The Beagle, a 2008 Toyota LC on a drift across Africa, piloted by Jim (FitzRoy) and Ann Colleen.
The Beagle, a 2008 Toyota LC on a drift across Africa, piloted by Jim (FitzRoy) and Ann Colleen.
The Sand Sea dunes phenomenon is caused by the endless erosion of the dominant hills here, and winds that blows constantly.
The size, color and sheer number of these spectacular piles of sand is otherworldly. This is what Mars looks like.We know because Rover took pictures and sent them back to NASA. Now, there are those who don’t believe Rover was on Mars at all and that those photos are a hoax. Maybe these non-believers have been to Sossusvlie; this would be a good place to come to that conclusion (if you are a nut). Sossusvlie is actually the dominant pan (low spot) in the area but has become to go-to name for the dunes.
And Sossusvlie is as close as Jim and I will ever come to Mars. It will do nicely as it is much easier to get to. We arrive in camp in the afternoon and rather than hang around, we head off on the paved road to the dunes. Namibia has few paved roads, but they took the time to pave this one. Gravel and dust would be disastrous with this much traffic. 60 kilometers later we hit the sand and four-wheel around to a couple of the popular walks, scoping out what to do the following morning. We linger until dark and while the Sand Sea may at first glance seem lifeless, we see jackal, wart hog, oryx and springbok on our way back to camp.
As camp guests, we are allowed to leave for the dunes at 6am, an hour ahead of anyone else, for the advantage of the morning light and coolness. Vehicles of all types line up at the gate. Think of that country song, where the cars are lined up to the moon and back, and “. . .wouldn’t you know, some fool’d pull out to pass” (Jerry Reed sang it, in 1973). And it’s true, someone is in a hurry and passes, but no one cares.
Big Mama is our goal. It’s a worthy climb and the morning light is luscious. Sand gets into every pore and orifice and then some. At the top the wind blows sand where it hadn’t gotten to yet. The view is picturesque but I am wishing I’d left my camera in the Beagle. If I’m this covered in sand, so is the camera.
It starts to become very hot; we slide down and hang around under one of the many old acacia trees for a drink and a snack. A flock of Cape Weavers comes by; they look thirsty (who doesn’t in this freaky dry place?) so I get out the water dish and more birds come. Pretty soon there’s a huge flock and a cacophony of twitters and tweets erupts. 
An adorable little brown mouse joins the party. People come by to photograph the birds. Lizards watch – they are plain colored. No need to call attention to one’s self here. It’s a festival of life with a backdrop of red sand.
It would take a lifetime to understand this unique place. Namibia Parks doesn’t waste a lot of money on interpretative signage – they must spend it all on road maintenance. We only have a couple of days but we are suitably impressed especially on our final morning in camp when the wind stops blowing and the light is nice and we are the only people around – everyone else is off to the dunes.
We need fresh food and an internet connection which is clearly not something to be found in most of the tiny towns along our route. Neither the food nor the wifi. On a Saturday – definitely not a school day – we enter a reasonably size town and head down the main street. Two blocks later we are out of town and we find a some shade to assess the situation. There are two “camping” places, both in someone’s back yard that will work for us. One has wifi. We are in.
A crew of kids are begging at the fuel stop/store. Our visit is a novelty and we are fair game and obviously rich. This is not a new experience for us. Unsettling sometimes, but not new. We follow our own protocol – we tip the various service people, purchase something in a store or café, and don’t give anything to people begging. Ok, I step out of bounds here and I buy some peanuts to give the kids. Seconds later they are asking for money. It’s an unwinnable situation. But again, it is Saturday, there’s nothing else to do and it is unfair to judge an entire town based on a quick stop. The campground owner is sweet, the whole town quiets down by dark (except for the many barking dogs) and we leave in the morning, business taken care of and happy to be back on the road.
Campsites in Namibia can be funky (behind the fuel station) or, like farm camps, homey. We find the Lovedale farm camp at just the right time of day. Pulling in, a very big wasp immediately stings Jim. That had to hurt; the wasp was huge. I go up to find a camping site while he gets ice on the sting. I am greeted by a border collie, a three-legged black and white cat, and two Scottie dogs – I dig this place already (probably more than Jim does). We spend the night, pet the dogs, and roll on.
