Part 3: Fish River Canyon to Sesriem...

Day 7 Oct. 13

Last night's canyon visit was indeed spectacular. It is hard to describe to one who wasn't there so I'll rattle off a few stats: The Fish River Canyon is supposedly the second largest canyon in the world. It's over 120 kilometers long, 27 kilometers across at its widest point and over half a kilometer deep. We hiked three kilometers along its rim looking into its depth to watch the nearly-dry Frish River snake its way through the bottom.

The layers of strata were coloured mixtures of brown, deep red, and ochre. Thge entire canyon was painted golden by the sunset we stayed to watch. It was a very nice, quiet moment. We saw a large scorpion on the conyon rim and springbok as we drove back to camp.

Early this morning as we drove across the scrubby desert plain with its dark mesas rising in the distance we saw a flock of female ostriches racing along. We also startled a few more Springbok.

Our destination is Sesriem and the dunes of the Namib desert. As I'm finding with the wildlife and the conyon, the stark beauty of Namibia hides many gems. You have only to scratch the barren surface
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I'm sitting at our camp-site now surrounded by miles of maize-yellow plains broken only by the hunter-green of the ancient camel-thron trees and the jagged spine of the Tsaris mountains. After driving for some time across the scrubland we arrived in this striking landscape at Sesriem near the edge of the great Namib desert.

On the horizon are the salmon-pink dunes we will be exploring tonight. My fascination is held byt eh mountains. Thsi is where the Zebra River Lodge ois and these are the ranges I will be trekking in. The rock is steep and looks like it will make for exhiliarating scrambles. The surroundings are a welcome change from the desert scrub-land I've seen so much of.

En route we saw more ostriches and sprinbok. I feel I'm getting a strong sense of Namibia as a place of shifting landscape and hidden beauty. I must admit though, these places have an abundance of tourists that I did not expect.

Day 8 Oct. 14

Last night I had my first true glimpse of the Namibia I came here to see. We drove to the begginning of the dunes and watched the sunset over the Tsaris mountains. The mountains were painted a deep rusty-red by the light and the yellow grass and the green Camel Thorns were radiant across the plains. It was an unforgetable moment and one which inspires oneself to leap for joy and shout 'Viva Africa!' at the top of their lungs. Gone were the barren and unremarkable scrub-lands, now I only see the astounding beauty of the land.

That night, after dinner, everyone was startled by a huge and fast spider. It looked exactly like the one that startled me in the Sahara and we learned today that it's harmless, lives in the sand and is called a "dancing white land spider".

We had a very active and eventful day today in the clay-oven that is Namibian summer. We were up early in the morning to climb Dune 45 in the Sossuvlei. It was 160 meters high and quite the hike to get to the top. The sunrise was beautiful from behind the pink dunes.

After a good breakfast we 4x4ed off into the desert with our guide Boesman ("Bushman"). He basically taught us how to survive in the desert (how to catch a lizard for example) and taught us many things about the Bushman culture that used to flourish in the desert. The name 'Bushman' derives from when the men used to defend their territory by firing arrows at the enemy from behind bushes.

Survival in the desert is harsh and the culture had occasion to abandon the elderly and small children in bad times. When a child was abandoned they were left behind and the rest would turn their back and never look back or speak of the child again. That night the mother would stay on the smoky side of the fire to hide her tears. The bushman say that if you open a bushwoman;s heart you will find many fires. Some go out with age bu that child left behind will always remain a fire.

The Bushmen worshipped the moon and believed that good people, upon death, go there. Bad people inhabit hyenas and unhappy people become dust devils forever looking for happiness.

Boesman provided so much information, I'm eager to find out more on my own. Sadly the cultre was exterminated by others. Up until the 20th Century it was still egal to hunt them for sport.

As we drove to our new campsite we stopped off at Sesriem canyon. It had a sandy bottom and was scultped into fascinating formations.. It took photos but kind of wished I had black and white loaded for the occaision.

It's been a long and wonderful day but I'm tried now and the flies are driving me mad. Tomorrow a real bed in Swakupmund!