Day 5: Sossusvlei to somewhere outside of Solitare

At the Namib Desert in front of Dead Vlei

The winds are howling.  The small four person tent moves this way and that, each gust hitting it from a slightly different direction.   As we lie there wide awake it seems that the very next gust will blow our little house down. The winds are gale force and the red grit it drives gets into everything.  Rudyard Kipling told of the Djinn of all the Howling Deserts, and that Djinn resides here in the Namib desert tonight.  Everything in our tent is covered with very fine red dust; that includes Barb and I and our sleeping mats.  With each gust more dust arrives,  It is 2:30 in the morning and neither of us has slept a wink.  We wanted an adventure, but maybe not such an inconvenient one.  Barb has the bright idea of going to sleep in Whistling Willie, our safari truck.  I think of how little sleep one gets in bus seats, but know that we will not sleep here.  There is something about a storm wind that does not allow rest.

Today as I write, the wind still howls.  Few of our fellow travelers slept a wink at all, including myself in the bus.  But we were all on the bus at 0545 for the drive to catch the sunrise on Dune 45.  The red and barren Namib desert dunes are among the largest on earth.  They have been featured in National Geo again and again.  The winds sculpt them, shaping them to look like mountains with very defined crests and ridges.  Then the wind draws rows of lines across the face.  As the seemingly constant wind blows, the red grit follows the contours in a great example of aerodynamic laminar flow.  Check them out on Google Earth.  They are like nothing else you can find.

We parked our truck in a parking lot and transferred to a 4x4 vehicle because the roads into the dunes were horrible with deeply rutted soft sand.  We stopped along the way to help push out a pickup that shouldn’t have attempted the drive and the passengers of that vehicle piled into our truck for the long ride in.  

Wearing hats, glasses, bandanas, and anything else that will protect us from the sand storm, we begin to trudge up to the top of the dune.  One of our new friends, Chuck, begins to list a little to one side as he walks.  He ambles up to me and casually remarks that his left ear is filling up with sand, and he is tending to list to one side.  But then he laughs, and says that by the time he returns to camp, his balance will be restored since the right ear will then be full also.  Chuck is the only one in our group that will climb all the way to the top.  Barb and I stop about half way up.  I keep watching her put the new, slightly expensive, camera down into nature’s sand blaster to get the photo that she wants.  I imagine grit getting into all those expensive moving parts, and that Zeiss lens achieving the foggy look of bad plastic.  Unable to contain myself, I say something several times.  Barb gives me “the look”, and continues to get right down into the sand for the perfect photo.  Her camera survives the immersion into super fine grit at very high velocity, and my respect for the engineers at Sony goes up to the highest level.

After Dune 45, we drive a little farther to see “Big Daddy”, the largest sand dune on the planet.  Everyone, including Barb is taking hundreds of photos.  We walk across more dunes to Dead Vlei.  Here a river once emptied to a lake, and acacia trees grew.  Now a dune has blocked the path.  The river exits somewhere else, and the “dead marsh” has only long deceased acacia trees standing where once there was water in the desert.  Another short ride takes us to Sossusvlei, where an underground river from somewhere in Angola appears and empties into a small lake.  The water disappears almost as quickly as it appears, leaving dried tiles of mud, tracks of animals, and a small residual pool of water whose existence here is so surprising it seems magical. 


Did I mention the heat?  It is extreme and the sun’s rays are direct.  Some of our party forgot to bring water.  Some are clothed for polite sunshine that gives you a slight tan and leaves you feeling warm.  This is the the heat equivalent of a North Dakota winter.  It must be treated with respect even when you think are just stepping out into it for a little while.  One of our party who forgot to bring water is now wisely standing in the shade.  Two others however, have that red flush that can be mistaken for sunburn, and their voices have become louder, their gestures more exaggerated.  They are dehydrated.  All will be okay, but the experience gives us new respect for this African desert heat.  The 4x4 Land Cruiser arrives eventually, but hours after it was scheduled to do so. “Poli, Poli” is the phrase here that means slowly, slowly - and slowly is often how things move.

Fresh, cool water helps us all to revive.  Returning to our last night’s campgrounds to load tents and equipment, everyone looks forward to a cool shower and lunch.  But it is not to be today.  The power is out and there is no water to bathe with.  Someone suggests the pool for a dip, but it is colored too brightly red from the dust to be useful.  Some wit suggests the Bessie, the Loch Ness monster could be hiding in that pool and you would never know.  A few beers for most is followed by a quick lunch.  Tonight,  we will stay at a private farm, sleeping out in the desert once again.  This country was once the home of the San or bushmen, and the owner of the farm is a student of their lore and history.  Tomorrow will be a nature tour emphasizing what is known of these people.

Happy Feet in the Namib Desert