Journal #54 - Namibia
Halo from Namibia!
Flamingos, hyenas, and seals – oh my! Our visit to Namibia took the shape of a road trip and was charmed with wonderful wildlife. To get around, we rented a vehicle with 4x4 functionality that was decked out with camping gear. Mr. Wanderer and I set out from the capital city Windhoek, driving first towards Sossusvlei before traveling north through the Namib-Naukluft National Park to Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.
The drive to our first stop took us past the Tropic of Capricorn and many miles of flat landscape. What started with short dry brush became increasingly sparse as the hours passed, evolving from yellow dirt into orange sand, until we officially entered the National Park. The choice to camp (for the first time during this Odyssey!) meant we could sleep inside the National Park overnight. This gave us the advantage of an early morning start on our drive to the dunes, beginning before the park gates opened for the day.
Our arrival at the campsite was met with temperatures of approximately 108° F / 42°C. In this heat, we cooked our dinner. Which would have probably been alright, except on this particular evening, a storm rolled by. This resulted in the winds picking up exactly as we added our food to the pan. The swirling gusts alone might have been tolerable enough if they were not kicking up sand too. As the speed increased what had started as a light breeze morphed into a mild sandstorm "seasoning" our meal. So Mr. Wanderer and I dined on our camp-side dinner with a healthy helping of gritty trail spice.
We arose before the sun the next morning, surrounded by unseen jackals and hyenas, who only made their presence known when our car headlights turned on. We drove past them on our way to the dunes. Namibia is home to some of the tallest dunes in the world, several of which have been named/numbered by researchers. You can spot the famous ones with the road signage, so it was this way that we located Dune 45. In the dark, we parked our vehicle and began our ascent.
Climbing sand is not quite the same as climbing dirt or rock-covered trails. There is no path, only the blurred indents from the hiker before you. When you step, your foot slides into the orange mass, absorbed until there is enough friction to create resistance for you to push against. This makes the process of climbing a slow one. Your hamstrings and calves begin to burn only a few steps in. We did our best to keep moving though, noticing the first color changes in the sky marking the start of the day.
The top of the dune is not a classic peak as much as a bend in the sand. You have to straddle the edge of it to avoid falling off. At the top, as we flattened a seat for ourselves, our eyes took in the miles of sand in every direction with periodic hilltops, a light lavender at this time of day.
Soon our view became awash with pinks which were hardly there long enough to register before the sun cracked over the furthest dune, quickly shifting the sands around us to the soft orange of an apricot bathed in shadows. As the sun rose, the warmth of the ground's coloring matched the temperature of the granules. The orange becomes rosier before turning into a burnt butternut squash. The dune shadows appeared as black capes against the sandy surface.
Once the sun had fully crested and began scaling the sky, we took a sliding jog down the side of the dune – resulting in sneakers so full of sand they shrunk two whole shoe sizes and pinched our toes. The next sight, which took some 4x4 driving on the uneven surface to get to, was Big Daddy Dune. This mass of sand engulfed our entire view. Its height was so far-reaching you could not see the top. This mountain of sand contained all of the slippery difficulties we had experienced this morning with added elements: wind and heat. With the sun now above the horizon, we quickly began to sweat, especially with nowhere to hide on top of a hill of sand. As the day progressed the temperatures rose and the winds picked up. Practically, what this looked like was a face full of sweat, that received a coating of sunscreen in the form of the sand that adhered to our visage.
From the top, we looked down over Hidden Vlei and Dead Vlei and chose to descend towards the latter. Dead Vlei is a white clay pan known for its scattered petrified trees thought to be 900 years old. The ashy branches stand out with their grey-black limbs protruding from the cracked ashen earth. They are further fascinating to photographers who enjoy the added contrast of the tangerine dunes against the cerulean sky. We took our time walking between these baked-still shoots fascinated with their immobile tale.
When we finally departed, it was primarily to flee the sun. It began to threaten the full scope of its wrath as the day progressed. We found our truck and took off to spend the rest of the day driving through the desert. We traveled north, passing along many more grainy planes and sandstone valleys piled high with layers of multicolored earth angled askew to the road.
From the German coastal settlement of Swakopmund, we accessed multiple animal colonies. We began with a visit to the Cape Cross Seal Reserve. Home to the largest breeding colony of Cape Fur Seals. You know it when you have arrived, not because there are seals that have invaded the parking lot and not because you can hear the seals barking at one another over your car engine. No, the most prominent sense that indicates your arrival is the smell. The beachside is filled with thousands of seals, of all ages. Adult males marking their territory, mothers cleaning their pups, and the inescapable rotting corpses. All these blubbery creatures are leaving their mark on the sand, roasting under the sun. Which means, you can physically feel the stink hit your nostrils. The offensive odor lingers too, I found it still in my hair hours after leaving.
That being said, we were still thrilled by our visit to the reserve. Neither of us had ever seen so many seals in one place. Other colonies are usually set up with a small stretch of beach blocked off by some fencing allowing the humans to look down over the seals from a safe distance. This colony though, would more accurately be described as overflowing. You could not see the beach they were on, because of the sheer number of animals laying atop one another across it. The protective fencing and walkway had been taken over. Seals were laying under it, in a hunt for shade, astride it, blocking the walkway, in front of it, guarding against your presence, and around it, generally claiming it as their own. I said already, the parking lot was not even safe. You had to weave the vehicle around bulbous bodies laid prostrate across the painted lines and swarming the lamp posts. The whole experience was imposing. With so many seals sprawled everywhere, it was hard to get a scope for the population, because they were chasing each other, barking incessantly, and the air was coated with their aroma.
For a gentler animal encounter, we traveled south along the Skeleton Coast to Walvis Bay. There we located a flamboyance of flamingos. You only need to pull your car up to the shoreline and it is easy to spot the hundreds of birds feeding in the lagoon. Their coloring varied from hot pink all of the way to pale white/grey. Many of the adult birds were a pastel-colored pink with shocking magenta on the underside of their wings. We delighted watching as the birds pedaled their feet along the shallow water and munched on their meal. Some occasionally irked one another and started a tiff, but mostly they just mimicked each other. If one ate, they all ate. If one flamingo slept, the others also picked up a leg and nestled into their feathers. This also carried over to when one got scared. If any of the flamingos felt threatened, it took off, and suddenly dozens of others would follow as it fluttered a couple of meters further away from shore.
Between the camping, the jackals and hyenas, the dunes, the coast, the seals and the flamingos Namibia has been a packed road trip filled with truly unique memories. Our time here has been lovely, but we are now preparing to move along. Our bags are packed and we are headed to the nation with the world’s largest salt pans. Any guesses where we are off to next?
