Damaraland Is So Badass. And hot.

Over these past few months, nighttime temperatures in Windhoek have been dropping into the low 40s, even 30s. I can't quite say it's legitimately cold (though I desperately want to) compared to Colorado and Missouri winter nights, but it has been chilly enough to warrant sleeping with socks and long pants. Even as I write this at 8:30am, I'm wrapped in fleece and Deets' firetruck sleeping bag. It's 50F. So when we booked a trip to go camping in Damaraland about 4.5 hours north of Windhoek, it seemed reasonable that the nights would be similarly cool. 

I loaded up the car essentially prepared for Snowmaggedon: hats, gloves, long underwear, scarves, and down blankets. I packed a thermos and tons of hot chocolate packets to ward off frosty mornings. Mark simply smiled and said nothing. Turns out the region is a regular hot spot, rarely dropping below 60F at night. Setting up our tents, we didn't even bother with the rainflies. It was quite nice, giving us clear views of the star-packed sky when we finally crawled into bed. At 8:30pm. 

We stayed at the Aabadi Mountain Lodge, a place I picked based off of two things: one, they have an elephant on their webpage and two, the place is locally owned with an emphasis on eco-tourism. Sure, it was rustic compared to Erindi which had personalized toilet paper, but this campsite came with more than what I'd consider the basics: a braai and sink area at each site, open air flushing toilets, and wood burning hot water heaters for the open air showers. It was cool. Like most campsites around the area, there was no fencing which meant wild animals could come and go freely. It was exciting to think a leopard or an elephant could randomly stop by, but I will admit there was a massive fly issue from scattered animal droppings in the area. It was an excellent lesson for the kids and myself who were tempted to bitch and moan about the incessant attacks. Mark, ever the patient one, reminded us that we were all in it together. Overall, there's so much to do in the area that we didn't spend much time hanging out when the flies were at their worst.

For example, we did a game drive one morning. Bumping along the dirt roads we passed by tiny villages with metal shacks and gardens, looking for signs of elephants like footprints, poop, and broken branches. The terrain was incredible and classically Namibian: forever changing from smooth dirt to rocky crevices, up mountains and into valleys. We drove by Burnt Mountain, a 12km extinct volcanic ridge and a mess of dolomite columns called the Organ Pipes. For all the rock nerds, the pipes are vertical molten rocks that pushed up through the earth's surface about 125 million years ago. 

It took the driver three times to find what he was looking for: a herd of desert elephants that were sauntering along the dried out riverbeds. He'd drive out to the main road to get phone reception, then venture back in. We finally spotted a group of 11 elephants shading themselves in some trees. With rising temperatures, their ears were flapping to cool them down. A bull arrived a few minutes later shoving adolescents aside to get prime time shade. Babies were passed out under the protective guard of their mothers, and one was nursing. NURSING! It's "tiny" body tucked right underneath mom's armpit, its mouth latched on with its adorable trunk fidgeting like a child. I cried. 

When one of the elephants woke up from her nap, she trumpeted angrily, forcing the driver to quickly back up and give more space. In unison the elephants peed and crapped all over, before moving down the riverbed further. We sat in the ever roasting sun, mesmerized. Something like 400 photos later, we wistfully called it quits and headed back to camp for beers. 

Later that same day we took our own car on safari to check out rock paintings but got quickly distracted when we saw the elephants again. Along with a few other cars, we sat taking photos, turning on the engines periodically to give them space. We had a joyous time until I managed to drive over discarded fencing wire that wrapped around our drive shaft. We couldn't move the car, and with an approaching elephant herd, we had to come up with a plan. You simply don't mess with elephants. If provoked, these beasts WILL charge. 

