Adventures in Luxury Travel

Mimi Lichtenstein 0:01
If you're a traveler that believes luxury and adventure are not mutually exclusive, then you're in the right place. Every week I take you to a new destination with one of my partners, sharing the hidden gems over the top experiences and active adventures to inspire your next family vacation. I'm Mimi Lichtenstein, an experienced Travel Advisor who has also traveled with my three teenagers and my husband around the world. Let's get started. Welcome to Episode 36 of adventures and luxury travel. Just a reminder, you can see the photos we talk about on the show and a full video on Tuesday travel.com. Today, Scott and I talk about Namibia. Namibia evokes images of immense red sand dunes, desolate landscapes and a rugged coast. It is a very unique Safari destination as the stunning landscape complements the wildlife sightings, making it a feast for photographers, you will see four of the Big Five and you will also experience quiet solitude under immense starry skies, you will have a glimpse into the culture of the local tribes and see shipwrecks along the Skeleton Coast. Visit true Bay travel.com/ 36 for a video of today's show and additional resources. Today on Adventures in luxury travel. I am happy to have Scott Simpson here. We are going to talk all about Namibia. He is deeply traveled in this area of the world and from South Africa. So I'm happy to have him on welcome Scott.

Scott Simpson 1:32
Thank you Mimi, it's great to be here talking about the my favorite destination in Africa.

Mimi Lichtenstein 1:37
I know and it's such a different and unique one compared to many of the other Safari destinations. Would you give us a little bit of insight about your background and when you started going to Namibia when you were younger, I know. Sure. Sure. So

Scott Simpson 1:49
yeah, like you said, I'm originally from South Africa. That's where I was born. It's where I grew up. Most of that time was in Johannesburg, a little bit of time in Cape Town and Durban but Starbuck is where I went to school University. And because there's quite limited things to do in Joburg, my parents, bless them were big adventures. So we would spend every weekend away and you know, every school vacation traveling all around Africa, mostly Southern Africa. So a lot of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, but then a lot of that time was in Namibia. I think it's probably my dad's favorite destination as well, which is how it got passed along to me. But you know, we did a very differently, we had the old VW Kombi bus and the Landrover defender with a rooftop tents. And, you know, we would just set off into the desert, you know, there were times when you wouldn't see another vehicle for three days, there would just be us would pull over on the side of the road pitch the tents sleep out overnight, you wake up, it's like leopard prints all around the tent. And yeah, it's, it's crazy, it's sort of have to call ahead to the next camp to let them know you'll be there in three days. And the reason you do that is so that if you don't arrive in three days, they know something went wrong, and they need to put out the distress signal. So it's an amazing destination. And I feel very grateful that I got to explore it the way I did you know,

Mimi Lichtenstein 3:03
I'm sure there are a lot of people listening that wish that was how their childhood experiences went. So we're happy to have you here. Well, let's dive into it. So for people who don't know where Namibia is, because for some people, a lot of African countries are sort of lumped together in one general area, you can see where it is on the map, kind of southwest corner of the continent. And then would you give us a little bit of an idea of the different major areas that people go and visit when they go to Namibia?

Scott Simpson 3:32
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is a great map. And the easy way to remember where Namibia is, is its original name, or one of its names was German Southwest Africa. So kind of the clue is in the name there Southwest Africa. So yeah, this is a great little map. Pia in no particular order just sort of working down a Skeleton Coast is on the far left of the country that that runs sort of yet where that green section is that's also the NAMA desert. So that goes all the way up there. That's commonly referred to as the Land God made an anger and I think when you show photos later you'll probably understand why it's it's you know, Stark, it's brutal, it's windy, it's freezing cold water, but probably all that being said one of the most beautiful parts of Namibia, you then have Sossusvlei which is probably the most iconic region in Namibia. That's where you've got the those okra red June's just meeting the bright blue skies. We've got big daddy, which is the famous sand dune that everyone climbs and takes photos of dead flay. So no trip to Namibia is going to avoid Sosa's flow. So I've got one is a little more niche and some itineraries would include it, some wouldn't. It's a little coastal town, big Cape first seal population there, but near to Swakopmund to something called salmon Chava which is a big reason to go there. And that's where those very iconic photos of the red sand dunes crashing directly into the the Atlantic Ocean take place. And there's great ways to explore that area. We'll go into in a bit more detail later, but you got to be careful that because cars have been eaten by the sea before if you get it wrong. So we'll touch on that. Then tuck is the capital of Namibia. Absolutely. Probably one two days there maximum, you can kind of see and do everything. It was a great church, a good Museum, there was an iconic place called Jos Beerhouse. We have to go and have lunch you can't pass through vinto cannot go there. But yeah, it's your entryway into Namibia. There's good flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town. So it's easy to get to as even direct flights from Germany so vento could be your gateway in and out Namibia, Adolphus bay that sort of ties in with Swakop. Once again, it's on the coast there. Giant seal colonies is a place called Pelican point where you can actually kayak with the seals, which is a really fun experience. You just want to make sure you stay in your kayak because a lot of great white sharks sort of chasing those seals around. Yes,

Mimi Lichtenstein 5:44
good advice. Thank you.

Scott Simpson 5:45
Absolutely. Look in any region that's all the way up in the north of the country, sort of on the Angola border. There's a beautiful, beautiful lodge there called circa FEMA. So wilderness property. And this is also the region where the Himba tribe are predominantly based. So it's a very popular place to include in in Namibia itineraries but very difficult to get to very remote, you're not going to be self driving up there, it's going to require flight. So it's not for every itinerary. But those who can include it absolutely should.

Mimi Lichtenstein 6:14
Curious got to set a curiosity for a lot of the lodges. I know there are quite a few kind of newer lodges. But in terms of the luxury lodges in Namibia, when did that really start? How many years have they been there? Probably for

Scott Simpson 6:27
about 20 years, it's been on a sort of high standard, you know, back, like I said, when I started going there, it was largely just rest camps and campsites. And those still exist. And it's still a great way to do it. But really, the last sort of 20 years or so just new luxury lodges have been opening, and it's become more of a luxury travel destination.

