Sossusvlei and Beyond

At 5:00 this morning the alarm rang – and we quickly dressed warmly – because we could hear the wind outside howling. We then stepped outside to see a most amazing sky- a million stars and galaxies and shooting stars. Josea picked us up at 5:30 and we drove to the main building to get our coffee and our breakfast bags. Believe it or not, someone had come down to our house at 4:30 to turn on the water heater and someone else had prepared our coffee by 5:30. By 5:45 we had left for the day to drive to Sossusvlei. For those of you who do not know much about Namibia, Sossusvlei i is where the red dunes are – and the contrast is best seen at sunrise. The park opens at 6:30 and we arrived by 7. That is late- but our drive from the lodge was longer than expected. None of the roads around here are paved and so it takes awhile to go anywhere.

Sossusvlei is simply stunning. The red dunes rise perfectly to the blue sky – and the morning sun casts shadows across the opposite sides. No picture can do it justice but we sure took many today. We stopped at Dune 45 (45 km from the entrance gate) and Josea challenged us to climb it. Well we gave it a great try but the wind was howling and the our steps in the sand were very deep. The angle was about 45 degrees up the ridge. What appears to be the crest is not the end and so you just keep climbing until you can’t go any further. Then you run down the slope – which is much more fun than climbing up. Both Phil and I abandoned shoes altogether – finding that bare feet were better than either my Keens or Phil’s tennis shoes. It was a lot of fun.

Then we drove to the 2x4 parking lot and got on a 4x4 shuttle to take us up to the end of the valley. The road is just sand and so jeeps work well at getting you up there. We had breakfast before walking across the mudflats to the base of Big Mama – a dune that would challenge anyone. Then we hitched a ride over to Big Daddy – the largest of the dunes at Sossusvlei (300 meters high or 1000 feet) We walked across the mudflats again and then climbed a short way. Then, not seeing the return shuttle, we began to walk the 5 km back to the parking lot. I was simply exhausted from our morning climbs and after 45 minutes I jumped on a packed shuttle bus that took me back to the car. Phil and Josea walked the rest of the way – and when Josea arrived he asked me how it is that “an old man is more fit than I am”. He loves Phil and feels challenged to keep up with him. My guess is that he is in his mid 20s – but I told him that Phil had been hiking in the big mountains out west this summer so he really is fit. I didn’t tell him that those of us who know Phil know he is always fit.

Then we drove 60 km back to the Sossusvlei Lodge and had lunch. It is a beautiful lodge- but a bit too fancy for our tastes. We had a delicious buffet lunch and then drove to the Sesriem Canyon. After looking at dunes all day, we were stunned to fine a deep canyon that had water at the bottom. It is a 100 foot deep, very narrow canyon cut by the Tsauchab River into cemented 10-15 million year old river gravels. (Can you tell who is dictating that sentence?) There are still pools of water at the bottom – which included some very distressed fish who were rapidly running out of places to swim. There were also many birds that had built nests in the walls and we enjoyed a nice cool walk along the bottom before climbing back up to the desert floor and driving home.

We saw many of the same animals today that we saw yesterday – including many oryx, ostrich, and springboks. We also saw a pair of black jackals. At the base of Dune 45 we saw a murder (right word according to Phil) of pied crows that look like our crows except that they have large white stripes on their wings.

Then we drove back to our home at Tsauhab River Camp. And began to get the sand out of every crevice of our bodies. It reminds me of our Lake Michigan summers- when we have sand everywhere- but today it is red sand. And the wind put it EVERYWHERE.

Now we will go to dinner at the main building- and then prepare to leave tomorrow for the coast. It will be a long day’s drive but we will stop at a few sites along the way.