We picked up our rig friday night for our saturday morning departure and headed out of town on a short shake down drive, see that the truck runs well and to get familiar with driving on the left side of the road.  We made our way out of town where the blacktop gives way to dirt roads, a staple of the Namibian road system.  Dirt roads here are not what you think, they are wide and well maintained so you can comfortably cruise at the speed limit of 80 km/hr (about 48 mph).  On this drive we saw our first Namibian wildlife, baboons, lots of them along the side of the road.

After leaving our guesthouse the next morning we loaded up the cooler with food for a couple days consisting of steaks, sausage, potatoes, onions, peppers, eggs, flour (for pancakes), eggs, milk, soda, and of course beer.  Two days worth of food fits in our cooler with room to spare.

Our destination is Bagatelle Game Ranch on the edge of the Kalahari desert where it brushes up against the Namib desert.  The intersection brings two significant geological features together: the Namib is one of the driest deserts in the world while the Kalahari is the oldest.  The distance is 175 miles, about 3 hours of driving.

We headed south from Windhoek on the B1, one of Namibia’s major highways.  As with the dirt roads, a highway here is not what you think.  The road is paved and in excellent condition but only a narrow two lanes. Built like roads out west with steep shoulders you really need to keep alert, veering off the road will likely result in rolling your car.

The rolling hills of the Windhoek area settled into the flat plains of the Namib.  It’s not a sandy desert, more of a course dirt, very light in color, almost white.  We saw many of the three common large animal species of southern Namibia: springbuck, oryx, and ostrich.

You certainly have pictures of the Kalahari in your mind and it’s not white.  We made a left turn off the highway, drove a few miles then all of a sudden the terrain change from flat, white plains to small rolling red hills. The contrast was striking, as was our guesthouse.

Originally a ranch house, Bagatelle was converted into a lodge and campground.  We were greeted at reception with moist, cold towels to whip away the dirt and the heat.  We arrived shortly before the 4:00 tea time where the lodges offers free tea, coffee and cake.  Now this is camping with style.  The site was equally impressive with it’s own private running water bathroom and shower.   The campground has about 10 sites with the next closest camper a hundred yards away.

This combination of lodge and campground is fairly common in Namibia.  Most of the lodges are small like Bagatelle with maybe a dozen rooms and an equally small campground.  A group of people could travel together, have the exact same experience with the only difference being where you lay your head.

The ranch adopted a few young cheetahs, orphaned at a young age they are not able to survive in the wild.  We went out on evening cheetah feeding and sundowner drive.  We rode an open air game sighting truck into a large fenced in area for the cheetahs.  Three of the cheetahs were sitting around a small knoll near the gate, seemingly posing for photo ops.  The driver joked cheetahs in the wild have to hunt for their food while these cheetahs have to walk the runway.  Two other cheetahs were hundreds of yards away on the other side of the enclosure.  Running to our truck they appeared to glide above the the ground. Seeing cheetahs run directly at you is a very impressive site.

The cats looked perfectly tame, like you could step out of the car and start petting one.  Their demeanor totally changed once the driver walked out with legs of springbuck.  They quickly stood up, arched their backs and circled around the driver, letting out deep growl like purrs, an unnerving experience but the driver didn’t seem to mind.  He held out the legs and the cats jumped, clawing it out of his hands, running off to their own private areas to eat.

We drove up to one and were allowed to get out of the truck for close up pictures, about 10 feet away.  Being this close to such large animals felt wrong but the driver assured us we were safe.  Their legs of beast are already dead and it would take some effort to take one of us out.

After taking photos we drove off into the Kalahari, up a sand dune where we found a table full of liquor waiting for us.  We had drinks while watching the sun set over the desert.  Fabulous.

Back at our campsite we started a fire with the provided wood and grilled up some steaks and vegetables. Once the skies were totally dark we drank beer to one of the most amazing night skies we have ever seen.  It doesn’t get much darker than a moonless night in Namibia.  This is no doubt the nicest campground we’ve slept.  We sat there wondering if our futures sites will be similar to Bagatelle.  If so Namibia will ruin us for camping back home.

Springbuck wandering through camp at Bagatelle