Hoanib 3: Finally, we have sundowners

Dear all,

We had our official game drive this morning – went down to the riverbed and travelled along it to see what would come to feed on the trees and bushes that grow here. We found the lions once more – against the laws of all probability. In fact, I was rather chuffed because we had been watching “boring birds” – helmeted guineafowl (I knew you wanted to know), which always seem quite stressed out, running madly across a dune (yes, a dune in the riverbed, it's very complicated) when someone noticed two ears … cat ears… a cat face! And there they were again - the two ladies and the three youngsters. Here they were being all cool beach cats lying on a dune with full bellies and faces pink from last night’s bloody repast (probably a gemsbok). We hung out with them for a while before going off to hunt the elephants which we knew had remained in the floodplains. The drive was again very difficult, because we kept having to stop: here a gemsbok, there a springbok, oh look baboons playing on the cliffs (they flushed a barn owl out of a hole, quite a sighting to see one during the day, and as the non-birders pointed it, we had only seen it because we were watching mammals… touché), and yet another giraffe pretending to be part of the cliff… and then we’d start all over again with a gemsbok. We had our mid-morning tea in the floodplains watching the ellies having theirs in the distance.

That afternoon (after lunch and siesta and tea God forbid we should starve before dinner), we finally had our official sundowner trip - during which we ended up on the top of the mountains of the moon.

We began with watching the traffic come out of the riverbed: you know how during peak hour traffic you can be sitting at a stop street trying to cross over and you look left and right and there’s a long line of cars that just don’t stop coming past and you get all irritated?

This wasn't like that.

We stopped near the edge of the river’s cliff walls and watched as a seemingly unending line of springbok emerged head-first, then shoulders and finally rump – up from a path that was hidden from us but clearly scaled the sheer walls of the riverbed – and then plodded past us up over a mountain and disappeared.

We then drove down into the riverbed and, with a roar of the engine, up that vertical wall on the other side and into a scene of such barrenness that I took a deep breath; instinctively I felt there should be no air here, that I had left earth and had arrived on the moon.

Unlike the moon however, the gravel plains are swirling with dust or silt that is blown up from the riverbed by the prevailing wind, eventually landing to cover the bare contours of the land like water does the ocean floor. Here and there, a rock rears up from this layer, island-like. The sighing and whistling of the wind is the only sound. And yet, as always, life there is: one or two sturdy plants bravely show their faces and a lot of tracks tell us that animals have passed this way before.

Papa G explains some geological wonder to us around sundowners

We drive through these plains and into the hard, black mountains on the north side of the river. As the sun begins to set, we stop and get out, taking the table and drinks with us, and climb to a high point from which there is a 360-degree view of rock and sand and wind. No bird call breaks the silence. It is as if the world is yet to be born, the third day of Creation yet to come, the song of abundance – the “peru urevu” mandate of God to all life – yet to be sung. On the top of this proto-world we toast each other with good cheer, examine lichen of different hues and say over and over again “isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it amazing?” “Isn’t it, I don’t know how to express it, wonderful?” Indeed, it is inexpressible.

All too quickly, the sun disappears and colour – even the browns and reds – begins to seep from the rock and earth. The brilliant orange of the sky fades last so that the world is now monochrome: black silhouette against blood-orange in the west and blue-purple in the east. The outline is again minimalist – jagged edges and straight lines broken only when we once again descend into the living world of the riverbed by a few lively shapes of trees.

Our time at Hoanib ended the next morning with various admin bits (seeing the solar panels and other cool stuff that makes this camp 100% solar, chats to Emsie who is researching brown hyaena and Clement the manager, saying thanks to everyone, particularly all the lovely chefs who made my delicious food), as well as a walk down the valley, via the remains of Strandloper settlements (Strandlopers lived in the area probably about 500 years ago) and up a convenient mountain (well, it was a small one) to take in that view for the last time across the gravel plains, ancient river valleys, the riverbed; from this angle we could just see the tops of the ana trees peeking out over the cliff walls. Just a few birds calling in the clear air added a weightlessness to an otherwise grounded walk.