Mimi Lichtenstein 6:45
Got it? Thank you. Absolutely,

Scott Simpson 6:48
we've then got it Tasha National Park, that's where you're going to do your safari in Namibia. So it's very different to any other kind of Safari that you'll do in southern Africa, it's going to be completely different to South Africa, or Botswana. Tosha is the salt pan. So just as far as the eye can see, it's this white white ground. And because it's so dry, there's very limited water sources around so all the animals tend to congregate around the same water sources. So it makes for a really good game viewing. And that also means this great predator prey interaction because they're all having to come to the same water sources. So there's a lot of excitement that happens that good walking, Safaris in that area as well good desert adapted Rhino sighting that you can see on foot it's worth including if you've done a lot of Safari already on that itinerary. It could potentially be skipped. But otherwise definitely include it there. Tomorrowland is yeah, that sort of area just to the east there. The Skeleton Coast famous mostly are largely for its rakaats. You know, this area has been inhabited for 10s of 1000s of years. It has some of the oldest African cave paintings anywhere in the world. It's areas like split scopey, which is just further down. You've got this really great rock art and it's one of the reasons that Namibia is famous as UNESCO world heritage site there. The Marlins also got some of the most prolific desert elephant sightings anywhere. And that is desert adapted elephants, they've got these long skinny legs, they look quite different. People often think that they have bigger feet than normal elephants, but they don't just because the legs are skinnier. But you'll see a lot of that in Tomorrowland, it's desolate there. But again, desperately beautiful. And there were lots you've got the fish River Canyon. So that's all the way at the bottom of the country that actually bought in South Africa, it's near the orange River. The fishery Canyon is not too popular with Americans, just because it's very difficult to get there kind of as a standalone destination within Namibia. If you're driving up from South Africa, or you're coming up that way, it's sort of easier to include, but it's the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon and where possible, we love to include it. It's truly breathtaking.

Mimi Lichtenstein 8:45
Beautiful. Well, there's definitely a lot to see, most times when you're going to a place like this you have to transit through a major city and in Namibia. It happens to be here. Do you want to give us a little insight for people who are flying in? And probably flying out of here? How much time do they have to spend on you know, the flights usually come in in the middle of the night in the morning? How does that work?

Scott Simpson 9:05
Yeah, I think because there's so many routes to get Yeah, you know, sort of Bahrain, Qatar and the Middle East or from Germany or flying up from South Africa is not a destination where there's generally an arrival time. Most people do an overnight on the front end. It's quite rare that your flight would arrive at a time that works well enough for you to get out the same day. Whether you're picking up your high a car and starting a self drive or whether you're flying out most people overnight. We also always recommended overnights especially at the moment with all the flight delays and disruptions. You don't want to have a really important part of your trip on that first day that you could potentially miss out on. So Right. Yeah. Then it's probably like I said about a day's worth of activities and afternoon. It's a fun little city. It's got a very strong German influence. The Germans were largely the ones who sort of colonized but inhabited Namibia for a long time. So for example, there's a famous restaurant they chose beer house we are eating sauerkraut and German beer and It's just a really unique place, but they infuse that with Namibian sort of dishes. So you're eating a lot of game meat, there'll be, you know, a game a Zanya, which might have kudu and zebra, and it's this crocodile fillets. It's pretty crazy place. But aside from that, then there's a really good museum that gives you a good history of the country. There's a Genocide Memorial there. Unfortunately, there were not that sort of conversation for another day, but didn't have the best 100 years after the Germans arrived. And it's important to just learn about that. So you understand that when you're traveling around the country, yeah, famous church, a famous fortress, that's really everything that you need to see and do inventory.

Mimi Lichtenstein 10:35
Okay. Well, as we go through this, you know, normally, we dive into experiences first. And so many experiences in Namibia are kind of wrapped up in the environment that you're in the part of the country, as well as the hotels or accommodation. So we're kind of going to touch on all of it about the same time. Let's start with fish River Canyon, which reminds me of a very iconic spot in the United States.

Scott Simpson 10:58
Absolutely. And as I say, we don't have to spend long on this because it's not honestly going to form a big part of a lot of people's itineraries, just because you have to go all the way up there. It's about 800 kilometers from but for people who do go, it's well worth it, there's really great hiking there. And something people can do is actually do a full five day hike. It's called the Fisher of a canyon hike Fisher of a trail, and it's about 60 miles and it goes all the way down, you need at least five days you can only do it May through September, the rest of the year, it's too hot, there's a risk of flash flooding. So they only open it for that hiking trail for that normally, it takes five days. But interestingly, this is annual competition where people see how fast they can do it. And the current record is six and a half hours and ultra marathon runner did it so, so cool place, I love to include it but hard to get to. So don't worry.

Mimi Lichtenstein 11:45
Well, I love when I'm preparing for these shows, learning new things about a country that I had no idea about. And this is one of them. And tell us a little bit about this town that for those of you who are just listening, it's a photo of a big kind of sand dune with what looks like abandoned houses in the background. Tell us a little bit about that.

Scott Simpson 12:03
Yeah, Kelemen scope is it's an iconic part of Namibia. This is a little town that was originally founded in around I think 1908 when they discovered the first diamond. They were doing train tracks through it, and they found diamonds. So there was a sudden rush of Germans and suddenly this German town just sprung up in the middle of the desert. But it was affluent, you know, the finding diamonds. So there were these big manor houses built there was an ice factory so that people could have cold drinks. You know, it really was a bustling little metropolis. And then you know, two world wars happened. You know, that sort of hurted diamond field started drying up, South Africa discovered diamonds, so a lot of people moved down there. And then in 1956, the towel was just abandoned completely the last resident left. And what's interesting about it is it's just completely been left and like you can see just the Namibian desert has been reclaiming it, you know, the sand blows into every year, there's less and less of it. And these are photos that you can take, you know, you're crawling through a window or through a door and you explore these old manor houses. And it's just a bizarre place. It feels like you're in a dream, honestly, that again, great for ourselves drivers sort of going along the route towards Swakopmund. Very interesting place.

Mimi Lichtenstein 13:12
First of all, we could touch on this at the end too, but I love that Namibia, you can self drive because not every you know, destination in Africa has that ability. And number two about the photography. Namibian lends itself so well to people who are great photographers, or perhaps not so great. And it might be look like you're a great photographer, because the settings are so beautiful, including this one in suits this way. Tell us a little bit about these of those big iconic sand dunes you were touching on?

