The alarm woke us up at 0615 before the sunrise, ready for our day of adventure. We headed to the restaurant for a quick breakfast before climbing aboard our first proper safari truck, just us and a family of four.
Still nice and cool at that time of the day, the truck was fairly comfortable, if not a tad bouncy! All aboard, we headed off for the stunning landscape of Sossusvlei, best known for having some of the highest sand dunes in the world. On the drive out to the dunes we enjoyed seeing lots of wildlife including Springboks, Ostriches and Oryx but then we hit a slight problem….we got stuck!!!!
The sand is pretty deep on some parts of the road and we came to a standstill, wheels spinning, not going anywhere. It then transpired that the family we were travelling with had gone out with the same driver the day before and exactly the same thing happened. A few of the other safari vehicles and rangers stopped to help so we all jumped out and Paul and the other guy ended up pushing us out of the sand whilst I helpfully stood laughing and taking photos!!
Once we got going again we arrived at the biggest sand dune aptly named ‘Big Daddy’ at a mere 350ft tall. I thought we would just stop and take a few photos but no…apparently the idea of the trip is to walk up it!! Nursing a pre holiday ankle injury I was a bit apprehensive, but had a go anyway. We got quite a way up but the the wind picked up and we were getting sandblasted and hot so we decided to bail and slid down the side of the dune to ‘Deadvlei’ aka Death Valley’!
Deadvlei is a clay pan where the river flooded many years ago leaving a white clay floor and dead camel thorn trees. It is an eery and captivating sight.
Having taken more photos of dead trees than anyone should, we headed back to the less than reliable safari truck. By this point in the day the truck was unbearably hot and had no air con! Dripping with sweat, windows open to let in the hot desert air, we headed off to find a nice shaded spot for lunch!
As we were enjoying a sarnie and very welcome cold beer, I spotted movement just in front of us….and there he was…a curious cuddly hungry Jackal…although Paul informs me they aren’t very cuddly, just hungry! He watched us for a while, realised he wasn’t getting any of our lunch and trotted off to try his luck elsewhere. He didn’t even want a belly rub!
After lunch we headed back to Kulala Lodge and once again we got stuck in the sand. By this point Paul and the other guy on the trip had decided it was down to poor driving that we kept getting stuck and not a dodgy vehicle as the driver exclaimed. This time we had to be towed out by another safari truck! All part of the adventure.
After a quick shower at the lodge we were back on the safari truck for 4pm for our second excursion of the day. This time we avoided sand and enjoyed a smooth tarmac road to Sesriem Canyon which is one of the few places in the area that holds water all year round.
You can walk down into the canyon to see the water, which to be honest isn’t very big or deep, but it is full of little frogs. To get to the water you have to do a bit of climbing over fallen rocks so it’s not the place to go with a bad ankle…but I got round without any dramas!
We ended the days adventure with a drive out to an amazing vantage point to enjoy a drink and watch the sun set over the desert. It had only taken me 3-days to totally fall in love with Namibia and with views like this, who wouldn’t?
Loving Life and Food 