Damaraland is located to
the north of Swakopmund and to the south of Etosha National Park.
It’s one of the most scenic regions of the country with a dramatic
landscape of wide open sandy plains, massive granite koppies and red
hued mountains. It’s also home to the elusive desert elephant
and the occasional black rhino.
Damaraland is derived from the Nama word ‘Dama’, meaning
‘who walked here’. The Damaraland community comprises
a unique group of people who have recognised the value of the wildlife
on their land and have formed a Community Wildlife Conservancy to protect
it. This has become the most successful community-based tourism venture
in Namibia. It meets all its management costs and makes a profit,
which is then reinvested into community projects.
It’s the scenery and the anticipation of glimpsing an elephant’s
footprint that are the highlights of this region, though there are
a few other sights that are reasonably interesting. Twyfelfontein is the
largest known concentration of Stone Age cave paintings in southern
Africa, with approximately 2 500 engravings carved on a petrified
sand dune. They date back to around 3000 BC, and are easily accessible
on foot accompanied by a guide. The best time to go is in the late
afternoon when the engravings catch the soft light just before sunset.
Twyfelfontein means ‘doubtful spring’ in Afrikaans, after
a small natural spring in the area that produces only one cubic metre
of water per day. When the site was named it was considered doubtful
that one cubic metre of water could have supported man and animals
for thousands of years. Evidently, from the existence of the
rock paintings, it did. Nearby is the Petrified Forest. This is not
a frightened clump of trees but the site of some very old fossilised
logs, thought to have been washed down an ancient river 250 million
years ago. They became petrified, or fossilised, after being buried
under tonnes of wet, silica-rich mud. There are around 50 trunks lying
on the ground. The longest is 30 metres and you can still
see the growth rings and bark on some of them.
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