Stranded in the middle of the river bed, we half blocked the trucks behind us, essentially putting them in danger, so Mark made an executive decision. He crawled underneath the car still hot with an idling engine and began to untangle the wire by hand. Drivers from other vehicles started yelling at us, thinking he was doing sort of covert sightseeing, and Mark had no choice but to keep going. Luckily one of the drivers was our guide from earlier, and used his truck to block off our back side while another car took the front, effectively triangulating him in. While the kids were obliviously playing in the back seat, my eyes darted from the approaching and progressively rambunctious elephants to the back of Mark's legs sticking out from underneath. I kept checking and rechecking that I was in park, and anxiously waiting for a victorious fix. By the time Mark extracted the 20 feet of wire, we were surrounded by elephants, so Mark jumped in the car and we drove off just as an adolescent trumpeted and charged at our car. Even though it was probably just a threat, we had no qualms getting out of his way. 

At dinner we invited the driver and guide over to our campsite to eat with us, thanking them for their support. Not everyone was amused by the situation and some people lodged complaints, so we were grateful that the Aabadi staff stood by us. Looking back, I'm not sure we should have done anything differently. Perhaps we could have waited longer in the car, but with the setting sun, we didn't have much time to waste. Maybe wire cutters would be a reasonable purchase? Who knows? I guess in the Namibian wild, anything can happen. 

Home sweet home.

Bathrooms with a view.

Burnt Mountain. Credit: Mark

Organ Pipes. Ok- the photo has a detail extraction filter,
BUT the sky was eerily turquoise as the sun began to set.

Sleeping.

Not sleeping.

Oh the sweetness.

While Mark was under the car...
Credit: Deets

Big Momma, goes by Rosie.

Roads in Damaraland

Tell me something. If you needed to go to Khorixas (cor-E-haas) and saw a road sign indicating Khorixas: turn right, and Torra Bay: turn left. You'd turn right. Right? 

Last week we traveled around Damaraland, a huge and rugged territory about 4.5 hours north of Windhoek. Actually, the region has been divided and renamed (Erongo in the south and Kuene in the north) but the name Damaraland still sticks. This land is the kind of spread that gives you goosebumps- either because of its seemingly emptiness (it never is! There's always someone randomly hanging out in the veld) or because of its untamed beauty. 

For four days we explored, encountering things like wild giraffes and elephants, six thousand year old rock paintings, and bold russety mountains. We drove our butts off on the washboard dirt roads which of course meant we would eventually need gas. At the crossroads, we saw our car had 1/4 tank of diesel left and Khorixas was the place to get it. ETA: less than one hour.

So I turned right. I drove. And drove. And drove, nervously glancing at the dwindling fuel range as the landscape turned from the occasional roadside village with huts selling crafts and tire repair services, to a space of rolling off-white hills dotted with deep brown shrubbery. And nothing else. The kids were passed out in the back and Mark was studiously ignoring my rising anxiety. I pictured our dried out skeletons seated against the rusted car with flat tires; a stern and visual lesson for other travelers to always be prepared. 

Despite this self-inflicted drama, 90 minutes later we made it Khorixas with only a few kilometers to spare. Refueled and nerves abated, we drove through the city onto the other side where we saw another road sign that directed us to return from whence we came, but in the opposite direction; in less than half the distance it took to get us there. The irony was not lost on me. Shoulda turned left.

Continuing on, we watched the land turn back into its whacky self as only Namibia can. Along the way we happened upon the UNESCO Petrified Forest and took a lunch break there. Any UNESCO site requires strict supervision, so we were assigned a tour guide to walk us past 120 million year old slabs of petrified fallen trees. Trees that made it to Namibia from the center of the continent, back when it was Gondwanaland. For some reason, the kids LOVED this tour of looking at mostly buried remnants of solid wood. They asked the guide all sorts of questions and were gaga with the notion that these trees were once the size of blue whales. 

