Our daughter wasn’t feeling well the morning of our trip to Twyfelfontein. She and her husband opted to remain at camp while the professor, our son, and I made the short excursion just a few miles away to see the petroglyphs.
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| Landscape near Twyfelfontein |
Twyfelfontein is an very impressive World Heritage Site. A fascinating and artful array of animal species are depicted in these carvings
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| Human footprint carving among animal carvings |
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| famous Lion Man of Twyfelfontein (see link above) |
giving rise to wonder about the sculptors’ drive to communicate this way, what exactly the images conveyed to those who could read them, and what their lives must have been like, especially on a day like the one we visited.
It must have been well over 100°F that day and there was no shade at the site other than the visitor’s center where some of the local fauna joined us to cool off inside.
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| Visitors' Center at Twyfelfontein |
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| Back of the Visitors' Center made of gathered and recycled items |
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| Artful information displays inside the Visitors' Center |
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| Unknown rodent |
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| Pale winged starling |
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| Namibian rock agama |
Our guide, Johannes, was a most gracious gentleman who knew all about the history of this site and by virtue of his being from the area, is likely a descendent of those who carved these petroglyphs.
We cut our visit a bit short because the day was so stiflingly hot and we were worried about our daughter. We got back to camp to find her feeling well enough to drive with us to a large lodge nearby where the whole family was able to escape the heat, seated on the deep sofas of a second story balcony bar that looked out over the lodge’s languid, cool blue swimming pool. We stayed put for two hours or so, sipping cold drinks under a cool, high-ceilinged
lapa and enjoying the breezes until the very worst of the day’s heat was over.
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| view of the grounds and the landscape beyond the lodge |
After sufficiently rehydrating ourselves, we headed back to Aabadi for cool showers before dinner.
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| entrance to bush shower at Aabadi |
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| Sink and toilet in the bush shower. Shower itself is around the brick wall from the toilet. |
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| actual shower |
We enjoyed the heck out of this campsite.
It was a little more rustic than others we stayed at which made it delightful in its own right yet, small enough to be highly personal. We missed seeing the desert elephants here but really enjoyed seeing the stars at night and the exotic bird calls during the day
and through the night.
As dusk arrived,
our dinner was served: a tossed salad,
Chicken Maafe with rice, and homemade apple pie as dessert – a dinner equally scrumptious as the one the night before.
The next morning we were heading northeast to Etosha and a birthday celebration for the professor – his first summer birthday ever!
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