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5.0 out of 5 stars
Number One holiday in one country, February 20, 2004
Hey folks,this is Norbert, a german world-wide individual traveller, visiting one country after another, if possible.
A few years ago, I explored the former Deutsch-Südwest, now Namibia, and drove a couple of 12.000 km around the southern Africa in this holiday tour with a rented car. My basic background was Haapes new book about Namibia, lying between my knees during driving on the southern "pads", the never-ending long dusty sand-strips from one spot to the next. The second one was of course the road-map, but - it is not really necessary, as long as you have your Namibia Guide from "Hans". He allowed me to call him by this short name, cause I met him personally on a backtrip to Europe by plane in Luxemburg. Yes, Johannes Haape is the Number-One-Guide to Namibia! And of course too for RSA, South-Africa. Cause he lives there in a Durban suburb near Umshlanga Rocks, the well known "Acapulco" of the southern Africa. And as a resident and grown up there, he naturally knows absolutely everything about the southern Africa, it's Slogan is: ONE WORLD IN ONE COUNTRY. Both Guide-Books, the South-African one and the Namibia-One, tell you everything necessary - and of course quite more - of the backgrounds in history, in geography, in geology, in botanic, plantation, even politics and migration, and and and. For shure you find all the "MUSTS" in a fair overview. Every tourist has to pick them, me too, so you'll find them straight and fast and of course: convenient. Not only the Top-Points of Namibia and South-Africa you find in Hans's both books, but too the history of the different tribes. The title-photo shows the living-circumstances of the (Ova-)Himba, a tribe in the northwestern part of Namibia, ruled not by men but by women. More about this funny fact and the orange colour they use from baby to grown-up to protect their skins - in the book itself! You for shure don't need any other book,
backgroundfolders, card, roadmap etc. - only the Insight Guide from "Hans" Haape, my dear fried, whose parents emigrated from the poor Germany after the big war in Europe and settled near Durban. Of course you find interesting explanations in english, in africaans and in german, at your convenience. No problem at all. My favorite of this book, I tell you openly, was the finding on-site as filed of the worldwide one-and-only weltwitschia mirabilis, a arid plant that survives only by dew-water in colder nights in Namibia coastal areas alone. What to tell you more? Too much. Everything worth to read by yourself, travelling through the second-biggest canyon of the world, the fish-river-canyon in the Namibia-southwest-Region, or by driving with your rented Jeep along the sceleton coast, or deep inside the Etosha-Pan, a unique nature-paradise of the big five. May be you look for the highest dunes of the world, you'll find them in western Namibia, with this Namibia-Guide of course. Etosha, a lot more "arid" as the semi-arid "Kruger-Park" at the borderline to Mozambique, described by "Hans" in his South Africa guide. Discover your own world - in Namibia, the Caprivi-strip, or in South Africa, within the well known but also in lots of hidden little Nature-Reserves. Try out your favorites. Travel and read.
And search - and conquer.
I did it. I do it. And I love it. Up to now - I did it more than one time.
Haapes Guide led me the second trip within 7.000 km across South Africa, from Table Mountain to Kruger Park, from tiny little Railway Remembrance-Station "Matjisfontein" via the Swartberg-Mountains with snowy streets in the summer to Umshlanga Rocks, Durban, and of course the just-in-time-arrival in the Jacaranda-Town Praetoria, a MUST for everybody. All the nice reflourishing Jacarandas around the historical Government-Houses called Union Buildings ... I stop now, please - look yourself in Johannes Haape's Guide to South Africa and the other one to Namibia. You'll never regret your buy. No one else has so much love to both countries than he, a southafrican-born travelguide between Frankfurt/Main and JoBurg, the fluently german, africaans, english speaking resident:
"Hans" Haape with his two guides to the best places in all southern Africa and Namibia. Yours sincerely,
Norbert Högel, a german world-wide traveller.
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