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The bewitching Mars-like landscapes of Namibia's Damaraland in the Kunene region are home to treasures with a difference: desert-adapted wildlife, petrified forests dating back 260 million years, ancient rock art, and formidable plants. It's a rugged wilderness, Damaraland, with it's red-rock plateaus, granite koppies, cavernous gorges and scorched plains. And it's extraordinarily beautiful in that harsh, dramatic way. And that's why we love it. For somewhere to stay, Khorixas Rest Camp is simple but perfectly acceptable. With a restaurant and pool and small curio shop, it provides exactly what a weary traveller needs for a night or two.
From $30 person/night
Brandberg, Namibia’s highest mountain, is also the site of 40,000-odd rock paintings created by ancestors of the San Bushmen. Spend a while admiring the White Lady, the most prominent of the works, discovered in 1918. (It's now thought to represent a clay-smeared youth undergoing a ritual initiation.)
The boulder-strewn valleys, home to impressive megafauna – elephant, lion and black rhino.
The 6000-year-old Bushman rock engravings of Twyfelfontein, which are best viewed in afternoon light.
The sandy campground is dotted with hearty indigenous vegetation and its interior roads are bordered with white painted stones. At its heart is the restaurant, a tented structure with a cement-block floor that has a markedly temporary feel about it. The food is generally good (of the grills and steak variety), the shop in the reception area sells the basics, and there's a swimming pool that's refreshing enough, although unsheltered. Apply sunblock liberally.
Rows of small, simple chalets offer cool shelter by day and protection against plummeting night-time temps. Of these, 10 chalets have a double bed, and 26 have two twin beds. All have en-suite shower/bath facilities. Family chalets sleep four in two double beds, and have a kitchen and small living room with TV. Don't expect luxury, but linens are clean, water is hot and the aircon works like a dream. For campers, the sites are large, with basic ablution facilities.
Basic as it may be, the accommodation here could certainly do with an upgrade. But the beds are clean, and the setting is a bonus.
This environment is well adapted to challenge, and so should you be. Navigating the desert with a guide, searching for its resilient residents, can be hard work, but the rewards are plenty: elephant herds, lions, black rhino. Besides this, the basalt mountains, twisted dry riverbeds, gnarled mopani trees and boulder-toppled valleys are some of the area's fascinating geographical conversation points – what happened here, and how? A guided visit to Twyfelfontein is a must; make arrangements at the camp.