The Fish River Canyon walk and a disappointing sunset.

Fish River Canyon is one of the most important tourist attractions in Namibia, if we are to believe the ever-helpful internet. In fact, the view truly is spectacular!

Wikipedia informs us that the canyon is 160km long and 500+ meters deep. The river did a good job!

You can walk around and – with a guide – you can even go down.

A funny combination – “hiking trail starts here” + “walks prohibited”. The local guides explained that hiking without a guide is prohibited, but with a guide you’re more than welcome.

Off down there…

Also, don’t trust all the local names. One of the viewpoints here entices tourists with the name “sunset point” (or something like that) promising the most beautiful view of the sun going down. People fall for it and come in their droves…

But I have to say it wasn’t all that impressive.

The surrounding views look worse with the bright sun behind them; it means it’s not the sunset you need to see here but the sunrise at dawn, when the sun throws light on these landscapes from the other side.

So, what do the information stands tell us? The stone platform where the river flows is very old – it’s between 1.5 and 2 billion years old, i.e. it’s part of the super-continent of Gondwana (or whatever else there was before Gondwana). Somewhere nearby there are volcanic rocks that are the result of Gondwana’s splitting into smaller continents, including America and Africa. And so on…

There’s a 5-day hiking route along the bottom of the canyon. An 80km walk. Interesting… but, probably, not a good idea in January – a walk under the summer sun along these stone labyrinths doesn’t sound all that appealing.

Various endemic species and other rare plants grow here.

And here’s some of the local flora in the local landscape:

A nice place. But should be seen in the morning.

The rest of the Namibia photos can be found here