Last night, as part of my day-job I attended an evening of events promoting Namibia as a tourist destination at the Royal Geographical Society. I hadn’t realised in advance, but the organisers had lined up three really good speakers to entertain everyone. Joanna Lumley opened with a short talk about the work of the Africat Foundation. She was followed by Chris Packam (the conservationist and TV presenter) on his wildlife photography. I was very impressed by Packham’s pragmatic views on conservation and the role tourism can play within it. Finally, Benedict Allen, the adventurer and explorer gave a fascinating lecture on his camel trek up Namibia’s Skeleton Coast (the title of this post comes from one of the opening lines in his lecture). I didn’t know much about Allen, but he’s led an amazing life, and is a very entertaining and enthusiastic speaker.
Sadly, I didn’t win the raffle (first prize was an all expenses paid safari in Namibia), but the night did persuade me to save up my pennies to visit sometime!