Walvis Bay, Namibia

NAMIB-NAUKLUFT PARK

ROBIN CLIMBING SAND DUNE #7

We finally seem to have left the fog behind and now I can see the Atlantic waters, the colour of tinned asparagus.  I do miss the deep sapphire of the Indian Ocean.

Yesterday though, we were on land.  Walvis (Whale) Bay was our port, but we spent all day out in the desert.  The Bay itself is vast, and is home to a massive lagoon full of wildlife, mainly birds.  The pelicans are pink, and we had hoped to see flamingoes, but they only come at a certain time of day.  

Our tour group was made up of fifteen 4X4 vehicles, each taking five passengers.  We travelled in a long convoy, and with so many driver/guides we received a lot of conflicting information at each place we visited.  e.g. the flamingoes come at high tide. And, the flamingoes come at low tide.  And depending who told the story, the tide was currently in, or, the tide was currently out.  So I apologise in advance for inaccurate information.

The guide in my vehicle looked like your typical white hunter - tall, tanned, muscled, blonde.  A hunk.  Shame his English was so poor.  A conversation with him was like talking on the phone long distance - there was always a delay as he mentally converted from one language to another.

We left the Bay behind and hit the desert, immediately confronted with the large road sign SAND.  That always cracks me up.  The roads are long, straight and flat.  There are bulldozers out every day putting back the sand around the power poles that the wind in the night has removed.  Same problem with the railway line and shifting sand.

Our first desert stop was at Sand Dune #7 (that’s the one between Dune #6 and Dune #8).  It’s supposedly one of the biggest in the world.  My guide, let’s call him Gunther, said I should take my shoes off if I wanted to climb it.  A.) Was he nuts?  Could he not see how high it was, and B) What about snakes and scorpians and other terrifying desert stuff.  He just laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it.”  In the end, the sand was too hot to walk on (that’s my excuse anyway) so I left it to Robin to attempt the climb in shoes.  The sand is incredibly fine, and comes in through the air vents of the car and settles on your clothing like diamond dust.  I was always brushing it off.

We set off along the inland road that ran parallel to the dunes, that ran parallel to the coast.  This string of dunes starts in South Africa and runs through to Angola.  Eventually we turned further inland and headed for the Namib-Naukluft Park.  An enormous moonscape made almost entirely of sandstone.  It looks impassable but we snaked our way along the dry, sandy riverbeds, stopping every now and again to have the flora (such as it was!) explained to us.  Most fascinating was the welwitchia, a prehistoric tree virtually nothing is known about.  It’s trunk grows underground, and it sprouts only two leaves in its lifetime that shred to look like many leaves.  It has seed cones so it was thought to be related to the pine, but no-one is sure.  It seems more like a palm tree to me.  There is a female and a male that grow side by side, and a little bug that pollinates them. Cool.

By now it was so hot even the car was sweating.  Gunther kept saying every 5 minutes, “It’s hot.”  Duh. Perhaps this was the only English he felt confident saying. We had air con but it was useless against the intensity of the sun.

We were all taken to an oasis for a buffet lunch.  Here a tiny stream trickles through, and plant life flourishes: grass, palms, fruit trees, olives, vegetables.  The area was established in 1840 and used to grow fruit for the ships, to stave off scurvy in the crew.

Our last stop for the day was Swakopmund, an old, colonial, German town, where Brangelina lived for a while, and gave birth to their daughter Shiloh.  It’s on the coast, and the Atlantic crashes in.  We didn’t get a chance to explore it.  Just a quick drive around, with a visit to a rug weaver, a shoe maker (shoes made from kudu and ostrich) and a gem museum/shop.  No purchases.  Our drive back to the ship was along the coast road.  Surf on one side, giant desert dunes on the other - the setting sun casting wonderful shadows on the sand.