Spitzkoppe - between Swakopmund and Usakos

Traveling between Usakos and Swakopmund, in the Erongo Region of Namibia, there is not much to see besides a long tar road and desert, desert and more desert. About 30 kilometers outside of Usakos heading in the direction of Swakopmund, while peering out of the driver’s side windows, one can get a glimpse of The Spitzkoppe, raising out of the desert sands. Spitzkoppe from the air Formation The Spitzkoppe, forming part of the Erongo Mountains, are approximately 700 million years old. Like many of the natural rock formations and mountains in Namibia, The Spitzkoppe were formed by violent volcanic activities that were so regular and typical of the area so many million years ago.

It was during the separation of the ancient continent Gondwana, a time when South America and Africa were formed, that magma intrusions, which were to become known as the Damaraland Rock Complex, thrust it way through the older Damaraland Sequence, which had formed around 460 - 700 million years ago and subsequently cooled within the surrounding rock. Unlike the Brukkaros Mountain of the Karros Region in Namibia, which was formed completely above ground level, the peaks of The Spitzkoppe were formed below the surface of the ground and it has been the erosion of the surrounding areas over the last 130 million years that have left behind present day ground levels, with The Spitzkoppe towering over them. This process has become known as Inselberg Formations.

Cape Town to Walvis by Car

On our trip last year we decided that instead of taking the 2 hour flight up to Walvis Bay, we were going to drive up. Man talk about a long trip. Our trip started in Cape Town at about 4 in the morning and ended in Walvis the next day. We had a stop over in Okahandja! If we had driven through it would have been something like 20 hours in the car. (I'll take you through the trip as we venture along through this blog.) 

Its a long long long trip by car but it's worth doing at least once.. The scenery along the road was so beautiful and one can get a true sense of the vastness of the country when driving along the B1 highway. There's nothing but sandy gravel plains as far ass you can see and hardly a car on the road, (granted we were travelling up on the 27 December when most sane people are at home recovering from Christmas...)

I look back on that trip now as the point at which I realized exactly how naive and ignorant I was about the Country of Namibia. For me when ever i heard about living in Namibia images of camels and oasis came to mind... Sad to say, I though the same way as most foreign tourist think about South Africa. But I'm happy to say i was pleasantly surprised.


Walvis Bay was magically and climbing Dune 7 was one of the highlights of the trip.

Dune 7 from the parking area

Fish River Canyon

At 650 kilometers, the Fish River is undoubtedly the longest river in Namibia. Having its source in the Naukluft Mountains, the Fish River flows south west into the Orange River, which winds its way through Namibia’s neighbor South Africa. The Fish River Canyon, found along the lower reaches of the Fish River, in the Karas Region of Namibia, is, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular natural beauties, one will ever have the pleasure of seeing. Over 500 millions years in the making, the two most prominent factors contributing to the canyons size, and grandeur, are water/soil erosion and the collapse of the valley bottom due to the movements of the earth’s crust.

Second largest canyon

With much debate, it is thought that the Fish River Canyon is second in size, only to the Grand Canyon in America. It stretches a distance of approximately 160 kilometers, starting near Seeheim, passing through the Koubis massif all the way down to the out skirts of the town Ai-Ais. As far as one can actually measure a canyon, the Fish River Canyon has been measured at 550 meters at its deepest point and approximately 27 kilometers at its widest.

MiTravco.Namibia

Okay maybe I should explain what MiTravco.Namibia is first before we go any further.

About 4 years ago my partner and I decided that we wanted to enter into the tourism industry, so we decided that an advertising platform for various tourism related companies will be the best and easiest way into the industry.  (Check it out www.mitravco.com)

Now before you say "Oh no,not another online directory!!" yes we do online advertising for the likes of accommodation establishments and such but we are more that that. We class our selves as an advertising platform for these companies a well as the countries that we work in. A bit later on i will enlighten you on some of the plans we have for our company.

So why Mitravco.Namibia you ask? We decided that to better personalize the  attention we give each country we needed to seperate them by having a dedicated website for each country, And Namibia was tackled first. And with it nearing completion out launch date for the website is December 1st 2010.. so watch this space.

So this blog will act as a update forum for the website as well as an informative guide to Namibia brought on by my love for the country.

First Post

Welcome to what I hope to be the beginning of a wonderful experience for all who read this blog. 

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Namibia for a short 2 week vacation and what I thought was going to be a boring trip of nothing but sand, sand and more sand, turn out to be a wonderful experience that has made me fall in love with the country.  It was upon my return that I started to do some serious research into Namibia and what I found was a wonderful rich diverse history, some of which i hope to share on the blog.

I will share, a little later on, the reasons for this blog and the purposes i hope it will serve. But for now all i want to say is: 

"Welcome, Dear Reader. I hope that through this blog you will fall in love with Namibia just as I have."