After nearly two weeks of travelling all round Namibia, the grand finale to our tour was the Namib dunes - which proved to be a fitting end. Towering up to 325 metres high, these orange-coloured mountains of sand are the top tourist draw in Namibia.
We stayed in the campsite at Sesriem which is the best place to be for the early morning drive to Sossusvlei if you want to take part in the daily tourist ritual of watching the sunrise from the top of Dune 45. We woke up at 4.30am that day to make sure we were away by 5am. It's about a 20 minute drive through the dune field to Dune 45, so-called because it is 45kms from Sesriem.
Our guide had warned us of the consequences of being up late - that we might see the sunrise while we were driving along rather than from the top of the dune - and so we were all motivated to be ready on time. As it was, we were the first vehicle to reach the parking area. But once there, we were unprepared for the power-walking race to the top of the dune with all the other tourists.
It's hard work climbing the dune because your feet are sinking deep into the sand and you have to walk along the ridge with a steep drop on either side. After a few minutes your thighs begin to burn, but it's tricky when you stop because there's a stream of people behind you and it's difficult for them to overtake. We thought we were close to the top but as we got higher, it seemed to continually stretch further ahead. Pride sacrificed, we decided to call it quits and sit down where we were to watch the sunrise.
As the sun came up, it was remarkable to see the change in the colour of the sand - from muted yellow to warm orange. It was quite unlike anything else I have ever seen - but I seemed to be saying that every day as I travelled around Namibia.
 |
| Climbing up Dune 45 |
 |
| The steep drop to the bottom |
 |
| Here comes the sun.. |
 |
| My desert rat look |
 |
| Coming back down Dune 45 |
Love the Desert Rat look. Going native. Yomping should be added to the Oxford Dictionary. Am reading Norma Lorimer 'By the Waters of Egypt' in the original and online 'There Was a King in Egype' ... Norma, who was in love with Ra, the sun god. And Marmaduke Picthall, whose Oriental Encounters gives an idea of what Syria and Palestine were like before they became a 'Question'. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23994/pg23994.html
ReplyDeleteNorma was partial to beauty, and her moment of greatest clarity in Egypt was when 'Mohammad Ali appeared in the form of a graceful Soudanese youth of about sixteen years. Bathing drawers constituted his scant costume, but his skin was as polished as the carob tree ... He asked no questions but leap on board and called [to] his friend ... To describe his dancing is impossible [for] what is more beautiful than a beautiful back, as smooth as ebony and moulded in soft firm curves and lines? ... Nothing was real, nothing was separate, nothing was a thing unto itself ... Egypt had enveloped me.' As your film adviser, I think you should work into your story a dancer, or some dude, but a few years older for present day sensibilities. Throw caution to the winds. A previous friend of mine went trekking in the Himalayas and came back with stories about the guide wanting to swim in the pools of her eyes and then whisking her away to some romantic place where she was held captive and had to climb down some lattice work at night to get away through the middle of a ceremony with fire breathers and dancers and a general meelee. You must have a Youping meelee, horse chase scenes, and so on. Or the rhino must half kill the guide and you must spend weeks nursing him back to health.
ReplyDelete