Fish River Lodge

Everything was fine, we liked it very much

What a view!

Stunning place at the edge of the Fish River Canon! Almost everything is great, but there are two issues the Lodge should care about: WIFI: If all the guests are crowded with their devices on the 20m² where you have Wifi reception and then want to make constant WhatsApp calls, then you should urgently think about a better WIFI (preferably also in the rooms)! Pool: the pool is great and I don't want to imply that the water in the pool isn't clean, but if you can't see the bottom at a depth of approx. 1.5 m because the water isn't clear, then you get a bad feeling.

The view from the lodge was nice, though I don’t think it was worth the extremely long drive to get there (the detour to this lodge added 3 days to our itinerary). I was disappointed by the guided full-day hike into the canyon. The guided hike had a large (and very loud) group of about 10 people, and the guide Fillamon didn’t speak much English so he didn’t really tell us any interesting facts about the canyon or anything else. He also walked much too fast, not pausing for enough breaks. The guided hike has almost no good views as you hike deeper into the canyon; that’s the problem with downhill hikes. The sundowner was similarly crowded with loud people (a group of at least 20), which really detracted from the nature experience. We didn’t experience that many crowds anywhere else in Namibia. However, you can do some self-guided hikes along the rim of the canyon, and that was nice. I wish they just allowed you to hike into the canyon without a guide; I don’t really feel like you need a guide for it if they’d just provide a map, so it’s frustrating that you’re not allowed to do it without a guide.