Scott Simpson 13:40
That's right. Yeah. And I can only echo what you said about the photography. I mean places like CommScope Sossusvlei you want to be in these places and early morning the late afternoon because you get that beautiful light during the day. It is very bright and very harsh. So yeah, no itinerary to Namibia is not going to include Sossusvlei This is probably the most iconic region the biggest santoon There is called Big Daddy there's a smaller one opposite a lot of people don't know about a called Big Mama so they didn't get too creative with their naming they are socialist they you can actually claim these tunes probably takes about an hour and a half to get up and about an hour and a half to get down. Again, you want to be doing that early Mornings or afternoons because it gets hot and the wind starts blowing and it's it's quite an experience. And then in Sosa's Flay, there's an area called Dead Flay, which is a big salt pan, whether these petrified trees, not sure petrified is the right word. But essentially it was a sort of a lake an area full of water, and then the river change course and it just got completely cut off. So it just turned into saltpans but because it never rains that these trees don't decompose, it's not like they're falling over. So they're literally just up there you got somewhere you know, they just exist there and you get really great photos. Yes, it's probably one of the most Instagram spots in Namibia for those influences out there.

Mimi Lichtenstein 14:56
And I think for people who have been it's people just say It's desolate, but it's so beautiful. You know, it's everything looks dead and barren, but it's so beautiful. It's like a combination of things that perhaps you wouldn't think

Scott Simpson 15:08
there's beauty in that there's beauty in the sort of starkness of the destination. And combined with the lack of people. I mean, you think about it, Namibia is twice the size of Germany, Germany has 80 million people, Namibia has 2.5 million people. So it just gives you an idea. It's the second least populated country in the world. So you're not going to be running into people. And ironically, COVID it's been perfect. It's the perfect destination. Everything's outdoors. Anyway, your meals are outdoors, your activities are outdoors, there's no one else you're not bumping into a lot of people. So it's been quite popular the last two years during COVID For those people who have been adventurous enough to do it,

Mimi Lichtenstein 15:43
and tell us a little bit about the kayaking with with seals, their seals or sea lions. Cape first seals. Yeah, okay, well, they're adorable.

Scott Simpson 15:52
Absolutely. Yeah, so the most popular places, Pelican points, just near Volkers Bay, and they are just, you know, 10s and 10s of 1000s of these seals that depending on the time of year you go, if they're breeding, that's a really fun time, because they're all these pups. The pups are just absolutely adorable. And you just hear this like almost mewing like cats coming from the beach. Yeah, when you jump in on these kayaks, you you head out and they're splashing all around you they're incredibly playful animals, it's not unheard of, for them to jump onto the front of the kayak and sort of hang out with you. Like I said, there are a lot of sharks in these waters. So it's not, you know, the most stress free life for them. So I think they enjoy being able to jump on your kayak and be safe for a little bit.

Mimi Lichtenstein 16:32
Right, they see you as maybe a little bit of a safe harbor. And then sandwich harbor. I know from our conversation before that, tell me what's so unique about this destination.

Scott Simpson 16:43
Yes. So this is in that sort of same serwotka One Melfest Bay region, this is something that you cannot self drive to yourself. So what you're going to do is leave your vehicle and go through a tour company, you know, obviously, we have connections there, and you're going one of their vehicles. But the reason that's so important is that how you get shows you actually drive along the coast. So between where the sand dunes meet the ocean, there's this thin strip of land, and you go up there in a vehicle, it's one of the most crazy drives will ever do. And then you get to sort of the end and you can go up the sand dune and the vehicle and you know, perch on the top, have drinks there have lunch, and then back down and back down along the beach to where you left your car. The reason it's so important to do this with a professional is that that thin strip of land is not there all the time. If you start driving that and the tide is coming in, you will find yourselves pressed up against the sand dunes and they are so steep that you're not going to be able to drive up there and you're a little hiker. So what happens is you get stuck, the tide comes in and your car gets washed out to sea. And this happens every year or two there's a story about some tourist whose car was found two miles down the beach, and they had a big bill from their higher car company. So Sam a tapa use a professional.

Mimi Lichtenstein 17:58
Okay, thank you. That is definitely good advice. And this looks like a little photo of maybe your family from way back when but I don't think it is.

Scott Simpson 18:06
But it's a very similar experience. Well,

Mimi Lichtenstein 18:09
clearly this is in Tomorrowland and tell us a little bit more about about that.

Scott Simpson 18:14
Yes, bitscope is a really interesting site. Again, it's popular with campus is a really good campsite then what's cool about camping in Namibia. And I mean, I'm saying this even though none of our clients really camp but you know, you can do activities like this is that the campsites are a part of the surroundings. It's not like in the US we often you have to camp and they drive to the National Park each day you are in the pot you are on spitzkoppe beach. So this is often called Africa's metaphor when it's this giant sort of soaring peak just in the middle of sort of the desert, you have famous. Yep, this is the arch. This is another very Instagram spot. And in the same region, this is full of that cave art that we spoke about earlier. There's there's dozens and dozens of sites. This is where some of the earliest Namibian inhabitants were living. So there's beautiful hiking trails, and you know, you're hiking and you turn a corner and there's a desert adapted elephant or, you know, you see from the top of spitzkoppe, you look down and there's a desert adapted Rhino. This is one of the only regions in Namibia where rhinos are free roaming. In fact, I would probably say one of the only places anywhere in Africa, where they're actually free roaming and non nationals.

Mimi Lichtenstein 19:21
Very cool. And I think we have one more photo of their home in second. There again, such beautiful places to go. So there's Yeah, oh, this is another campsite. I mean, imagine just sort of pulling off and having this place all to yourself to camp that. That would be fun. But to your point, not many of our clients are doing that. Then we get in a little bit more of some of the culture and history of the beautiful cave art going back. Tell us more about how old these are and where they are.

Scott Simpson 19:47
Yeah, so I mean, they were they found the earliest bone fragments from humans, I think 13 million years ago. So we know that this area has been inhabited for sort of as long as history exists. And then they started finding these cave paintings and I think they're about five to 8000 years old. So we know that they were inhabited back then these ones in particular twyfelfontein are about two and a half, 1000 years old. And they're very well preserved, again, because of the size because Namibia doesn't get very much rain at all. You know, things like these are just perfectly preserved for 1000s of yet. They haven't been eroded, they're clear as day you can get right up there and look at twyfelfontein is an interesting site. It's Namibia is only UNESCO World Heritage Site, they have guides there, I'll be very honest with you, the guides there are quite weak, a lot of them don't seem particularly bothered, it's kind of an issue that we've always had. So you want to go there with a guide that either we've given you or from your lodge, there's a great lodge nearby called Milani Mountain camp, and they can come and give you a proper experience. But yeah, it's just it's got a very long history. And there's been a lot of different tribes, people moving south and moving up or coming down through East Africa through the Great Rift Valley. And it's just a melting pot of sort of cultures, and each one has its own art style. And for people who like history and you know, get a kick out of this, they can spend days just exploring the sights.