All too soon we had to echo them and rise into the sky to wing our way northwards to the end of Namibia and an unusual water-filled river. But that, as they say, is another blog.

Skeleton Coast: Not your average drive to the beach

Dear all,

The early morning pre-dawn is ghostly in the waning moonlight that struggles to peer through the fog. The tang of the sea is in my nostrils, even here, 50 km from the coast. It’s all very evocative here, lots of evoking going on right left and centre. And the Fog is, like Terry Pratchett’s Death, a character, a personality of note: it is the defining feature of the area – without it there is almost no moisture other than some very half-hearted sporadic rains every few years. But the Fog is not your common or garden misty stuff. It can be “low,” blanketing the land lovingly with low visibility, or it can be a “high fog” (possibly called cloud in other places, let’s face it). It hangs around all day sometimes, except for a two-hour window that allows planes to fly in that time. The faint tang of moisture in the air that it brings adds texture to that silence that blasts the eardrums with the absence of noise.

We were off to the Skeleton Coast today, a fascinating journey through five different habitats, starting with driving along the Hoanib riverbed which has cut through the earth so that there are sheer cliff-like walls with horizontal layers of compacted sand and clay rising up on either side; when it floods, the water carves out a little more of the wall and you don’t want to stand too close to the edge of this cliff. It’s early yet and also darker because of the Fog, so no-one has “shown up for work” as Papa G says – in other words, the animals move away from the cold riverbed at night and return in the morning to browse on the trees, grasses and bushes in the day.

After a while, the walls draw nearer together, but are not as high as they were, just above the height of our vehicle and it is at this moment that Ken at the back shouts, “Lion!” Lo and behold, the last two of the Five Musketeers (see previous day's events) are lying on the edge of the cliff wall, heads up and ears pricked watching us intently as we scramble for cameras and Papa G reverses madly, saying “Shhh!” and generally trying to keep our yells of delight down. Apparently, these two had become separated from the rest of the pride the week before and possibly were trying to find their way back to their mothers again – we could have told them ourselves where to go, but we don’t speak Big Cat. Papa G informed Flip the researcher that the two were here and looked in good health. He beamed at us; as he had told us yesterday, if you see lion once in a week here you’re very lucky so this was really special. Very regal they looked, except that their manes are still a bit scruffy and sparse so their cubness is stronger than their Trafalgar Square look.

We watched them watching us for a while before moving on to where such determined, aggressive river erosion ended and the floodplains began. Now this is bizarre: in the middle of a desert is a large flat expanse that is filled with greenery – a lot left over from the ‘flood’. In January 2015, for the first time in 20 years, the river came down so strongly that it was indeed a flood, roaring through the riverbed, gouging out some of the cliff walls on the bends, before spreading out into the furthest reaches of these flat plains causing a flurry of green everywhere, so much in fact that months later, the green has remained. Then, for the first time in many a year, the water pushed right through the dune fields, breaking down dunes like a wave does a child’s sandcastle, to end a little while later, running out of steam (or should I say stream har har) before it could reach the river mouth at the sea.

So we drove through the greenness that was edged in turn by bare black rock and golden dunes rising above it all round – a 360-degree anomaly. And above that black and brown frame lay the Fog, pressing down and rolling over the dunes so that we seemed to be on a strange planet utterly different to all we’ve seen before.

If so though, we seemed to have brought some ellies with us as we saw some in the distance munching away contentedly on this lingering largess.

On we bounced, admiring the “desert tiles” – large cracked clay across the desert floor – and strangely shaped or coloured rocks, red shot through with black, all around us; words like ‘metamorphic granite,’ ‘sediment,’ and other geological terms were made real for me as the earth’s achingly slow history was revealed layer by layer.

We finally emerged from the thick grey-green into beige sand – not yet golden as the Fog kept the colours muted, but it was getting there, the sun manfully trying to get through somewhere in the brightening gloom above us – and now it was the turn of the almost endless dunes: smooth sand-waves rising up and over, with tufts of grass and sturdy bushes here and there, all doing the evocative thing again.

