namibia: namib-naukluft national park

I walked from my accomodation to the Cardboard Box, where I'd booked my next tour. Even though my tour wasn't through the hostel, that's where the company did their pickups. The guy picking me up was 20 minutes late, which didn't surprise me, I'd gotten used to these sorts of delays during my trip.

The driver ended up being the guy in charge of everything, but he wasn't the guide/driver. He took me to a supermarket, where we met up with a couple ladies from Luxembourg, and our driver/guide. I took advantage of a few minutes free to go into the supermarket and pick up a few snacks. There are never enough snacks.

From there we drove out of Windhoek. The landscape and road turned very rural very quickly after we left the city. Namibia is mostly desert, though with a wide variety of desert landscapes. While we drove, I got to see mountains in the distance, which were gorgeous. I'd love to go back and hike there. The road was unsealed, which meant our driver had to watch carefully nearly the entire time, so we didn't puncture tires.

We pulled over at a sortof rest stop along the way for lunch. I say sortof rest stop because it was just a couple tables on an overlook. There was nothing else there, but with the views we had, I didn't need anything else.

Our lunch was cold cut sandwiches, yogurt, and orange juice. While trying to capture the views I realized I need a wide angle camera. From this viewpoint we could see the house where the Farmers Union meets every so often. We could see down into a valley, surrounded by mountains. This sortof rest stop was basically at the top of a pass.

From the top of the pass we drove down into the wide valley floor. The road was full of switchbacks, and was 'paved' with stone bricks. It was actually in better shape than the road we'd already driven.

Eventually we got to a small town called Solitaire. It wasn't even really a town. More of a rest stop with a campground and small motel, bakery, and petrol station. There were old, abandoned cars and trucks everywhere, fun to take photos of them. The desert is not kind to old cars and trucks.

After our guide/driver had a tire fixed (it turns out the road is bad enough that punctured tires and tubes happen pretty much everytime you drive,) and got more petrol, we started driving again.

We entered Namib Naukluft National Park, (the first national park established in the country,) and found the campsite. A few minutes later, we piled back into the car, and our driver/guide took us to the foot of several sand dunes. We climbed these dunes in an effort to chase the sunset. It was definitely a workout, which was nice to have after a day of riding in a car. Everytime I got to what I thought was the top, I could see another crest a bit in front of me. I never really caught the sunset, but I tried. As the sun fell lower and lower I really enjoyed the colour of the light, and the peaceful feeling in the area.

While we were doing this climb we were there at the same time as another tour group, which was a bit bigger. It was a mixed group, with Japanese, Koreans, a chick from Ohio State, and a guy who attended the University of Michigan. All of that group was on a longer tour through more than just the national park.

On my way back down the dune I realized my Luxembourger mates hadn't made it as far up the dune as I had. They had gotten confused about the time at which we would meet our driver at the bottom, so they didn't climb as far up.

Back at the campsite our driver/guide cooked dinner for us. We had (marinated) pork steak, and canned veggies. Unfortunately, we didn't have any light, so we weren't able to see our food very well. It was good, but I wish we'd been able to see. What I could see were the stars in the sky, which were pretty incredible.

There was a lodge, where I went to hang out for a little bit after dinner. I used the plugs to charge my phone, and used the light to read on my kindle. There were people there who seemed intent on getting drunk, I wasn't one of them. When I got back to the campsite I found the Luxembourgers had already gone to bed, even though it was only 2100. I tried to take a few photos of the sky (SO MANY STARS) but I don't know how to use my camera well enough for those to turn out well.

I had my own tent in which to sleep, which was awesome.

The next morning my alarm went off waaaaay too early. It was just at the time when I had set it, but it was only 0430, so it was still dark, and cold. Not so fun. Nevertheless, I got ready to go, because I was excited about what was on the itinerary for the day.

We all hopped into the van, and got to an interior entry gate, and waited in queue with other vehicles. The interior gate opened at 0530, and our guide drove with a lead foot. We got to where we were going first.

Dune 45 has the name because it is 45 kilometers from the entry of the park. (I think.) This is a dune where nearly every tour group comes to climb the dune and watch the sun rise. We were the first to start climbing, but we were definitely not the first to reach the top. How do people go so fast up a hill of sand?!? Climbing dunes is a good workout, especially in the dark. In a way I didn't mind being behind a few people, as it was actually easier to follow in their footsteps.

At the top of the dune we all took photos, and people were generally polite in helping others take photos. It is a beautiful, but unreal landscape. I can see why movie studios use this sort of a landscape to make an audience think we're on a different planet. At one point nearly everyone climbing sat on the ridge of the dune and watched the sun rise. Beautiful. The colours of everything seem to change constantly, depending on where the sun is in the sky, but generally you can say that the sand is red on this dune.

Dune 45 is 170 meters high, and the sand is 5 million years old. More than a little of it ended up in my hair. The wind constantly recreates the shape of the dune.

I 'walked' down the dune (definitely easier than coming up, and far more fun) back to the parkplatz. Breakfast was yogurt, juice, cereal and milk, etc...

After packing up the food, we drove a bit further down the road, Eventually we pulled over into another parkplatz, and our guide/driver went to buy us tickets. We didn't know what these tickets were for, but soon found out. We needed these tickets to get on the 4x4 vehicle that drove us to the next spot.