Mimi Lichtenstein 21:05
Yeah, well, they're beautiful. I know, there's a lot of people in the US when they go out west, a lot of my clients want to go and see some of the old you know, in the caves or on the on the rocks. And when you go to Namibia, I mean, it does look so well preserved that this is that old and you can clearly tell what these animals are. Yeah,

Scott Simpson 21:25
I mean, I couldn't draw that even.

Mimi Lichtenstein 21:28
All right, well, let's transition to one of the most iconic spots in Namibia and very much photograph the Skeleton Coast. Obviously, it's on the coast. Skeleton Coast probably has its name for a reason. I know there's a lot of shipwrecks. Tell us a little bit more about this area?

Scott Simpson 21:44
Yeah, Samson cuts off to Sosa's Flay, probably the second most sort of iconic region, something we haven't really touched on is the different ways to do Namibia self driving vs flying, or some combination of the two, somewhere like the Skeleton Coast is actually not somewhere you can really self drive to it's a national park. So you need permits to get in there quite careful about letting people in. But if you're flying in Namibia, and you go from point A to point B, these flights don't just go as the crow flies. It's not just, you know, Jet Blue flight getting you from one point to the other. They involve these areas. So the Skeleton Coast, your plane will divert, and you'll skim low over the ocean. Yeah, these photos are actually taken on a recent trip, you know, they'll they'll involve the flight as part of the experience. It's not just a transfer from A to B, and you're swooping low over these dunes in the ocean, your guides telling you about the shipwrecks you're seeing out the window. You know, there's one what's crazy is that that shipwreck they used to be in the water, but the ocean as the Germans are slowly reclaiming the ocean they move, you know, a couple of feet each year and take over so the shipwrecks you can find them, you know, a mile inland in some places. It's crazy. But yeah, the Skeleton Coast. It was originally most of the shipwrecks happened because the Germans came looking for diamonds. And it was one of the most prolific area for diamonds ever. They tell you stories about how they used to find them, they would wait till the the nighttime, and then they would lie on their stomachs and just look along the beach at eye level, and then see where the moon was glinting off things and literally just go over and pick up these diamonds. You know, the sizing piece. It's crazy, but you know, this cost a lot of lives as well. These shipwrecks would happen. It's completely Rocky. It's very wavy. It's windy. So countless ships washed up and you know what's really sad is a lot of people survived the shipwrecks and thought I made it and then ended up passing away on the Skeleton Coast because there's no water for hundreds of miles. It's boiling hot, there's no shelter. So that's why you're seeing shipwrecks you're seeing plane crashes, this whole whale skeletons. It's a story about a shipwreck that happened and everyone managed to get to shore and they were there for about 18 hours and they were trying to send other ships to rescue them but they were getting bashed up against the rocks and everything was getting quite dire. So what they did is they actually chartered a plane to come and rescue these people. And about 20 miles away the plane crashed it got caught in a big sound storms the plane that's supposed to be rescuing them now crashed. So now there's more people stuck there. And I think they were there for about 26 days before they eventually managed to get everyone out. But it just gives you an idea of like any This is not ancient history. This is modern history. How sort of you know remote and desolate this area is that being said it like we keep coming back to there is beauty and that sort of ruinous there's the animals here you know, you're seeing desert adapted elephants desert adapted the rhinos not so much and in that beach area. But for example, there's a lion population that lives in the Skeleton Coast, and this is the only place only place in Africa where Lions have ever been seen hunting things like Cape first seals and seagulls and they just live in the beach like iron splashing along in the waves. That's unheard of. So just really great place.

Mimi Lichtenstein 24:58
So here are some lions but these During Natasha National Park,

Scott Simpson 25:01
these lions decided to make their lives a little easier and live in a

Mimi Lichtenstein 25:06
clearly with the water source like you mentioned. I mean, you, you would notice visibly the difference if you went on a safari and a different country and you came here, the lions and what they look like?

Scott Simpson 25:18
Yes, yeah, everything in Namibia looks a little bit different just because it's hard to adapt to that sort of harsh climate. And atossa is very easy to spot in photographs. It's that white. So the salt pan floor with just these watering holes sort of scattered all around. And like I said earlier, because everyone has to coexist in the same water sources. You see a lot of predator prey interactions, these lions might be drinking six feet from an impala or kudu and they just have to trust each other because that's the only water there is that fairly often that trust fails. And then you get to see a lot of exciting activities. But yeah, Tasha has four of the five big five don't have buffalo but they have the others. It's also a great place the private conservancies that are dotted all around, you can actually do good walking safaris and see Rhino on foot, which is quite unusual for for Africa. This is probably Namibia's most iconic animal, the arcs and these beautiful antelope with these sweeping horns, those horns can be up to a metre and a half long. So I think it's about three feet. And they're probably the most iconic animal, you'll see them all the way through Namibia, it's very strange driving around Namibia, because you don't know what's going to be around any corner. It's not like another country where there's national parks and fences and conservancies. All these animals just free roaming, they're coexisting with local communities. And then that is added elements like the Germans in World War One were breeding horses that they were using. And when the war ended, they just let all their horses go thinking they were just going to die because they don't want to ship them home. Lo and behold, these horses have thrived there. So it's the only place in Africa, I don't know the world. But the only place in Africa where there's actually wild horses, and you know, you turn a corner and you just see this herd of 50 Wild Horses charging across the road that don't belong to anyone. They look beautiful, they're strong, they're glossy.

Mimi Lichtenstein 27:05
That's interesting, because we do have wild horses in the southeast part of the US. I was in Cumberland Island earlier this year, and there's some there. And I know that there's some in the Outer Banks, but I wouldn't say that they look super robust and healthy, like, you know, someone that has maybe had one being taken care of. So that's interesting that in this environment that they excelled so much.

Scott Simpson 27:27
Yeah, no, it's been a very unique thing. No one expected them to survive. But yeah,

Mimi Lichtenstein 27:32
and I love this photo, because here you can see that there's, I think 41234 different types of animals. And they're all they look like they're peacefully coexisting, but perhaps that change moments after the photograph.

Scott Simpson 27:45
The thing in these situations is these antelope and fill the beast, they're actually more comfortable if they can see the lions because if they can see them, they know they're not about to be eaten, they can run away, when they can't see the lions. That's when they're edgy, and the ears are twitching, and they're looking around. So, you know, this is why an African Safari is so great. Your Guide is going to tell you these stories and explain these interactions. And then you start understanding it and seeing it and you suddenly start realizing when something's not right, you'll be looking at a herd of zebra and everyone looks a bit edgy. And zebras all looking to the left. And then you guys will look to the left and suddenly you'll see a lion and then you that's when you turn the car off and you're poor at GNC and you just wait because it could take an hour and a half to three hours. But those are the moments that you look for it Safari when there's just sudden explosions of activities. You're not going to see that at Busch Gardens.

