Hiking outside Gondwana Canyon Village

Turns out that when Namibians tell you the hike will last approximately three hours, they mean: three hours. From our experience, hikes in the U.S. are frequently overestimated, so we lured the kids on a New Year's Day hike thinking we'd be back in time for breakfast. We left at 6:00am, fresh after sun rise. Everyone was up anyway, and we wanted to avoid the unavoidable hot temperatures, as we'd be in nearly 100% direct sunlight. The goal was to reach a naturally occurring arch formation so with sunscreen, hats, and water, off we went. It only took the kids about an hour to start complaining about hunger, so with my secret weapon I offered up apples. Apparently no one was hungry enough to eat those, and on we went. Up past the quiver trees, we followed the path of the springbok which led us close enough to see a herd of zebras. One of the hotel staff would later try to convince us we only saw deer, or possibly oryx even after we described these mysterious black and white striped, horse-like phenomenons. He was a peculiar guy.

With zebra sighting excitement wearing thin, we crossed over a high pass thinking sights of this arch would soon happen. Instead we saw more valleys, rock piles, and a few lizards. It was incredibly disheartening because by now we had reached hours 2.5.  Everything was hot, dusty, brown, and far away. I turned into Mean Mommy, Margo and Deets turned into, well, realistic 4 and 6 year olds and Mark tried to hold us together with his deleterious joke telling. We pushed on, hiking through valley and back up another butte towards a sliver of shade, coaching/threatening the kids to get a move on when I saw it: the arch, hidden snugly in the middle of the rock that seemed impenetrable from our point of view. I heard an angel choir, smelled the fresh cool air (that likely created this arch thousands of years ago) rip past us, and touched the rocks sweetly chilled from the desert night. Everyone's bad attitude dissipated, especially with knowing our hike back to Canyon Village would be no more than 10 minutes hike down and 20 minutes across a sandy stretch of land. We missed breakfast, but no one cared. The only thing more desired than food, was to drink cold sparkling water by the pool and take a nap. All of which was easily accomplished, with plenty of time to visit the famous Fish River Canyon in the afternoon, get caught in a massive (but refreshing) downpour, and take in the impressive lightening that cracked the skies into a million pieces. 

Mountain Zebra

No where to hide.

Current mood: this rock.

Victory.

Photo credit: Margo

From the front side. Mission completed.