The road to the next stop is a road requiring 4 wheel drive. Even with the proper vehicle, you need to know what you're doing, as the sand is easy to get stuck in. After getting on our vehicle, we saw several stuck vehicles as we drove along.

The dropoff point for our next stop didn't seem special in any way. I wouldn't have known anything special was there. We followed our guide, who took us over another small dune, into another gorgeous area.

This new area was called Sossusvlei, or Dead Vlei. A looooooong time ago there was a river here, so there was more than just sand. At one point in history, the route of the river changed (or it dried up completely,) so all life was lost.

All you see now are the fossilized remains of the trees. They are mostly still standing, in what little clay remains.

It's really quite strange to see the trees, with the blue sky, red sand, and white clay. I was one of quite a few people taking photos, some of whom had giant, professional looking lenses. I don't know if you need that much of a lense to take a photo of something only a couple meters away, but if that was my job, I could probably justify it. I'm pretty sure I took a photo of nearly every tree in the area, trying to keep other people out of the photos.

As we were walking back toward the area to catch the 4x4 again, the wind picked up, a LOT. It wasn't easy to walk with wind/sand blowing directly at me. It's the kind of walk you make somewhat blind because your eyes are almost closed.

It was sortof a relief to get to the parking area, except that there was no shelter for anyone except a couple trees. At that point it was hot, very sunny, and very windy. That's when I learned that there is no orderly way for catching a 4x4 going back the other way. Groups of people wait around, and you hope that one of the 4x4s will come close to your group with room enough for all of you.

There is no designated pickup place, and there is no area for queueing. Well, that's not true, the entire area is for waiting and 'queueing,' much to the frustration of pretty much everyone. The guides form relationships with the drivers, and you hope that the friendship your guide has is stronger than someone else's. There is a lot of dashing across the area when one of the 4x4s stops for a pickup, hoping you can get on. I saw more than one person get really angry, pounding on the vehicle and yelling at the driver. I was getting dehydrated, sunburnt, windburned, and sandburned.

Finally, we got a ride back to our vehicle. Then we drove back to the campground, for what we thought would be a short stop. We packed up our camping stuff, and went inside the lodge to cool down and find ice cream. It was more than two hours before we saw our guide again. It turned out he had gone to get a tire fixed, and grocery shopping, but didn't tell us this, so we spent the time wondering what was going on. Argh.

Our next stop was a canyon. It's not wide, or even noticeable from far away, but when you get there, you can't help but be impressed. It's called the Sesriem Canyon, and is about 2 kilometers long. The bottom is mostly sand, and you can wander through a lot of it. There is some water in some areas, and when it rains they say you have to be very careful for flash flooding.

We didn't have much time in the canyon, I wish we'd had more. If anything, I kinda wish the guide had dropped us off at the canyon while he did his errands, which would've given us much more time to explore. Oh well. I know what to ask for when I come back. The Luxembourg ladies didn't seem to want much time at anything we were seeing, I don't know why.

After leaving the canyon, we drove back to Solitaire. This time we stayed there overnight. I was excited, as it meant I would get to have a treat at the bakery. Unfortunately, we arrived too late for that to happen that afternoon. Darnit. There wasn't much to do there, not even much in the way of places to walk, so I was rather bored.

We chatted a bit with some others camping there, there were a couple RVs with German couples traveling around the continent for 5 months. That sounds like an amazing trip to me! The Luxembourg ladies spoke German (and French, and Luxembourgish, and English,) so they were much better able to communicate, and did some translating for me.

This time we had some light by which to eat dinner. The food wasn't as good, but I loved that I could see what I was eating. We were eating while an amazing sunset was happening, so a couple times I got up and ran off with my phone to try to take a photo.

We were in separate tents again that night, only waking up when the vehicle of a different group was turned on at 0500 in the morning. I'm generally a heavy sleeper, but those overland trucks are loud. Argh. I couldn't get back to sleep, even though it was still dark, so I stared at the ceiling of my tent for a while. Eventually it was light again, and I started reading my kindle again.

Breakfast was the same we'd had the day before. Yogurt, cereal, and toast. This time the bakery was open, so I went with the Luxeumbourg ladies to try it out. I ended up with an apple something or other, and a cup of tea. Pretty tasty.

While we were eating, our guide was packing everything up. After a while, we hopped back in, and started the long drive back to Windhoek. Since we'd come back to Solitaire the night before, our drive wasn't going to be as long. At least, we didn't think it would be that long.

It ended up being that long, and more, because we had to stop several times because of the tires. Several times at least one of our tires went flat, and at least one of those involved a punctured tube. Argh. The road is mostly in the middle of nowhere, I'm just glad we were close to a car shop of sorts when we really needed help. That stop was at least 45 minutes.

Eventually we got back to Windhoek. The guide dropped me off at the front door of my next accomodation, and I said goodbye.

I'd LOVE to go back to this national park. I would skip the sunrise and sunset climbs, or at least do them on different dunes. I want to see Sossusvlet when there are far fewer people around, and see more of the area in general. Plus, I loved the stars at night, I want to see more of those!