Mimi Lichtenstein 28:33
No. It just that is so unpredictable. It makes it obviously even more fun. And then even though you have these very dry deserts you also have some beautiful waterfalls.

Scott Simpson 28:43
Yes, so this is up in that green any region that we touched on earlier, that's the 125 perennial rivers in Namibia. And a couple of places along there these beautiful falls Cooper falls here is one of the more famous getting quite challenging to get to so probably not a lot place a lot of people these are actually named after the local the Herero people and the proper means phone in their local language. So these were originally called the foaming faults, see if you can get share their their grades again, you got to make sure you're going in the right time yet because often this river almost dries up and then these aren't particularly impressive. But yeah, when you're up at circa FEMA, if you're staying at that Lodge, you're doing river based activities, you're going boating, you're going through canoeing, these are the kinds of sites that you can see up in that region.

Mimi Lichtenstein 29:26
Beautiful. And I think this camp is part of what you might have called the greatest day, but if you are going to do something really over the top tell us about that.

Scott Simpson 29:34
Yeah, this is something that this camp does really well hoanib Skeleton Coast if you spend three nights there are more and we wouldn't recommend spending any less than three nights there's so much to do and see in the surrounding area. It's also very remote, you're not driving here you are flying it and that is the only way you know you're you're making an effort to get Yes, you want to make the most of it, that they do something very cool. So they can actually drive all the way down the Hudson River so it's a riverbed It's dry, but the river is underwater underground, sorry. So you're driving on top of the river. And then because it sort of comes to the surface every now and again, you'll turn a corner and they'll just be this oasis in front of you. This absolute green Verdun area full of trees and grass and animals. And then you go half a mile further, and it's back to being complete desert because the river is going back underground. So you follow this river in their vehicle all the way to the coast. And it's a really stunning drive takes a couple hours, but you're seeing things on the way you're stopping and looking at these little animals, it's great. You then get to the Skeleton Coast and spend a couple of hours you'll have lunch there, you know, you'll visit the shipwrecks. And it's very interactive, you know, you can get on these shipwrecks, you can explore them, you can go through the galley and look through the portals, take these famous photos, there's crashed planes, broken cars, get photos with the whale skeletons. You spend a couple hours doing that. But then now because it's getting late, rather than have to drive all the way back up the dry riverbed, they just send a plane. So you'll hop on a plane, and you just fly back, you do a sort of loop over the Skeleton Coast, like we spoke about to get those great shots that we looked at earlier. You land a camp, 20 minutes later, it's cold beer waiting for you. And that was a day that he'll never forget.

Mimi Lichtenstein 31:15
Sounds like a good day. What I love about this photo, too, is that in the bottom right, you can see the elephants right the scale, it's hard. If you didn't know this, where elephants would hard, be hard to know what the scale is. But now that I you know, you see that they're an elephant. You can imagine how big and vast this whole area it's

Scott Simpson 31:33
exactly. And these elephants are very not habituated. But they're not scared of people. There's no poaching in this region. No one's hunting these elephants, they have no reason to be scared of people, weirdly enough, the reason for that is their tusks are very brittle, because they sort of are kind of nutrient starved. These elephants also don't live nearly as long as a normal elephant word. Their life spans I think, 20 to 30 years as opposed to, you know, 80 years, just because they're not really getting the nutrition they need. So yeah, their tusks are any brittle, so no one really poachers them anyway. So it's great to view them.

Mimi Lichtenstein 32:05
Great defensive mechanism. Yeah, for a lot of people who go on a safari, learning about the culture and the tribes of the people who have been there for a long time is a big part of it, especially, you know, with families and kids. Tell us a little bit about the Himba tribe.

Scott Simpson 32:20
Yeah, so this is something that you'll see up in the north of the country. And, you know, everyone talks about the Himba tribe, but there are multiple tribes across Namibia, you know, you get the Herero as well, who have a really storied history. But something cerca FEMA does very well are these sort of mutually respectful cultural interactions with the Himba tribe. Like we're very as a company cautious against, you know, organizing cultural interactions too often, especially in East Africa, South Africa, they're kitsch, they're awkward, you're just this, they can sing and dance, and you can buy their beads. This is absolutely not the case, sort of in this part of Africa, Namibia has done a really good job of making sure that these communities are equally benefiting from the tourism that's coming to these regions. So the Himalayas Yeah, there are sort of semi nomadic tribe, they they build these huts, and then they sort of moved them every now and again, capital is a big part of the life there. Something that's really interesting about how they set these huts up is this something called the ACO, and I may have butchered that, because my number is not particularly good. But what it is, is a sacred fire, and it's built in the middle of the camp, and only the chief site is allowed to face this fire. All the other hats have to face the other way. And one of the biggest faux pas you can ever make in Namibia and they'll tell you this when you go to make sure you don't do it is walk between this fire the sacred fire and the Chiefs hearts because that channel is considered sort of a conduit to how he speaks to their God and bakudo. And at nighttime, they take a fragment of that fire and they move it into the Chiefs hut and then the fire goes out. And then the next morning, they use that fragment to relight the fire again, and it's an eternal flame. It's never supposed to go out. So yeah, they tell you things like this, they have these beautiful singing voices, they sing and dance and there's such joy that they give out of that. The woman as you can see, they have this red okra and buttermilk fat mixture that they put all over themselves, to give that beautiful sort of red color and their hair and their skin. I always sort of assumed that was more insect and sun protection. But I when I visited them, I learned that that wasn't actually the case. It's 99% aesthetic. I think I must have a bit of a case because these people are beautiful and they live in this sun. You know, this harsh, harsh sun yet they look like this. I mean, I've seen what people look like here in Florida and they get only half of the amount of sun. So I think there must be some kind of credit to it.

Mimi Lichtenstein 34:40
Yeah, well, we should all figure out what they're doing. And we always love you know, we talk a little bit about being active wherever we go around the show and in Namibia. You can go out on horseback. You can go mountain bike riding, there's one of your colleagues

Scott Simpson 34:59
ve bikes They the cycling is quite tough just because of the thick sand and things. So he's fat, tired ebike. So you don't have to do all that much pedaling.

Mimi Lichtenstein 35:07
Excellent. You can get as much exercise as you would like, and ATVs and, you know, four wheelers in the desert, which my kids love to do. That's always a fun adventure,

Scott Simpson 35:16
great way to get around. And they do that very respectfully as well. You're not just ramping over the sand dunes, you wouldn't do by or something, it's all very well managed.