And then suddenly, magical words were shouted: “Brown hyaena!” – an almost-never sight: a shaggy brown doglike creature peered at us before lolloping away (I’m trying to find the best word for the way this hyaena runs – all four paws moving in the opposite direction to its legs, flip-floppy like) – luckily in the same direction as the road we were taking. So we followed, stopping to snap madly at the blur, gesticulate and smile delightedly at one another (even those who might have thought that this was normal got the gist when they saw the two guides high five each other later). On and on she or he ran and we would stop to let him or her go (we never did find out which it was) only to find our paths crossing again. No vegetation meant that we got a clear view and watched as he/she then began to scent-mark like mad, peeing with enthusiasm on a two-week-old oryx skull, in a rare patch of grass, a bush – clearly he had an agenda but who knew what it was? – before leaving us and disappearing theatrically over a dune.

It was in this heightened ecstasy that we continued to roar up dunes (almost getting stuck adds that frisson) and down until at the top of one of the highest we jumped out for coffee and a protein bar and to congratulate ourselves (as if we had anything to do with it) on that sighting.

Here though, the silence took over. Reigned absolute. The only movements were that of one grain of sand dropping a millimetre, no, a nanometre, to one side or another. Once again I was aware of the millions of years of our planet encapsulated – and yes I mean in a small capsule of time – right here. Minuscule movements of the bones of this Earth, each one taking more than a lifetime of a puny human being, so that over the aeons, rocks are ground down, their remains moved and mixed, creating more mountains and gorges, dunes and ocean floors, a rift and a continent.

All this, one grain at a time.

Well, after that little epiphany, we dropped off the edge of the dune. No, really. The said dune edge is almost a right angle downwards to the ‘floor’ and Papa G was going to drive down it. Vertically. But he suggested that we might like to slide down ourselves, so Ken, Michael and I took it on. Sadly, sliding elegantly is an oxymoron; you have to sit on your bum and use all four limbs to push yourself downwards – the sand is so thick you can’t slide. But after working up a bit of speed, about halfway down, the sand beneath us began to vibrate – and to roar. There are dunes known as the roaring dunes, and a bit of this was happening now: grains in fact have air between them and move against each other and the air to create a metallic roaring sound (in our case bum-generated) that vibrated through us. If it wasn’t basically impossible to climb back up, we would have done it again. As it was, we lay at the bottom panting and emptying our shoes and socks of half the Namib Desert.

On through the dunes we went, a boat-car sailing the waves of sand, the Fog finally lifting and in the distance ahead of us, a deeper line of blue that grew as we approached, until we finally arrived at the rocky coast of the Atlantic. Very rocky, goodness me so many rocks. Oh wait, a whole bunch of them are Cape fur seals. What gave it away is that no self-respecting rock would ever smell or sound like that. That master of words, Terry Pratchett, said that Foul Ol' Ron had a smell that was in fact physical, it could stop you cold, going straight from the nose to the tummy. And the noise! Petulant and aggressive, bleating and blaring, noses pointing skywards, flippers waving snootily. (Did remind me of some brochas I’ve been to…) We don’t spend nearly enough time there, but the noses tended to agree with Papa G when he suggested we leave. A pathetic bloody seal carcass at the edge of the colony was testimony to lives brutish and short in this harsh place.

We stopped off at Möwe Bay to see the museum – of the old style: whale bones, human skulls, unidentified things floating in bottles, and a lot of things that came from the shipwrecks; this coast is known as the Skeleton Coast mainly for the skeletons of boats and ships that came to a nasty end here – the people that survived the wreck didn't always survive the land either - reminding us just how thin a thread our lives are spun on. The whale bones also hint at its name – the coast had some whaling past, as did much of southern Africa’s coastline.

We didn't stay long here either (only serious nerds like myself might feel the need), as we went to visit one of the most recent shipwrecks, the Suiderkus, which beached itself Titanic-like on its maiden voyage for no reason that anyone can fathom. Many of the shipwreck remains aren’t really wreck-like any more; thanks to the harsh weather and water, erosion takes its toll so you’re left with just some unprepossessing rusting steel plates and that sort of thing. The Suiderkus however still looks like half a boat as it was only wrecked in the 70s. The Skeleton Coast, methinks, is no longer really about the skeletons of ships that wrecked themselves on the unforgiving rocks in the insensible Fog. The name now could denote the land itself: the place where the bones of Mother Earth are laid bare. And where we recognise in the grains our origins. It is the stuff of which we are drawn and to which we return.

