fish river canyon & ais ais hotsprings (namibia, april 2015)

After a few nights in the Richtersveld, we were ready to head further north into the Namibian side of the Ai-Ais/Richtersveld border park. We'd been camping along the Orange River and now it was time to cross it. 

When we arrived at Ai Ais, we were a little dismayed to find that there were no cold swimming pools. It was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the only pool to be found was a hot spring that had to be about 95 degrees. Refreshing. 

After a couple of sleepless nights in still, humid heat, we were ready to see the Fish River Canyon and get outta dodge. Luckily the Canyon did not disappoint. It is the second-largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and we were both impressed. 

Crossing the mighty Orange River on this barge! 

Jim loves a boat!

Jennifer at camp. Too hot for anything but our swimmies. That rain did not make it to us, but the rainbow was pretty.

Jim at camp one morning. No rain fly on this tent - we were desperate for a breeze.

Despite the definite "parking lot" vibe, Ai Ais did grow on us.

Off for a trek! The five-day hike through the Fish River Canyon ends here - we walked a bit of the end of the trail to see what we could see. 

A beautiful kingfisher!

THE CANYON

day 9 & 10: sossusvlei and christmas day (namibia)

We spent two nights at Sesriem, and drove into Sossussvlei both mornings. The first morning, we slept in (until about 6:45am, when the sun was already hitting the tent), made coffee, and moseyed out to Sossussvlei to explore. We climbed the dune above Dead Vlei, a famous dry pan with dead trees scattered throughout that make for unique pictures. While we were there, we spotted a group climbing "Big Daddy," the tallest dune around the vlei. We decided that we'd better try to peak it during our sunrise walk the next day.

So, on Christmas morning, we woke up around 4:45, packed up camp in ten minutes, and drove over to the gate. We were the first ones out into the park when the gates opened at 5am, and we cruised out in the dark watching the stars slowly disappear and the dark outline of the dunes appear on the horizon as the sky got lighter. We parked the car an hour later, and jogged across another pan to start our climb. We huffed and puffed as quick as we could to get up to a point high enough to watch the sun rise. After resting and watching for a while, I convinced Jim to stick with our climb (we were getting tired with no one else on the dune to make tracks for us to walk in!) and we made it to the top of Big Daddy before running back down. (To get yourself off that sand dune you've worked so hard to climb, you just point your feet toward the bottom and start running! A scary feeling when it is really steep, but the sand is deep and soft and slows you down).

We have two videos from Christmas morning on YouTube: Climbing Up and Running Down.

We got a late start this morning, and it was hot, hot, hot for our climb up the dune above Dead Vlei.

Dead Vlei.

Sweating in the sun.

Just hanging around! It was really hot out, ok? We were acting a little silly.

Pool-side in the shade later on Christmas Eve. It was all we could do to keep cool.

Hurrying to the dunes on Christmas morning!

Starting the long, slow climb.

Sun is getting closer....

day 9: desert in the rain, naukluft to sesriem (namibia)

We left our beautiful private campsite in the desert to head to one of the most popular sites in Namibia: the sand dunes at Sossussvlei. It was a rainy day, which meant the temperatures were cooler and the grazing animals - oryx, springbok, wildebeest and red hartebeest - were out nearly all day.

After a few stops to take pictures and hang out with oryx and springbok on the side of the road (there are extensive fences along every major road in Namibia, but animals seemed to get past them pretty often), we arrived in Sesriem, the campsite nearest to Sossussvlei. Sesriem is the gateway to a long, narrow valley that transitions from rocky hills and grassland to the start of the amazing sand dunes of the Namib desert. At the end of the valley, 60km down a paved road and another 4km down a sand road, lies Sossussvlei. "Sossuss" means "the place where water gathers" in Nama, the primary local language of this region of Namibia, and "vlei" means "valley" in Afrikaans. So "Sossussvlei" is literally, "valley valley." We didn't make it all the way there on this day, but did climb our first dune (Dune 45, at Kilometer 45 from the campsite) and watched the sunset. This made for a few good pictures, but a harrowing drive back in the dark, racing to beat the gate (which closes an hour after sunset).

One oryx is outside the fence and the others are inside. He held his ground until we got too close, then turned and ran off, then realized he was limited by the fence, and turned and ran back at us. A lot of the oryx we saw did the "bluff" behavior, holding their ground until they realized how big our truck was.