Mimi Lichtenstein 35:25
Everything in Dubai is done, I think a little bit different. And over the top, we always love to talk about over the top ideas and hot air balloons always fit into that category literally and figuratively, I guess. When you're gonna go out on a hot air balloon, I know there's certain areas of the country where you would do it and wouldn't do it, do you have a place that you would suggest

Scott Simpson 35:47
that sort of great, so SOSUS play region is probably one of the most popular, it's got a really good landscape for it, you can then soar over those red dunes. When you're all the way up there. And you look down, he also see these things called Fairy Circles. And it's this unique natural phenomena in Namibia. No one knows what causes them scientists to this day Oh, look at that scientists for this day don't know what causes this all sorts of theories about their alternate minds that have died, or this certain kinds of plant that grew there and killed everything surrounding it. But it's just one of these inherently mysterious things that another thing that Namibia throws at you. And what's interesting about that is they've done studies where they've transported the sound from inside these various circles away, and they've grown things in and everything goes fine. But if you try and odd something in the middle of there, it almost immediately dies. So no, everyone's very confused by the whole thing. But the reason I mentioned is when you're on the side, Abilene Safaris in the Sossusvlei region. You know, you're seeing things like this, you're passing over herds of orcs below you, if you get lucky, you'll see the wild horses running around, they always end with the champagne breakfasts. So they will, I won't say gently land. Sometimes these hot air balloon landings can be a little more of a control crash. It's not unusual for the basket to end up on its side and kind of everyone crawling out but you go from there, the vehicle will take you to a gorgeous champagne breakfast setup on one of these tunes, and then head back to the lodge afterwards. So wherever possible, we love to recommend hot air ballooning in Namibia. It's absolutely.

Mimi Lichtenstein 37:15
And it's not all about big animals like elephants and rhinoceroses. It's also about the little tiny ones tell us a little bit about, you know, when they're out on somebody's out on a walk. They're not just again, looking around for all the big animals they might see. They're also looking deep down in the desert to maybe discover somebody like this.

Scott Simpson 37:34
Exactly. You're not going to Namibia to see the great migration and you know, the 10,000 fold abuse, you know, crossing the Mara River, you're really there to learn about these unique and completely, you know, standalone ecosystems. So you'll be walking with your guide on a nature walk, and you'll be looking around and you'll think that there's not a living soul within 10,000 miles, he'll say, I guarantee you that within 10 feet of us I can find 10 animals and you got no there's no way. And he pokes a stick in the ground and he wiggles it around. And there you go. Here's this Adam, the previous photo was the web for Gecko. And he The fascinating part is they explain how these animals survive out there, like this little guy has no eyelids. So what happens is the fog that rolls in because the cold Atlantic river is meeting called Atlantic Ocean to meeting this hot desert. So there's a lot of fog in these areas. And mist so collects on his eyes, and then he just licks his own eyeballs. And that's how he gets his nutrition. Like you would have no idea that that's the thing. That Adah you know, he's got his own little sort of ways that he's evolved to survive in this region, there's a spider, it's called the dancing white lady spider. And it's not dangerous at all. So there's nothing to be sort of scared about, that. It's these ghostly white spiders. And one of the things that they've evolved to survive is they'll try and spend most of their time on the top of sand dunes. And the reason for that is they get hunted by these Hornets that live in the area. And if they see or hear one of these Hornets, they tuck into a little bowl or their legs, and they just roll and they throw themselves down these dunes. And they can go so fast. I don't know if it's 3040 50 miles an hour, but you'll sometimes be driving along and you'll just see this thing go racing down. And it's one of these dancing white lady spiders. So they're escaping from a harness. To be fair, they hunt the horns to us. So it's a bit of give and take. But that's what you're learning about Namibia, it's these tiny little creatures that are just so often overlooked. And if you go out at night, they also do this with scorpions, the scorpions are actually fluorescence. So the guide will go out with a UV light. And you do this on foot sort of from around your lodge. After dinner, your guide might say, Hey, let's go out for 20 minutes if anyone's interested. And he'll turn over some rocks and you'll see these beautiful scorpions and they just go low iridescent under this UV light. And again, he explains about how to survive to live there. So these are the cool parts of Namibia. You know, this is why you're going there. It's and obviously

Mimi Lichtenstein 39:55
I mean, adults can be completely engaged in this but imagine kids Right, who are can talk about so much of this in their science class when they get home? Or I mean, there's so many projects and deep dives they could do if they're, if they're coming to Namibia. Exactly. We talked all right about the whole country at this point, we haven't dove that deep into a combination. So let's touch about our touch on some of our favorite ones, which are definitely luxurious. And oftentimes, they're like an oasis in the desert, right? Which seems like you wouldn't find this type of luxury in the middle of a desert or in the middle of these desolate places. But trust us they are there. This is one that you touched on already. Sarah could female you want to tell us a little bit more about this

Scott Simpson 40:37
one? Yes. So this is probably one of the only lighters in Namibia on a river on the Canadian River. Depending on the water levels at different times of year, you can go boating, canoeing, a lot of big crocodiles in this river. So canoeing might not be for everyone, make sure you follow instruction, that probably one of the most luxurious lodges in Namibia, beautiful glass fronted room. So you get these beautiful views out over the river, just a really, really nice place to be air conditioning. So when it gets hot, you don't die.

Mimi Lichtenstein 41:07
Yes, that is key. And they're known for having a lot of different activities. Like you mentioned, there is a lot to do when you are here, there are one of the wilderness Safari lodges, which we love, I dove deep on all of them this year when I did my certification. And this one is personally on my list for when I come to Namibia. So highly recommend it. And then here's another picture of this is the inside of one of the one of the rooms with these big beautiful photos of you know, tribes in Namibia. And you could see the hot in the background like we looked at earlier,

Scott Simpson 41:37
you see those bats roofs, those are specially designed to sort of make sure the room Stay cool, because now maybe I can get hot. Yeah, degrees Fahrenheit certain times of year. So you want that fan above the bed. You want that that truth, you want to be on the river getting those breezes, and these lodges are designed very cleverly to take advantage of all that.

Mimi Lichtenstein 41:56
And we will talk about ideal time to come at the very end. So we'll touch on that to another beautiful shot that clearly it's sort of at sunset time of hoanib Skeleton Coast, also a wilderness safaris camp. Tell us a little bit about this one.

