On Dry Land

We camped for 4 nights at Sesriem Campsite in the Namib. No matter how long we stay, it’s always hard to leave that place. There’s just something about the desert and the sea of endless sand dunes. And I do like being hot and dry!

Days at Sesriem mostly consist of watching the sun rise over the dunes while I drink coffee and read, with occasional visits by springbok who graze on the scrubby, dried out bits of grass. We got up at 4:30 one morning to be at Sossusvlei dunes for sunrise and climbed up the crest of a new dune (one that is pictured on our kitchen wall). The heat of the day is spent mostly lounging. Every afternoon we head back to Sossusvlei for sunset photography.

Sesriem really is in the middle of nowhere. Our next destination is Etosha National Park, which is 2-3 days driving north through a landscape that changes from one kind of desert to another: red dune desert … ancient eroded rocky mountains and dry river canyons … shifting white sand moonscapes along the south Atlantic coast … Mars-like expanses of grey flatness that reach the sea … and rocky desert with random single mountains jutting up out of nowhere. We spent the first night in a coastal tourist town called Swakopmund (between the moon and Mars). This is where city people from Windhoek come to cool off in the ocean wind (and it is a wind, not a breeze) and ride ATVs in the dunes. We stayed a cute little inn called Sam’s Giardino, run by a Swiss man who is really into cooking, reading, and wine. He’s created an Italian style courtyard garden with flowers, fish in a pond, and a huge Bernese mountain dog.

Driving through Damaraland on the main tourist route was a bit of an odd experience. We passed few villages, but quite a few small camps where people were living in tin shacks or twig huts, trying to flag down vehicles to sell rough sculptures made out of twigs or pieces of coloured crystal they find in the desert. There were also Himba and Herero women in full traditional garb (or lack of, in the case of the Himba, who dress mostly in ochre paint) who were trying to flag us down. They were twirling and modeling their outfits, and it seems they probably wanted to charge a fee to have a photo taken with a “tribal.” I suppose it could be seen as enterprising, or no different than a Western fashion model, but somehow it felt more like driving through a red light district where people were selling “culture” instead of sex. 

The next night we camped at a lodge on a private game reserve in the Damaraland region (rocky, hilly desert). We had the campground to ourselves. This place has three captive cheetahs, which you can feed for a fee. We passed on that. Next stop: Etosha.