Looking back over the Naukluft Mountains.

Now we're in the park, and the fences are gone. It had finished raining shortly before we headed out on this drive.

We liked this guy :)

The sand dunes are starting just to the right.

day 7 and 8: hiking the naukluft mountains

These days were really amazing. We got back into some territory in the Naukluft Mountains that people don't spend a lot of time in, especially during the hot summers. We took a 17-km hike one day, and an 11km hike the next, that ran in circuits along riverbeds dotted with pools and waterfalls, gradually drying out into deep canyons, and finally climbing up onto plateaus with amazing views over the desert.

We spotted a beautiful group of Hartmann's Mountain Zebra, a giant male kudu with a beautiful set of gently curling antlers, springbok, and leopard prints (and kills!). We walked through a troupe of about 60 baboons, and watched swallows build their nests.

We got incredibly lucky with the weather: spotty rainshowers meant cloudy skies, which made for much cooler hiking weather than normal. Even with the cooler temperatures we were exhausted after our two day hikes. These pictures don't really go in order, but they do give you an idea of what the park was like. Notice that there are no other people in the pictures!

Starting our first day hike, we had sunshine and beautiful views as we climbed up above the river bed. We may have actually been lost at this point - we made a few wrong turns due to the well-beaten game trails crossing over and running alongside the path, extending our hike an extra kilometer or so :)

The riverbed in early morning.

We were lucky to see a few rare desert blooms!

A view from early in our hike on day 2: this walk started with a quick ascent, so we had views within minutes of starting.

It was stunning to watch the sun and shadows skirt across the hills.

Jim at the plateau!

day 6: coast to the naukluft mountains (namibia)

After the seal colony, Jim and I spent a pleasant afternoon drinking beer at the German-style beer house in Swakopmund. The coastal town sort of hams up its colonial roots, but it was fun to wander the little European-inspired town center. And what a respite from the heat! After nearly 100-degree days, it was barely 70 next to the water in Swakopmund.

The next day, we had a nice cafe breakfast and then set off back into the desert. Most of the day was spent in the car, but the views were beautiful. We were lucky to go into this part of Namibia during the rainy season: we watched storm clouds skirt across the horizon, dropping rain in huge grey columns onto the dusty earth. We saw a big lightning storm the next day, which made us both grateful to be car camping.

One of the beach towns as seen from the salt road along the coast. All of the buildings have containers to hold water. Water is definitely always a concern in Namibia.

After a pretty dull hour or so through flat, empty sand, we started to head south toward the Naukluft Mountains, and the landscape started to get a little more interesting. The clouds studding the sky made for beautiful shadows.

One of maybe ten cars we saw in our six hours of driving that day.

These are Quiver Trees. The early inhabitants of Namibia, the San "bushmen", used the hollow branches of these trees as quivers to hold their arrows.

day 4: damaraland (namibia)

Day 4 began and ended in Damaraland, which did not involve much driving--yay!  The big hit of the day was the San art rock engravings that date from 2,000 to 6,000 years old.  The site is called Twyfelfontein, which means 'doubtful spring' because the amount of water coming out was considered to be too small for permanent human occupation.  However, the spring has continued to bubble constantly over the past 65 years or so--the time of the first white occupation following World War II.  Yes, the first white occupation was after WWII, wow--that was the time period when emigrated Germans and Afrikaners forcibly removed the native people from this land.  

Before the sun arched too high Jennifer and I climbed to the top of a large ridge line, forging a hiking trail of our own, in order to look out over the plains.  This was one of our best panoramas.  You will note the white and black surfaces that look scorched from fire, but are actually the color of exposed rock.  The white rocks are quartz and the black rocks are a volcanic intrusion that is similar to basalt.  

These vertical rock columns are called the organ pipes--you can see why--and were exposed through a stream eroding the landscape and cutting through the rock.

This is an interesting rock formation--next to the basalt intrusion on the left we have a different type of mineral form that I haven't identified.  It is shiny and gray and flakes apart in thin planes.  If you know something about this rock/mineral please let me know.  It seems to have formed in the cooling process after the magma intrusion.

This is the "burnt mountain" that is actually just exposed rock.

A rock with significant iron deposits--you can tell from the orange rust.

Very interesting to note that the white sections of this picture are actually exposed white quartz.