Bearish Bumbles

08/26: Thimbi Thimbi Days One and Two

Category: Bumbling | Posted by: Cads

The safari that we had booked was for 12 days - travelling through the Dunes area of Namibia (made recently famous by Brangelina) and then back to Windhoek for one night before ripping north through Etosha, into the Okavango Delta and then to the Caprivi Strip, winding up in Livingstone, Zambia.

Knowing that we had a lot of road to cover and a lot of things to do and see, we were still a little surprised by some of the early starts (a couple of them at 4:30am!!). We were traveling with 6 others and 2 guides, and camping most of the way in tents provided.

Day one kicked off with a trip across Namibia through everchanging scenery to the Sesreim Camp. If you are like me, the only impression that you have is that Namibia is desert with big dunes. No-one seems to mention the endless crossing of dry river beds that get so swollen in the rainy season that for 2-3 days, entire villages get flooded. The middle of the country is a dry place with little water but much vegetation, and large geophysical differences. There are mountainous rocks, trees growing in dried-up river beds, and so many different shades of brown and khaki. It is truly like traveling through several different countries just to get to the famous bit. I wish that I had known the massive contrasts of this country before - I would have come here a long long time ago. Sunset over the dunes is glorious - and it is weird to watch a sunset by its effect on the land, rather than the sky. We saw the sun set over a dune, but more dramatic is the way the colours change and fade on the desert to the east. The pinks in the sky are turned scarlet by the sand and slowly the dark blue of the night fades to black as the colour drains from the surrounding mountains.

Day two was a fast wake up and start with a drive into the dunes to see a sunrise. This was our first inkling of the nature of the tour. It would seem that some people don't do mornings. And with Piglet in a fair amount of pain from her back (and starting a cold, would you believe), 6:30 was possibly a little harsh. But it was needed, and well worth the effort. I just wish that we as a group could have gotten our act together a lot faster and made the early mornings easier for us all. It doesn't seem that hard to me that you get everything sorted the night before, and then you just have a sleeping bag to pack in the morning before stripping the tent down. Oh well...

Sunrise cracks like a diamond over the disant mountains. A slog up a steep dune gives a great vantage point and the cold (about 2-3 degrees celsius) is gently warmed as the rays reach out over the desert. Dunes are amazing. The knife edges of sand that is blown constantly are precise and as sharp as the sand is soft. Even the National Geographic photographs don't get anywhere near close to how the real thing is. There is a stark richness to this land. A red beauty that in its harshness softens the soul and moulds you to the land. Sand gets everywhere - in your eyes, your shoes, your pockets and just about every nook and cranny. But it is not an uncomfortable feeling. It is a feeling of one-ness. Of returning. Of the land.

After a fairly hasty breakfast we are off into the deeper dunes. Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei. The vleis are lakes that have evaporated leaving a hard pan of crust behind. Better to drive on whatever hard pan there is than get stuck in the sand. After we extricated 3 successive cars from the sand (including our own), we continued on to the white lakebed that is Dead Vlei. A march over about a kilometer of red sand doesn't really prepare one for the sight of dead black trees trapped in the white pan for half a millenium under the glare of the sun. The trees are petrified. Held there rigid by their long-dead root systems under the cement of salt pan. It is an ethereal, eerie feeling that is broken and made cinematic rather than real by the incongruences of tourists. Would that I had come here alone, parched, crying for moisture. Would that I had Vultures circling my fading body. Would that this was as real in my body as it is in the belly of the dunes. A vague ache in my legs and my eyes hurting from the squint is all that held me close to the agony of this arid place.

That afternoon saw us travel to Sesreim Canyon for another beautiful sunset. Sesreim Canyon has water. Not that you'd want to drink it with the dead birds in it, but it has a puddle that is about 2-3 meters in diameter which doesn't dry up all year round. The water seeps into the rocks and comes out closer to the coast, but here there is a puddle that shows that Namibia and the Namib-Naukluft desert is not just one layer of dryness on top of another. Here there is hope. Here there is moisture and the promise of moisture to come. The Canyon is small. It is not Fish River or the Grand Canyon. It is more the alley between two plateaus that have been softly cleaved by erosion. Hyaena come here. A Vulture has its nest here. It is the gate that ties life and the desert together and hides from the sun those that seek shade. It takes 6 lengths of rope to pull water from this canyon when it is in full flood. But today we can walk through the bed of the river, see the tracks of the animals and climb on dry rocks that have tumbled here from the walls. I have become a tourist. I see the canyon and it is another image for my memory. It takes an effort of will to realise how remote and dangerous this is.

Tonight we camp once more before heading to Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. The moon comes out, along with the jackals, and I again feel part of the universe, and not just an observer. The sky and the sounds of night are real because I hear them through the walls of the tent and I am separated from them. Each scratch is a frisson of fear that keeps me alive as I slip into sleep.