Day 37
Today I'm in: Sesriem Village, Namibia
(I'm actually in Windhoek right now and writing this after the fact.)
See if you can guess how today started. That's right, with a 5am wakeup call. To get to Sossusvlei before things got too hot, we had to head out at 5:45am, just as the sun was starting to show over the mountaintops to the east. Sossusvlei was not terribly far from our lodge as the crow flies, but the combination of twisting roads and unpaved surfaces meant the drive took almost two hours. After a stop at the national park headquarters to get an entry permit, we rolled through the gates at about 7:30am.
Roughly translated, Sossusvlei means "water-collection place" in Afrikaans. A vlei is a pan, or an area where water stands before evaporating. At Sossusvlei, this occurs where the waters of the Tsauchab River meet the sand dunes of the Namib Desert. The river only runs a few months of the year during the rainy season. The rains ended a few months before our visit, but there was still a bit of water in the vlei, so the shores were surrounded with green !nara shrubs (that's not a typo; the ! is a clicking sound in the local language) and acacia trees.
The real attraction are the dunes themselves. They're made from red sand that washed into the Atlantic from the Orange River (almost five hundred miles away along the South African border) thousands of years ago and were then carried northward by ocean currents. The wind is constantly reshaping the dunes and eroding the grains, which today are so fine that they fall through your clothes and socks. When I got home at the end of the day, my socks were clean but my feet were covered in sand. The sand also contains a healthy amount of iron - our guide simply held a magnet up and a number of grains jumped up and clung to it.
We decided to climb one of the dunes (referred to by our guide as "Big Mama") and it was slow going - sand isn't the most accommodating thing to climb on, especially when it's so fine. Fortunately, despite the sun beating down, it wasn't too hot, and we had barely broken a sweat by the time we reached the top. The view was an endless panorama of dunes in all directions - the Atlantic is only about 40 kilometers away, but there's no way to see it amidst the dunes. People riding on dune buggies have to carry compasses because it's so easy to get disoriented in such a repetitive landscape.
From the Big Mama we walked over to Dead Vlei, a former pan that emptied of water thousands of years ago and now contains the remnants of several half-petrified acacia trees. The dunes have blown in behind the pan, so there's no way for the river to refill it during its annual flood. The tallest dune in the park is located there, but it takes over three hours to climb and we had scratched the itch sufficiently already. Dead Vlei is almost a kilometer across, but looks deceptively small - we thought it would take a short while to walk across it until we saw a group of pinprick-sized hikers coming from the opposite direction.
After visiting those two spots we wandered for awhile, watching sand beetles hustle across the tops of dunes - they can move at up to 30 kilometers per hour when they really get going - and looking out for oryx grazing. The last two years rainfall has been higher than normal and so more grass than normal has taken root at Sossusvlei, even going up the sides of some of the smaller dunes. This has been good for the oryx (an animal we didn't get to see while we were on safari in South Africa) who have multiplied like crazy, almost to the point where culling is needed.
On our way out of the park, we stopped at Sesriem Canyon, a deep gouge cut into the desert flatland by seasonal rains over thousands of years. The progressive erosion has left lines of soil visible, almost like the rings of a tree, that tell you how old the rock is. "Sesriem" is Afrikaans for "seven thongs," which refers to the number of leather straps the original Afrikaner pioneers needed to get water out of the canyon. Today you can hike down there pretty easily, although there were only a few pockets of water remaining.
We got back to the hotel around 3pm and were so beat from the sun and from dune climbing that we crashed pretty shortly after dinner. The next day we didn't have to get up until 7am, which seemed like a real treat.
Today I'm in: Sesriem Village, Namibia
(I'm actually in Windhoek right now and writing this after the fact.)
See if you can guess how today started. That's right, with a 5am wakeup call. To get to Sossusvlei before things got too hot, we had to head out at 5:45am, just as the sun was starting to show over the mountaintops to the east. Sossusvlei was not terribly far from our lodge as the crow flies, but the combination of twisting roads and unpaved surfaces meant the drive took almost two hours. After a stop at the national park headquarters to get an entry permit, we rolled through the gates at about 7:30am.
Roughly translated, Sossusvlei means "water-collection place" in Afrikaans. A vlei is a pan, or an area where water stands before evaporating. At Sossusvlei, this occurs where the waters of the Tsauchab River meet the sand dunes of the Namib Desert. The river only runs a few months of the year during the rainy season. The rains ended a few months before our visit, but there was still a bit of water in the vlei, so the shores were surrounded with green !nara shrubs (that's not a typo; the ! is a clicking sound in the local language) and acacia trees. 
The real attraction are the dunes themselves. They're made from red sand that washed into the Atlantic from the Orange River (almost five hundred miles away along the South African border) thousands of years ago and were then carried northward by ocean currents. The wind is constantly reshaping the dunes and eroding the grains, which today are so fine that they fall through your clothes and socks. When I got home at the end of the day, my socks were clean but my feet were covered in sand. The sand also contains a healthy amount of iron - our guide simply held a magnet up and a number of grains jumped up and clung to it. 
We decided to climb one of the dunes (referred to by our guide as "Big Mama") and it was slow going - sand isn't the most accommodating thing to climb on, especially when it's so fine. Fortunately, despite the sun beating down, it wasn't too hot, and we had barely broken a sweat by the time we reached the top. The view was an endless panorama of dunes in all directions - the Atlantic is only about 40 kilometers away, but there's no way to see it amidst the dunes. People riding on dune buggies have to carry compasses because it's so easy to get disoriented in such a repetitive landscape. 
From the Big Mama we walked over to Dead Vlei, a former pan that emptied of water thousands of years ago and now contains the remnants of several half-petrified acacia trees. The dunes have blown in behind the pan, so there's no way for the river to refill it during its annual flood. The tallest dune in the park is located there, but it takes over three hours to climb and we had scratched the itch sufficiently already. Dead Vlei is almost a kilometer across, but looks deceptively small - we thought it would take a short while to walk across it until we saw a group of pinprick-sized hikers coming from the opposite direction. 
After visiting those two spots we wandered for awhile, watching sand beetles hustle across the tops of dunes - they can move at up to 30 kilometers per hour when they really get going - and looking out for oryx grazing. The last two years rainfall has been higher than normal and so more grass than normal has taken root at Sossusvlei, even going up the sides of some of the smaller dunes. This has been good for the oryx (an animal we didn't get to see while we were on safari in South Africa) who have multiplied like crazy, almost to the point where culling is needed. 
On our way out of the park, we stopped at Sesriem Canyon, a deep gouge cut into the desert flatland by seasonal rains over thousands of years. The progressive erosion has left lines of soil visible, almost like the rings of a tree, that tell you how old the rock is. "Sesriem" is Afrikaans for "seven thongs," which refers to the number of leather straps the original Afrikaner pioneers needed to get water out of the canyon. Today you can hike down there pretty easily, although there were only a few pockets of water remaining.We got back to the hotel around 3pm and were so beat from the sun and from dune climbing that we crashed pretty shortly after dinner. The next day we didn't have to get up until 7am, which seemed like a real treat.
Looks like you are having an amazing time on your crazy adventure. So jealous! Enjoy bud. And safe travels the rest of the way.
ReplyDeleteIt's Brandon, btw.
DeleteSounds totally awesome! I loved my safaris in Africa, so am loving living vicariously through these posts. Also, I started laughing when I saw that 7am was a treat - I remember having the same feeling too after waking up at 5am a few days in a row!
ReplyDelete