Scott Simpson 42:09
Yeah, so we touched on this earlier when we spoke about the the day we drive down to the Skeleton Coast and then fly back. This is probably one of the most remote camps anywhere in Namibia. It's just hundreds of miles from anything else. Like I said, you can't self drive, you have to fly in. They have to come collect you and one of their vehicles has these stretch canvas style accommodations but still very, very luxurious. A lot of wildlife passes through this camp that sort of in a valley with mountains on either side. So it's a natural corridor for wildlife. So you might be sitting in your tent, having a g&t watching the sun go down. And literally from behind your 10 Four feet past you is going to pass these desert adapted elephants not brush against your tent. It's just crazy how sort of intimate it is with nature.

Mimi Lichtenstein 42:52
Mm hmm. And then zanier I think it was National Geographic, and that gave them sort of a best design award because the architecture of the building of their individual accommodations and the whole place is very integrated into the rocks as you can see surrounding him.

Scott Simpson 43:11
Yeah, as you can see here, it's literally built on these these granite rock outcrops a lot of up and down. This is not a camp for anyone with mobility issues, a lot of sort of wooden stairways going up and down. But that pool has one of the best views anywhere in Namibia and you can sit there and look down with binoculars. They include binoculars in your room and see these herds of orcs wild horses desert adapted elephants, and they are really great activity from sunup they do good ATV tours, good cycling horse riding. Another good place to do hot air ballooning from would be sign up just another really great option.

Mimi Lichtenstein 43:45
Okay, classy dudes. Again, it's hard to see from here in the perspective, but you can see in the very middle, a hot air balloon floating above it. To give you an idea of how vast and open this area is.

Scott Simpson 43:57
Yes, one of the neuro lodges in Namibia something that they do very well is these Cressi in particular is located very close to what's called an International Dark Sky reserve. And this is an official designation they don't have that title out to many places. And what that means is it has some of the lowest light pollution levels anywhere in the world and a very very strict requirements about sort of how much light pollution is allowed. So at night you know the camp will just go absolutely dark and then they have these things called star beds so you're you haven't a full bed outside. It's adjacent to your room and you're looking up and you're looking at the stars and it is guaranteed to be the best night's sky you will ever see in your life. That's a big part of the reason why people come out Yeah.

Mimi Lichtenstein 44:42
And there are star beds are one of my favorite things. And I know I think earlier we showed a photo perhaps of what what in the night skies look like not specific to this area, but it gives you a little bit of an idea. Oh, here it is. But you could see, right it just looks like part of the sky is on That's white, but it's just stars all clumped together.

Scott Simpson 45:03
I'd say that's not even like a long exposure or Photoshop, that is literally what you're seeing when you're out in these camps. It is breathtaking. You see meteorites and just nothing else like it. Absolutely stunning. Certain lighters as well, I know. And beyond desert Lodge, they have this telescope, I don't know how much this thing costs, but it looks like it belongs at NASA, it's fully computer controlled. And you can tell them what you want to look at. And they program it and that zooms to that star. But they take full advantage of that. And they have an on site astronomer who gives these talks about what you're looking at. So they fully embrace this sort of dark sky reserve idea and they incorporate it. And like I said, At nighttime, it's it's a bit of a frowned upon, if you were to suddenly put your lights on or, you know, put your phone torch on and start waving it around. The whole point is to have this whole place blanketed in darkness so that everyone gets to enjoy this complete blackness.

Mimi Lichtenstein 45:55
And I think you really feel how, what a small little part of the world you are when you're surrounded by all of this emptiness.

Scott Simpson 46:03
Yeah, and this this particular lodge as well takes full advantage of that all the front's of the rooms like glass. So you have these uninterrupted views out over the surrounding area up, you feel like you're outdoors, even when you're indoors.

Mimi Lichtenstein 46:18
And this is the ambience to satisfy, which is beautiful. They're all beautiful. Another wilderness safari lodge, little kulala coolala. I think me Do you know what it means? I think it means is it to sleep? Sure, I think I think it is, and I think that you know, gives you a little bit of an idea you're gonna go there and have a very restful, peaceful night's sleep when you're when you're in bed. And then during the day, you get to go on beautiful adventures or hang out by their gorgeous pool.

Scott Simpson 46:46
Exactly. And what's really great about little kulala and its sister cam colada desert Lodge is they're located closer to the entrance to socialise, play. So you have to you can't just drive into yourself, you have to wait for the puck to open in the early morning. So because of that location, you can be the first one to that gate. So you are the first people arriving at Sosa's Flay, you get the entire thing to yourself. So they sort of very well situated for that region. And then yeah, like this photo shows, you can actually go on the outside of your room, there's a staircase going up to the rooftop, and there'll be a bed set up there for you. So again, you can fall asleep up there for the sleep under the stars. And whenever you're ready, you just go down and sleep in your room inside. A lot of people don't, you might just fall asleep and wake up there in the morning. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Marian in Namibia. That's one of the good reasons to go there. So don't have to worry about mosquitoes and things like that.

Mimi Lichtenstein 47:43
And both little kulala and kulala. Desert lots have slipped out. So that's another reason to go there. unduly read. She mentioned that earlier. Tell us a little bit more about this one.

Scott Simpson 47:52
Yeah, again, sort of built into one of these granite outcrops very cleverly designed in the sense that it captures the breeze that passes through this valley all the time, sort of a continuous wind that blows through. And the rooms are completely open fronted, there's nothing sort of between you and the elements. And it's just like not natural air conditioning, obviously just sort of passing Austin through here. But just a really well located lodge right in the center of everything you want to do from you know, rock cave paint, rock, the rocky paintings to the desert elephants great at being from here, well located Lodge, one of the newer ones just fun place to be.

Mimi Lichtenstein 48:29
And you know what, they all look so different. That's what's fun about them too. And I think the very end one is going to be the most different but you're not going to just go from one lodge to another and not feel the difference in the lodges right? They don't really look you know anything like any of the other ones. Here's another picture of Anjali ridge. It's just absolutely breathtaking on Dooley

Scott Simpson 48:47
also has these fun Safari vehicles where they're like double dekat. So on the top of the safari vehicle is another row of seats. So if you want to sit up on that row, and it's not because they want to cram more people and it's you have the flexibility. So it's really popular with photographers because you can get that little bit higher and it's a really fun experience kids really enjoy it as well.

Mimi Lichtenstein 49:06
Yeah, it's like being on a fibroid ship about exactly. So shipwreck lodge this one I think for people who have seen here's another one of the very iconic photos it's just so unique and difference tell us more.