Though the tour was quaint and slightly uninspiring, we learned few other floral tidbits. For example, the resin of the commiphora plant is in high demand in places known for making perfume, like France. Himba women burn the branches to extract its resin which is then mixed with red ochre and animal fat. They use it as a fragrance, moisturizer, and sunscreen. I broke off a twig and could smell the rich camphor-like scent. I tried to discreetly rub the twig under my armpits in hopes of dissipating the day's stress sweat. But I mostly ended up looking like a sun-dried ape with bad hair, picking nits off myself. 

We were also educated on the Welwitschia mirabilis plant, named after a botanist who apparently fell to his knees upon seeing them for the first time. Full grown, these coniferous plants look like piles of fat green ribbon strewn about. They can live up to 2,000 years but grow something sad like 2 cm/year. They are mega tough drought-resistant plants and widely admired for their rarity. The plants we walked past were still in their infancy (15 years old) with only two stubby leaves and a fat bark-like center. Talk about a lengthy lifeline. 

Finally I could check petrified wood off the list. Tipping our guide, we mentioned offhand that during the drive we saw a herd of wild giraffes crossing the road. He grew up in Khorixas and had been working at the UNESCO Petrified Forest for nearly 12 years, and he only ever saw giraffes once in his region back in 2012. Wow. I love that the odds were in our favor. 

You've entered Damaraland.

Sunset in Damaraland at the Aabadi Campsite.

 Damaraland, Brandberg Mountains- the highest in Namibia (8,441')
Credit: Mark

15 year old Welwitschia mirabilis
National plant of Namibia

Fully grown, probably 1,000 years old. Google image search. 

Checking for hollowness. Red/orange tints are from iron rich sedimentation, black from magnesium.
The trees were buried under 100s of feet of earth and have been slowly uncovered from erosion.

+/- the length of a blue whale.
The trees are part of the Cordaite family,
related to firs and spruces. Credit: Mark

Twyfelfontein Rock Art

One of the most popular reasons people visit Damaraland (or the Erongo/Kuene regions) is to check out really cool old rocks of various categories: formations, engravings, and paintings. As I mentioned in previous posts, we visited the splendor of the Burnt Mountain and the Organ Pipes. We admired a forest that once stood tall in the middle of Africa now turned to stone through diagenesis.  We cruised past the massive Brandberg Mountain Range and on the way home took a detour to look at Spitzkoppe Peak that is over 120 million years old and maxes out at an elevation of 5,853 feet. They call it the Matterhorn of Namibia. All of this region is a geologist's paradise. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks.

In between these sites, Mark was eager to visit Twyfelfontein, a place better known for man-made rock engravings and paintings. In Afrikaans, Twyfelontein means "doubtful spring" and was named by a farmer who decided to settle in the area back in the 1940's. But before it even had a name, Twyfelfontein was inhabited by nomadic hunter-gatherer San people who are thought to be the first settlers within the region. Seriously, their ancestry traces back more than 30,000 years! At the UNESCO Twyfelfontein site, our guide told us the San might have used rock art to tell stories, record events, teach children, and to communicate between tribes. Tools like white quartz and red ochre mixed with animal fat were used to engrave and paint. Interestingly, since San people were constantly on the move, there are depictions of seals and penguins on the rocks that sit more than 35 hour's worth of walking from the coast, according to Google maps. They made frequent trips out west to gather the salt from the oceans and used it to cure meats.

The surprisingly well-detailed drawings give history experts the impression that the San were excellent travel guides and story tellers. They made maps to watering holes, depicted by a circle with a dot in the middle and recorded the footprints of migrating animals. There was an ostrich drawing that included two heads and four legs in various direction show the rapid movement of these giant birds like a stop-motion cartoon. The lion with a hand for a tail and a kill in its mouth perhaps told a story of a brave hunter who got more bang for his buck, warranting permanent placement on the rock wall of fame.  

Human foot prints: personal signature
Animal foot prints: food sightings
Circle with dots: water sources

The ostrich with two heads and four legs.

Elephant sighting, upper left

Giraffe, lion, springbok

That sky tho'