My kind of camping

We left Luderitz last week much as when we had arrived, calm with little wind. Amazing. We stopped at Kolmanskop, the abandoned diamond mining town ten kilometers down the road that we have been to several times before. It was incredibly fun walking through the sand dunes inside the buildings to take photos. Further down the B-4 highway, we stopped when Russ spotted several wild horses in the distance. In fact it turned out to be almost fifty animals of different family groups, older stallions and week-old foals. Spectacular. We finally arrived in Aus, the shortest drive of this ten-day adventure which paradoxically took more than six hours from when we left the coast.

Klein Aus Vista is one of our favorite places in all of Namibia. We stayed two nights in the Geister Schlucht (Ghost House), a wonderful rustic cabin with full kitchen, bunk rooms, composting toilets and hot showers. Rosemary and I both agreed that this is our kind of camping. The towering red rocky kopjies cast shadows over the fields of blond grass stretching as far as the eye can see. The silence of the desert was positively deafening. Our friends fell in love with it too and our days were filled with hikes, bonfires, good conversations, photography, and painting (notably Zane who has been sketching the entire trip). Not since the Drakensberg in February have Russ and I done so much hiking, so it was about time to get the lead out. One morning, he got up in the middle of the night to hike the mountain behind us for the morning sun to rise up from the horizon. Then we climbed the neighboring hill to watch it set. We were sad when we had to leave two days later, as we all agreed we could spend at least a week more here.

We drove further north into the Namib desert where we were back to sleeping on the ground thirty kilometers outside of Sesriem, which is the gateway to Soussesvlei, perhaps the most recognizable landmark in Namibia with its imposing shifting red dunes. Our campsite was a bit of a disappointment after all the fantastic places we have stayed. Billing itself as “luxury camping”, it was nothing more than a concrete shelter that we crammed our tents under. Nevertheless, the view was spectacular and on a holiday weekend, we were lucky to have even this.

Easter morning found us on top of one of the oldest and highest dunes in the world just after the sun came up. A mist rose from the coast, and left an eerily beautiful cover over the dunes for much of the early morning. It also allowed us to climb without being exhausted. We spent the day in the park. It’s hard to describe Soussesvlei; the dunes are immense, deep red with extraordinary contrast, and larger than they first appear. One must experience it to fully appreciate it. They are like nothing else in the world.

Now in the last leg of our trip, we are finally discovering the finer points of our cameras, realizing they can do much more than we thought. Too bad that did not happen earlier, but better than not learning at all. We still have more to learn, but taking hundreds of photos to try it all out.

The dynamics of the group are going well. In some ways, it is like a big family where everyone has their particular routines and nuances. There are of course minor irritations, but we are getting along pretty well, given that we have been with each other 24/7 for the past eight days. We are now in Windhoek for the eating, drinking, and shopping tour, which kicked off with dinner at Joe’s Bierhouse last night.