Scott Simpson 49:20
Sure, sure. Yeah, shipwreck Lodge is iconic and really nice because it's actually owned by the local community as well so you know that your your money is actually going to something worthwhile. So they're these little hot challies cabins and they overlook the Atlantic. Don't get too excited about the view because this area is very foggy a lot of time most mornings that cold Atlantic air and meeting the desert wind just blankets this area and fog but that kind of adds to the surreal illness as that burns off and you start seeing further into the distance. It's really fun there each one of these cabins is designed in the interior to feel like a ship. So the main bedroom area you feel like you're in the hull of a ship, and then you go through to the Your bathroom area and it feels like you're in the front of the ship these little balls. And each one is actually named after a famous shipwreck. So in each room, there's a board or a sort of poster. And it's the name of your room. And it's a shipwreck, and then the history of that particular shipwreck. So it's a really fun sort of added feature. You're perfectly located to explore the Skeleton Coast, like we said, all that sort of shipwrecks and skeletons and crashed planes. But they also have a lot of other great activities. They do something quite fun here, which is sandboarding. Again, really popular with the families, they got a great collection of sand boards, you head up to the top of these dunes and then race down, it's more difficult than you'd think that someone can snowboard, they can generally get the hang of it quite quickly.

Mimi Lichtenstein 50:45
Yeah, my kids have done it in Morocco, and they loved it. Because it does feel like you're skiing or you know, snowboarding but you're on sand. So

Scott Simpson 50:54
absolutely, that you're not going to see any other guests. When you're at Shipwreck Lodge. You were just hundreds of miles from anything in any direction. Very special place and the architecture is amazing. gets really cold in the middle of winter with that cold wind coming off the Atlantic, and you're in the middle of a desert. So they have these big, thick, sort of throw rugs that they leave draped all over your room, and you just sit in these little cabins looking out over the Atlantic got these big glass fronts as well wrapped up to a fun place even in winter.

Mimi Lichtenstein 51:23
Absolutely. Okay, well, speaking of winter, let's transition to tell us what are the best times to be in Namibia, and is it a little bit dependent on where you're going to go?

Scott Simpson 51:32
It's not too dependent on where you go sort of across the country as the same general pattern, you're not going to get a lot of rain at any time of the day, it does get a lot of its rain and sort of November, December, January, well, that's when it gets all of its rain. But we're talking inches in a lot of parts of the country. Even that is enough, though, to really transform the landscape. So if you're going there and sort of February, March, you, you're seeing a very different Namibia to everything that we've just looked at, you're seeing these rolling green fields, and these little plants and flowers popping up everywhere. It's a very sort of bizarre way to see Namibia. That being said, it's also very hot during the rainy season. So that sort of November, December, January is not the best time to be there. It's hard to trainee, you can do it but it's not ideal. You really want to be traveling that June, July, August, September, October sort of their winter, that's when it's cooler, might be like mid 80s, during the day, lower 50s. At night, it always gets called no matter what time of year you're going. But you're not going to be having any rain. So you're seeing these iconic destinations as they're designed to be seen. You know, it seems kind of silly going to a desert country and waiting for the rainy season. This is the point of it. But if you've been to Namibia, once during the dry season, it's fun to go back, you know, in the rainy season to see the contrast. But for your first time. Yeah, sort of June through September, it's probably the best months I would say.

Mimi Lichtenstein 52:49
Okay, and then what about combining with other countries? If people want to just come to Namibia? Of course you can do that. I know you've done very long itineraries in Namibia. But if people want to combine, obviously, Botswana, South Africa really closed East Africa, would you suggest that? What's your recommendation?

Scott Simpson 53:08
Nine times out of 10. I would urge people to do it as a standalone trip, you know, like we've just gone through, there's so much to see and do, you really don't want to be trying to just leave yourself a week at the end of a South Africa itinerary to jump in. So where possible, make it a standalone destination. You can combine it with somebody like South Africa. If you want to leave yourself a week, the end and go and do Sosa's play on your way home. You could but you're not really doing justice to the rest of the country.

Mimi Lichtenstein 53:37
Would you say? You wanted to see most of what we talked about, but not the super remote places? What's the minimum number of days that you would recommend?

Scott Simpson 53:46
Probably about 12 Nights? Okay. 1012 Nights is probably a good amount of time.

Mimi Lichtenstein 53:52
Okay, then you'll get to see how the fabulous place.

Scott Simpson 53:56
Exactly. And if you can do that with light aircraft, that's the best way because then you're not doing those long drives in between. Yeah,

Mimi Lichtenstein 54:02
and you and I talked about that before, especially if you're going with multiple couples or kind of a more multigenerational bigger group, that the cost differential isn't that strong, or isn't that big compared to you know, doing all the car transfers, but yet, it saves you a ton of time.

Scott Simpson 54:19
Yeah, if you can get I'd say six people at a minimum, that pretty much makes a private charter plane worth it. And then you have your own pilots and your own plane throughout. So he would actually be staying with you at the larger so you have that flexibility when you're ready to leave you go. And also because it's your own plane, they can fly you different routes between A and B to show you highlights and show you interesting things. So yeah, it's a good way of doing it.

Mimi Lichtenstein 54:42
It's nice to have your own plane at your beck and call for two weeks.

Scott Simpson 54:46
Absolutely. And it's not as crazy expensive as you think it's not affordable, but it's not crazy.

Mimi Lichtenstein 54:51
Okay, well if you're gonna save up the money to go to Namibia, maybe just save up a little bit extra and throw in the private pilot and play. Exactly. Well Scott, thank you so much. Lunch. This has been super informative for all of us. The pictures, you know, are so beautiful. I think for any of us who are adventures active photographers, we didn't even really touch on all the culinary aspects. But there's such, you know, so many reasons to go to Namibia. And I know it's on my list and I think it should be on everybody else's, too. So thank you.

Scott Simpson 55:20
You're so welcome. Couldn't agree more. All right, good. All right. Well, I

Mimi Lichtenstein 55:24
know you and I will be in touch. But thank you so much, and take care. Thank you, Mimi. Bye, bye. Bye. If you enjoyed today's show and don't want to miss an episode, you can subscribe and follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you haven't already, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review to let me know what you think and to help others find adventures and luxury travel. I want your honest feedback so I can create a podcast that shares lots of insights to help travelers have more amazing adventures. Visit true Bay travel.com backslash podcast launch for step by step instructions on how to subscribe, rate and review adventures in luxury travel today. See you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of adventures and luxury travel. If you want more travel tips go to true a travel.com where you can sign up for our newsletter that shares more inspiring travel ideas around the world. See you here next week.