Schlink Attack: The C26

It seems that the famous Namibian C28 road that connects Windhoek to Swakopmund has a little competition: the C26. It's an unpaved road that takes you south by southwest from Windhoek to the edges of the Namib Desert and the C14. The first climb out of the city might be unimpressive, what with the potent smell of the Kupferberg landfill, but after that, the landscape takes over. Campsites, guesthouses, and D-roads chase one another down the gravel, as the kilometer signs barely seem to budge in the direction of Walvis Bay. The numbers seem to stuck in the mid-200's and never seem to decrease. Baboons, goats, and warthogs dash across the road and in the distance, springbok, cattle, and zebra might be seen grazing. It's on the C26 where the entertaining lodge names start popping up like Melrose Place, Weener Farm, Corona Guest Farm, the Hakos Astrofarm and best yet: Weissenfels Guest Farm which has an honest to goodness Vortex Center. They deal with things like ethnomedicine, healing crystals, and labyrinth walks. I don't even know what that means, but I want to sign up. Immediately.

Along the way, mountains turn to hills and back to mountains. The most notable one being Gamsberg Mountain, which has a flattop peak easily seen in all directions and is thick with quartz. With zero light pollution and steep climbs, it's a huge draw for nighttime photographers and brave 4x4 drivers. We drove down Gamsberg Pass, which takes the cake in steepness and beauty of bald commiphora trees, nary a guard rail to slide into. We were warned watch out for Hartmann mountain zebra and indeed, nearly drove into a set of four who were trotting along the roadside. Further down the pass, leafy green trees start to peter out as if the gods ran out of paint, giving way to an area known as the Valley of 1,000 Hills. It's literally where thousands of hills colored in shades of cream, tan, brown, and orange are squashed between a desert and a mountain range. "Protected" from the forces of cloud cover and rain, this region hasn't seen moisture in about three years. Inhabitants depend on bore hole water sources.

From a distance, the hills seem to roll into each other continuously. However up close, many of the hills have deep crevasses that once upon a time, were carved by water. Leopards, caracals, and jackals hide here in addition to zebra cobras, as we found out. While hiking between a rock and a hard place, Deets encountered a black and white striped cobra. Despite his unmistakable announcement of "there's a cobra in front of me!" he continued to advance on the snake as if hypnotized. Deets only snapped out of it when Mark and I started yelling at him to stop. I caught up next to see the snake poised upright to defend itself. We gave him a wide berth and watched him until he calmed down and slithered away.

This was an excellent teaching moment to review snake safety. All of that seemed to go well until Deets protested " I needed to get my fright on because I'm a reptile too! That's why I kept walking toward it!" Well, of course he is.

On another hike, the kids, Mark, and I scared off a jackal. Not two minutes after that, Deets fell behind to inspect a rock overhang and while his back was turned, a very large caracal ran between him and me. It ran down one side of the canyon and up the other, with its unmistakable black-tipped ears tipped backwards. Prepared as always, my camera was in my backpack. During this same hike in the river bed, we passed vacant beehives embedded into the canyon wall, zebra carcasses, and large cat footprints left in the dirt.

When we weren't hiking, we drove the 4x4 trails at the Rooiklip Guest Farm, where we camped over the weekend. I don't know if I will ever get over the exhilaration of cresting a mountain and not being able to see over the hood nor the path down below, or navigating past rocks of agreeable size. The views were cool, but we didn't see any animals along the way. At one point we saw a truck speeding over a mountain top, heading in our direction. It was the owner of the farm, a researcher, and a farmer who were in hot pursuit of their lost shepherd baboon. You heard me. The farmer had a trained baboon to herd the goats, and he got lost. They stopped just long enough to ask if we'd seen him and get annoyed that none of us had any idea what they were talking about. Good news for them, they found the shepherd baboon and put him back to work the next day.

This is exactly why I love Namibia.

I also love Namibia because we get to stay in ecclectic places like Rooiklip. The owners, Hannelore and Frans, are leathery old Germans who have turned their land into a gorgeous oasis focused on conservation and solar power development. Some of the walls are built with beer bottles, and they are mid-project building a recycling center behind the lodge's kitchen. Interns come from the Technological University of Munich for school credit and research projects. While we were there, the interns spent a lot of time surveying land with twine grids and punching data into solar-powered laptops.

We camped at one of their three campsites that were located under a rock overhang. While we didn't have electricity, we did have three sinks, a shower, and flush toilets all to ourselves. The star stuffed nights were filled with a peaceful silence that made the buzzing in my head all the more noticeable. Between the campsites and the lodge was the animal pen for the fattest zebra I have ever seen. His name is Linus. They have a donkey named Number 7 and an oryx named Jonathan, plus a bunch of dogs (and a baboon shepherd). It was just the kind of place that makes you want to return to again and again. I am certain this is going to happen sooner than later.