Hot desert winds

We said goodbye to the zebras and giraffes of Etosha and headed off toward the coast and, ironically, the desert. The landscape shifted from forest and hills to the bleak moonscapes of diamond mining territory to dunes before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. (It seems so strange to me to think of this ocean as the Atlantic, so far from the part of it where I grew up.)

We spent a night in a coastal town called Walvis Bay, mostly to do some overdue errands and spot flamingos on the beach. Then we made haste for the Namib Desert. The drive through rocky desert, dry plains, and mountains on the gravel highway made the trip worthwhile before we even reached our destination. It was hard to get anywhere because we kept stopping to take pictures!

We camped for 3 nights at a place called Sesriem, in Namib-Naukluft National Park. The park is a combination of the rocky Naukluft Mountains and the sandy Namib Desert – the rocky outcrops from tectonic shifts are to the east and colourful sand dunes go west all the way to the ocean. There is nothing in Sesriem except the campsite, a lodge, and – oddly – the best internet connection we found yet.

It is crazy hot here in the Namib. Today was 42 degrees Celsius in the shade. The winds are so hot they burn and it feels like being inside a convection oven. They also stir up wild dust storms that fill the sky with haze (and even a dust rainbow). We didn’t expect to see animals in such a place, but there are loads of ostrich (improbable creatures themselves), oryx, and springbok, and a few jackals.

We’ve been driving out to see the dunes morning and afternoon to catch them in the nice light of dawn and dusk. The sunset on the dunes is hard to believe. They turn colours of red, orange, purple, blue, pink, and yellow. The sand on the high dunes is very red in general, and the lower plains in between are yellow. We climbed up on some dunes to look at views of more, as well as a few mineral pans in the valley below. It is amazing to stand on the crest of a giant sand dune with nothing to see but sand in all directions. Also amazing to run down the steep sandy sides and run through the dune valley as the sun goes down.*

The park gates close an hour after sunset and the best dunes are 60km away, so we can’t stay out on the dunes as long as we would like or we’ll be stuck out there. (Actually, we have everything we need, so that wouldn’t be so back and we seriously considered getting “stuck” overnight.)

Once again, we will be sad to leave this place.

*Actually, even just running for 5 minutes felt amazing after so much car time. With no predators here, despite shocking numbers of antelope, so we can get out and walk around – when it’s not too hot.