empty beaches or steering their boats toward some deep-sea fishing. We were about to do some off-roading among the continent’s famed megafauna.

We’re out in the Namib Desert when my GPS alerts us that we’re nearing a popular congregating spot for elephants. Most travelers in Namibia will see some of those, since the famed Etosha National Park is packed with large mammals, including elephants, lions, and giraffes. But though we’ve made it a mission to spot “the elusive black rhino,” any elephants are detour-worthy. After I let half the air out of the truck’s tires for better traction, we leave the road and start bouncing down a dry riverbed. In the distance, we spot a herd of elephants, then hear “an odd rumble” nearby. A bull elephant steps out from under cover, “shoots us a quick glance,” and disappears downstream.

“We explore by day and make camp at night wherever we please.” Still on our mission, we head for Northern Damaraland’s Rhino Gulch—a fairly secret spot where even the GPS seems to get disoriented. Undeterred, “I drive through a narrow canyon sluiced with fractured sheets of slate-like rock, slip-sliding through the geologic equivalent of a bowl of razor blades.” The sidewalls of the truck’s tires are “as shredded as my nerves” when we reach the canyon’s far side. But waiting there is our black rhino. Hearing us pull up beside him, he sticks his horn high in the air, “like a hitchhiker in need of a ride.”

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To rent a self-drive safari truck with a rooftop tent, visit crossroads4x4hire.com.