Breathtaking - Twyfelfontein Country Lodge Namibia

The Twyfelfontein Country Lodge is located in the Huab valley in Namibia’s Kunene region (formerly known as Damaraland). The area, known as the Twyfelfontein Uibasen Conservancy, boasts various rock engravings and paintings. These are a silent testimony to the first hunter-gatherer and subsequent Khoi-San inhabitants of 6 000 years ago, who used the area as a place of worship and shaman rituals. There are 17 different sites of rock paintings, totalling 212 stone slabs.

 

The developers of the lodge used natural stone and thatch and chose paint hues to match that of the surrounding rocks and plains. Recently a visitor centre was erected and was also built and designed to blend into the red sandstone of the environment. Twyfelfontein welcomes as many as 40 000 visitors per year. For those puzzled by the name: a farmer that settled on the land in 1946 named it Twyfelfontein (Afrikaans for uncertain or doubtful spring) as he was unsure whether the spring called /Ui-//aes on the farm would provide enough water.

Guest accommodation comprises 56 en-suite double rooms, a lounge, open dining room and a bar where you can swop stories with fellow visitors. The lodge caters for a host of activities, ranging from swimming facilities, cycling the area or on guided nature walks and safaris. The many Namibian plant species, among which the unique Welwitschia, will delight plant lovers. Elephants, rhinoceros and giraffe are some of the wildlife that adapted to the desert climate of the Namib that can be seen roaming the area.

 

Those interested in geology will also be in for a treat: volcanic activity of eons ago led to spectacular rock formations that can be viewed at the Organ Pipes, Burnt Mountains, Doros Crater and Petrified Forest. They are all in the vicinity of the lodge.

Twyfelfontein Country Lodge is approximately 100 km west of Khorixas and 430 km northwest of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. It can be reached by air or by road (travel along the C39, turn off at D2612, join D3254).