We walked away from the wreck, waves crashing on the rocks, the kelp seaweed that thrives in this cold Benguela current on the west coast of Africa waving its fronds out the foaming water at us. Cormorants and gulls called and the wind was a constant, a counterpoint noise behind those of the ceaseless waves … when there, on a lonely stretch of sand and shells in the next bay, was a table set for lunch, wineglasses and all. There was even some delicious tuna pasta and salad for me! So we sat in the middle of one of the most spectacularly lonely stretches of beach to be found on Earth, in front of the wildest of waters, with only the cormorants, kelp fronds and gulls for company, sipping wine or water and eating cheese and crackers for dessert, a decaying ship in the distance.

Evocative indeed.

I could have stayed for hours but the aircraft was sposed to land any time to take us back to Hoanib – to see it all again only this time by air. (First though it was a bit delayed so we shot off to see the Hoanib River mouth – a brackish mix of fresh and salt water that did not originate from the river itself which had stopped if you remember some kilometres back from the sea. In this water are a few flamingos disporting with bank and white breasted cormorants. The beach here is made of smooth round stones, the crashing waves here taking on a musical note as the stones are moved up and down, up and down in ceaseless endless motion. Not a high rise or promenade to be seen – what a rare privilege and phenomenon in our age!)

The scenic flight back revealed hidden oases and we arrived back at camp to find we’d just missed the ellies coming to visit the small waterhole in front of camp. Ah well, you can’t have everything. A short afternoon stroll across the valley in front of camp, a star talk by comedian / manager Clement and a delicious meal meant that our comfy beds complete with hot water bottles were most welcome. What a day!

Return to Namibia's North-west

Dear all,

It's been a while, I know, since I've written. But it's been a while since I've had a deluge of words hit my brain, along with attempts at translating a sensory overload, or otherworld, into some semblance of language. A while in fact since I've had to seek other ways of describing the myriad colours and shades of brown and sand.

As you can see, it was time for me to return to Namibia, this time to the remote north-west of the country, often known as Kaokoveld, whence I had not been for some ten years. (And just a flight from Windhoek northwards can turn me Shakespearian it seems.) Once more into the land of many brown hues, of flat-topped mountains and light-feathery grass plains up from which lone trees stand out shockingly green, their shadows stark black in contrast to the blinding yellow beams of sun.

The fun thing about Wilderness Safaris' Namibian air circuits is that the ‘hub’ – i.e. the place that almost all flights must land and take off from – is at Doro !Nawas in Damaraland, the view from which has:
1. our camp in the distance,
2. some spectacular mountains, and
3. a donkey.

And then you land and there is a thriving airport, if you will – one small hut containing the flush loo with a view no less, an ‘arrivals hall’ – that is, four poles wrapped about and above with canvas to create shade – in which are some chairs and of course some drinks in a cooler box God forbid we should perish for want of Sprite.

After the requisite break in the hub, with a flurry of aircraft of all shapes and sizes landing and taking off, picking up guests and dropping them off, it’s our turn, taking to the skies and flying further north-west into literally the blue yonder. The landscape changes again, a richer brown mingles with the beige while the flat-topped hills disappear behind us, leaving us with sharp black rocks rearing into the hot sky. In between, from the air, it looks like a child’s sandpit, where water poured from a red plastic bucket to create rivers runs a little way along before disappearing into the sand, leaving dry dents that curve through a barren sandy landscape. In this case though, spots of green dot the riverbed: trees and bushes grow thanks to those hidden underground waters. Life is indeed stubborn in its attempts to be everywhere on Earth and here is a prime example.

In the distance to the left is a blue stripe – the Atlantic – with the famous fog hanging over it. I know, thanks to photos and stuff I’ve read, that the coast here is the last word in desolate, known and feared even recently as a shore that can wreck ships. Whale bones from another age have mouldered away here with only the raucous blaring of Cape fur seals left to bear witness: it’s the Skeleton Coast. And we are headed to one of the few places where you have access to it: Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp.

