Even moreso than our southeast asia trip, we get eyebrows raised when we tell folks we're going to Namibia. Thanks to poor foreign policy judgement in the 1960s, at least people in the US know where Vietnam is. Namibia, no clue.
A few folks have vague memories of hearing of it a few months ago when someone famous had a baby there. But they can't really remember who. And they certainly can't find it on a map.
Namibia used to be called South West Africa, which is a fair descriptor of its location -- right above South Africa, down there at the bottom. It was a colony of Germany, then South Africa. It is the second least densely populated country in the world (right behind Mongolia). It's got plenty of deserts, and the requisite African animals.
But that's not really getting at why.
Although we considered returning to Vietnam, but decided that we should try some place new. So we picked Africa. A number of countries were in the running (Morocco, Libya, Gabon) but Namibia seemed to be a good fit between "not on the normal tourist track" and affordable. And it's got those elephants & friends.
And the more I researched it, the better it sounded.
We started out planning on joining a group tour, which I abhor. But I soon talked myself (and H) into renting a car and doing a "self-drive." This allowed us to follow our own itinerary and control the rhythm of our trip, in ways that are not as easy as in other countries in Africa.
In short, the attractions:
- remoteness
- few American tourists
- deserts
- those African animals
- African cultures
But the ultimate answer to "Why Namibia?" is because we anticipate having a good time there and learning a lot. I'll keep you posted on how that's going.
