About four hours on C Roads.
I’m getting to know them a little better and can navigate around most of
the major washboards and sharp rocks lurking everywhere, like IED’s trying to
sabotage my trip.
At long last, we arrive at the Namib Desert Lodge, tucked
against a range of petrified red dunes.
As the hostess, a lovely giraffe-like young woman with honey-colored
skin, led us to our room, we came upon a small herd of about 14 oryx, standing
there just a few meters from our door, just on the other side of the tiny wire
fence.  |
| Mr. Oryx munching the lawn, just outside our room. |
Wild, not tame like the springbok
that tried to eat the rubber insulation on my Nissan back in
Helmeringhausen. As I stepped to have
Mimi take an iPhoto of me and my oryx posse, my sudden motion sent them
clipping and clopping in a cloud of dust.
Oh well.
The lodge lies just ten km or so south of Solitaire, a town
that reminds us of Alice Springs in the Australian outback, only much, much
smaller.
Before dinner, which was our new traditional cracker,
cheese, apple slices, we went on a short stretch-the-legs hike of 1.5 km out
into the dunes. Gorgeous, absolutely
quiet, but for the sounds of birds and the wind through the scrub plants.
Sossusvlei, the number one tourist attraction in Namibia, is
quite a bit farther than I had bargained for, at 70 km on a dirt road, a 15 km
turn toward the red dunes, and then 65 more km on a paved (tarred) road. On the maps it looked so close!
Anyhow, we planned to travel there and try to catch the
sunrise, advertised as the time to be there.
As the clock struck whatever, and we tried to shake the gin and tonic
cobwebs from our addled brains, we agreed that probably Sossusvlei would be
better the next day. A big advantage to
staying three nights at our destinations is that we have the flexibility and
don’t need to push, push, push.
Instead, we rose a couple hours later, breakfasted, (Oh, so
colonialist!) and packed the backpacks for the 5.5 km hike up into the
mountains. The first section
incorporated the 1.5 km hike trail, so no problem. And then we started climbing. And climbing.
And, well, slogging through the loose sand, filling the socks and shoes
in red granules, and, as the temperature rose, we struggled, hearts pounding
like a Jeep on a washboard road, to make it to the top. But, make it we did! A grand view.
After turning back to re-trace the out-and-back trail, two
German couples, young (our age) were heading up. It was about 35 degrees C, 95 F, and we asked
if they had water. Nein. So we gave them our two bottles, half-full,
and felt good about our samaritanism.
We spent the remainder of the day chilling by the pool,
reading our books, relaxing after the hike.
We both got the heart rates up pretty high on the last section to the
summit, but Mimi’s cheeks stayed bright red until well after dinner, 8 hours
later!
A nice dinner buffet.
Well, they give you a starter-pizza, and the dessert-custard squares,
and you help yourself to the buffet.
Best offering was the eland stew.
Yum. Eland is a kind of buck, you
know, like a kudu only larger.
OK, early to bed so we can rise and get on the road for that
2.5 hour drive to Sossusvlei. At 4:45,
we concurred that the whole “Be there for sunrise” thing is probably just hype,
so we turned over and slept another hour or so.
We WERE on the road by 6:30, however with the sharply slanting sunrays
coming through gaps in the mountains to our left.
We arrived at the end of the 2-wheel drive section and chose
to take the safari vehicle to shuttle the final 6 km to Dead Vlei, the most
spectacular of the locations. Wow. Double wow!
It still takes about a km walk through sand to get into the
vlei, a dry pan in the desert that sometimes (as in when it rains, which is
once every two years or so) fills with water.
I think the same feature is called a subqah in Saudi.
Anyhow, as you come over a rise, you look down on this
ghostly site of scores of dead, blackened tree trunks, skeleton-like, scattered
on a bone-white bowl of a surface, surrounded 360 by bright red/orange dunes,
and all of this scene lies under the bluest cobalt sky I have ever seen. Triple wow!
I took about 600 photos, so I’m hoping at least a few can
convey the scope and color of this Cinerama Spectacle.
After tramping about for a couple hours, we (Mimi) decided
to climb one of the dunes. I felt I’d
had enough dune bashing the previous day, but couldn’t say no. This dune was gracefully curving to the right
and rose steadily, but not sharply.
 |
| Intrepid explorer Mimi Wixted |
 |
| A bevy of Ostriches sprinting across the rocky Namib Desert surface |
Tomorrow, it’s back to city life as we head the 5 hours on a
C Road to Swakopmond. See ya then.