At the Tsauchab River camp an artist with a welding machine and access to tons of old metal parts has been extremely busy – the entire community area is filled with hilarious and ingenious sculptures. One or two of these creations might look silly, but when there are hundreds of them, it is delightful.
The Drongo campsite at Tsauchab has its ablution built directly into an enormous wild fig tree. Praying mantis the size of drones dive bomb the kitchen light. Red and black crickets walk up our legs as if we are tree trunks– and there are hundreds of them. 
The barrage of insects lasts about an hour, until 8:30pm or so, then they all seem to fade away. Except the crickets, which follow us out into the open while we try some night sky shots. They go up the tripod legs and climb on the camera. It is as if we are the entertainment in their short lives. Some of their lives were shorter than others!
Nakuflt Mountain Zebra Park is a gem, tucked away in the mountains above the Tsauchab River. A clear stream runs through the red rock walls and recent rains have turned the place sparkling green. We hike on a decent trail to swimming holes in the rocks and they are well worth the hike. Namibia here feels like an undiscovered country; this little park could be just a note in an explorer’s field journal “. . . good water here” or something.
Solitaire is our next stop before we can enter Sossusvlie. Along a major gravel road, it boasts a bakery and is a favorite stop for tour buses. Patience is a virtue here. Camping has been eliminated; we are told to go up the road to the guest farm which is outstanding in every way. Landscaping around the reception provides excellent birding and lizarding – a new word I just made up – and the lizards are as colorful as the birds. We stay two nights, why not? Sossusvlie sand dunes aren’t’ going anywhere noticeable any time soon.
Following the train tracks we head for Luderitz and the coast. Three quarters of the way there, the track becomes buried by sand. Lots and lots of sand. There are stop signs and big warnings at the numerous railway/road crossings but no train is coming through that sand. Is this track old and unneeded? Why all the signage then? A desert mystery that is solved the following day.
Luderitz is a port and fishing town. The coast is jagged whitish rock and the Shark Island camping area is right on the edge of the water, with enough campsites for 50-60 groups of people. We are the only ones there. The Park manager says “Do you have a booking?” and it is all we can do not to laugh. Shark Island camp is not really an island, but it looks directly at the real Shark Island where the luckless Nama people (updated) were interned in concentration camp conditions after their futile effort to fight the colonizers.
The town we find charming, with colorful homes – green, orange, blue, yellow. turquoise – stacked up the short hillsides and standing out nicely against the whitish rock. Huge fishing trawlers are in harbor along with a couple of sea-going yachts. Buildings dating from the early 1900s show a German (my thought) or Dutch (Jim’s thought) influence, not especially in keeping with the southwest African coastal fishing village. Walking around we find the small museum – and what a find it is.
Fish River Canyon has a “grand” reputation in Namibia as an equal to the Grand Canyon in the US. There are similarities. Like the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, the Fish River meanders through ancient layered rock carved by erosion and wind, and the viewpoints provide excellent photo opportunities. We stop at the first point and chat with a couple from Germany who, when they realize we are from the USA, ask us straight off if the Fish River canyon is better than the Grand. 
What makes one canyon better than another, I wonder? Jim is very diplomatic and says they are both wonderful. He has to say that again to the next people who ask the same question.
As expected, the pounding washboard road going into the canyon has not been improved overnight. The ugly road makes an afternoon visit uninviting so we have sunrise breakfast at the canyon’s edge and stay a long time, play a card game, enjoy the view, eat some more and finally tackle the road back to camp to get our shit rolled in a ball and moved on – like a dung beetle, Jim says. Not sure where. Maybe the park at the southern border of Namibia and South Africa. . . but we hesitate to go south, only to go north again. Straight North wins out.
The town of Aus becomes our next destination and it takes all day to get there. Jim likes the sound of Aus, it has only three letters unlike so many other towns we have been in. Towns, streets and signage mostly comprise an incomprehensible combination of many consonants and just as many vowels. Still, nearly everyone we deal with speaks the local language (usually Afrikans), English, some German, and their own dialect. It is humbling to hear the waitress switch languages from one table to the next.