Hoanib (pronounced wa-nib) is named for the river. Or more correctly the dry riverbed that can be seen from the camp down the long valley. In this landscape, honed by lack of water, where every bit is used and horded (even springbok and giraffe dung is as dry as dust compared to that of their cousins inland – TMI?) – the word ‘river’ here as used by the locals is in fact bone dry, flowing only when enough rain falls many miles upstream. For the most part, the water seeps into the ground allowing some trees – acacia tortilla and ana – and the ubiquitous mustard bush to flourish (i.e. there’s more than one…) along the course that was carved out in wetter times. These plants attract animals in turn. But the herds are also smaller than those in the verdant waterlogged centre of southern Africa because the land cannot sustain more. Large numbers are a luxury that the land cannot afford; like the rock and sand that surrounds them all life is a sharpened, pared-down existence.

But this minimalist concept makes it beautiful, exciting, unexpected. Every bit of life has to really WANT to live, to overcome and triumph in this place of browns on our blue-green planet.

So we don’t call it a game drive, but rather, a nature drive. I would call it a “life drive” – to appreciate every bit of it that ekes a living out of the stone and rock. Every giraffe gets an ‘ooh’ and every springbok an ‘ah’.

But actually it does more than eke. As we found out on our first drive, which was sposed to be a sundowner drive – you know, find a scenic spot and sip alcohol. At teatime (God forbid you should starve before sundowners), our guide Papa G (or Gert depending on whether you can say the Afrikaans G) announced: “Sundowners are cancelled.” We raised multiple eyebrows. Cancelling sundowners on a safari is like skipping breakfast (the most important meal of the day).

The reason though was that the lions were in the riverbed, somewhere not far off, and that was fair enough. After all, in Hoanib, the lions have adapted to extremely arid conditions and one of their adaptations is their ability to be highly mobile, covering 50 km or more when they need to. Which means, they’re not always in the area to be seen on game drives. Now though, the word was that they were ‘in town’ so, duly cancelling sundowners, we scrambled into the vehicle and bounced off to the riverbed to see if we could see them.

But, along the way we were constantly stopped by most definitely un-eking life: springbok, gemsbok, a couple of ellies – a bull shaking an ana tree for the pods – and many more giraffe than you’d ever expect.

The search for the lions in the area they’d been last spotted was difficult and thus satisfying when we found them: we (obviously when I say ‘we’ I mean our intrepid guide, Papa G) found their tracks, lost them, cast up and down the riverbed, peering hopefully around the large bushes – called ‘leeubos’ for just this reason. Suddenly, there they were: two older females and three of their five sons known as the Five Musketeers for obscure reasons. No blasé Kruger cats here, they stopped the instant they saw us; not afraid, just very aware and alert, ears pricked and faces turned towards us. We in turn had to be quieter than we might have been in Kruger so as not to bother them.

They are all collared as they are part of a very important research project that has been taking place in the area – the Desert Lion Project run by Dr Flip Stander. In a place where everything and everyone needs to do whatever it takes to survive, where lions find killing goats much easier than chasing springbok, and goats are worth a lot of cash and represent the whole of a person’s financial value, and putting poison down for lion is really easy too… well, it’s what’s called a classic HLC – Human-Lion Conflict, also known as a ruddy mess.

We didn’t get our sundowners that night. We followed the cats for as long as the light held, watching their lithe bodies and alert ears; they were on the prowl – in fact, two nights later they killed a gemsbok. Finally, we left them to return for a highly delicious dinner, a sky that was pretty OTT in its display of stars and that overwhelming silence that is part of the Namibian experience. It sits beneath and above the sounds of the staff setting up for supper, the guests chatting over drinks around the fire. It is accentuated too by the bare-bones landscape; there is very little plant matter to soften or muffle the silence and so it roars through, around, beneath and above all ‘other’ sounds. Perfect for snuggling into bed and looking forward to the next day's adventure.