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.