Aus is as simple as its spelling; a nice old hotel, a fuel stop, and a camping area in the back of the fuel stop. We pull in at 5pm, happy to stop driving. The railway line still runs through Aus and in its heyday the town served the giant diamond industry in Kolmanskop outside Luteritz. The lovely Banoff hotel has a train, a diamond and a quiver tree on its logo, covering all the bases.
Is anybody coming? I ask Jim as I drive onto the highway out of our first campsite in Namibia. Not in the last two days, he says – ha! Welcome to Namibia!
After spending the obligatory two nights in the Kalaghadi Transfrontier Park we are in a new country. We would have spend many more nights in Kalaghadi Park but it is no longer an undiscovered arid transfrontier park. There is no room for us here, the campgrounds and chalets are packed.
Which is funny as you can drive for half a day and only see one vehicle. It takes us 10 hours to cover the 110 kilometers from Two Rivers to Kalaghari Tented Camp, bumping along the track, seeing all sorts of creatures. Two of those 10 hours are spent parked at the 13th borehole. There’s a bit of shade and a good view. I download some photos, read my John Reader book, and Jim takes a nap. You cannot get out of your car. A wildebeest comes by for a drink. 
Birds come and go. I’m not nearly as frantic as in the past to identify every bird I see. We’ve got two years; we will probably see another one of those. How relaxing this is.
We know how lucky we were to have spent over three weeks in KTP in 2013 with Adrian and Rentia – the four of us traveled the length and breadth of it, from Rooiputs to Mata Mata, to Swart Pan and Mabuashahube, an experience not likely to be repeated. It is a fabulous green park this time of year and as a parting gift we have our morning coffee with a male lion lounging in front of us.
Mata Mata is a hot and sleepy border crossing. The South Africans take our firewood – even though it is Namibian hardwood. Go figure. The Namibian border guard is ok with stamping our carnet, but only after I point it out to him. The carnet insures that we will bring the Beagle back to South Africa instead of selling it in some other country. A substantial deposit was put down for the carnet and I’m not risking losing that because a border guard was too lazy to do the stamp. Sometimes you gotta insist. I’m sure there will be more adventures at border crossings.
OK, for the record, nearly all of the Mesosaurus remains found on Dr. Geit Steenkamp’s Spitskop farm are not fossilized bone but are the imprints of bodies laid down in the mud of a shallow sea that stretched from Africa to South American. Break open the right piece of grey slate rock and you may find a perfect impression of this primitive animal when it died and was covered in a layer of fine ash 250 million years ago.
Mesosaurus in the billions lived and died in the muddy sea and they have become the primary evidence that the continents were once joined and then split apart. Mesosaurus fossils and imprints have been found in Brazil and here on Spitskop farm, and they are exactly the same.
Believe it or not, it has only been since the late 1940s that science concluded it wasn’t just coincidence that the western coastline of Africa and the eastern coastline of South America were matched pieces of a puzzle. There is no coincidence in nature. Imagine Geit’s surprise when the strange rock his son found turned out to be more evidence of plate dynamics. He and his son lead entertaining tours on their property on yet another journey back in time on our trip through Africa.
Geit’s bush camp is rated highly and for good reason. It is neat, clean, has hot water and for a bonus, there’s a Sociable Weaver nest in the tree at our site. We follow him in the Beagle out onto the farm and stop at the grave of a German soldier killed in an attack by the indigenous Nama people in 1907 – another depressing story of colonial expansion in Africa. But I digress. The imprinted fossil remains Geit shows us are truly astonishing in their detail and we have a blast exclaiming over this one and that one. Paleontologists assume there are endless remains to be found here. Geit agrees with me that it is in the looking for them that lays the pleasure. At least when it isn’t blazing hot out.
Dolerite rocks are the other attraction on the tour. Lava that didn’t quite make it all the way to the surface cooled just below, and as time went on the ground above the cooled dolerite eroded and exposed the material. The gigantic stones were left carefully stacked on each other, a sculpture garden courtesy of time. We hang around after Geit plays a tune on the rocks – he is really a good tour guide – and try to capture the view of the rocks and Quiver Trees. With over 5,000 Quiver Trees on the property and who knows how many rocks (haha) I give up and instead focus on these crazy crickets – aren’t they cute?
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