As we downed our early breakfast, we plotted our plan for keeping Anne clothed and clean for our five day Skeleton Coast Flying Safari, as her bag had not yet been located. By 7am, we met our pilot/guide, Andre, at Swakopmund metro airport, and sardined into our 5-seat Cessna. We headed inland over the formations of the Namib desert, the world’s oldest, viewing packs of oryx, kudu, springbok, and baboons in the plains and on the hills, from 1,000 feet.
The landscape turned hilly, with deep ochre sand bases covered by tufts of grass and shrubbery. Suddenly, as the hills started turning to soaring dunes, Andre banked hard and made a surprise landing (to us, not him) on a mudflat at the base of a magnificent, crescent shaped, 300 meter-high sand dune, as two oryx scattered.
The dune sparkled in the early morning sunlight, and we made our way around the corner of the dune to reveal the shadows and light of a crescent shaped dune surrounding another mudflat that created an idyllic contrast with the deep ochre hue of the dunes, sprinkled with speks of green trees and bushes.
The four intrepid travelers scaled one face of the dune complex, admiring beetles and grasshoppers, passing snake, porcupine, and gerbel tracks, and marveling at the floral arrangement created by a bulldozer beetle along the way. We even
At the men’s room on the peak of the dunes, Rick recycled his morning coffee thereby “flooding out” a small army of insects living peacefully just under the surface. In the absence of a sandboard, Dan bounded down the dune, and we all met in the mud-flat, where we could appreciate the full panoramic view of the dunes. After an hour in our giant private sandbox, we boarded our flight to Swapokmund to refuel the plane and restock Anne wardrobe and medicine cabinet.
As we flew overhead, we saw a very pretty, seaside resort town, with colorful homes and a rugged shoreline. Located about 3km outside of the city was a non-so-pretty shanty township of “informal housing.” Leander was kind enough to arrange transportation into town from the airport from his sister. For an hour, Anne scraped together a survival wardrobe from Mr. Price, Pick & Pay, Edgars, and Ackerman’s, while Rick filled in the toiletry gaps at a local pharmacy.
Christiana dropped us back at the airport, and for the next hour, we flew over the formations created by a massive volcano hundreds of millions of years ago. A variety of oryx, zebra, and springbok roamed among colorful formations below. Again, as we calmly admired the rolling hills of green, purple, and ochre, Andre banked hard alee, and we were descending into valley.
The Legend of Shoeless Dan Engel
We landed in the middle of the Ugab formation, which, many moons ago, lay under the ocean floor, but had been pushed up and turned on their side. The layers of sediment, basalt, and granite were dramatic, as we wandered through the dry Ugab river valley, admiring the landscape, and enjoying our geology lesson from Professor Andre (please, don’t tell him that we have already forgotten what he told us).
About mid-way through our hike, Dan decided to climb the rocks in his sandals, while Anne, Rick, Andre, and Nancy continued to explore the formations and hear about Dan’s hiking misadventures on their honeymoom. Twenty minutes later, with no sign of Dan, Andre decided to return to the scene of Dan’s detour, to discover that Dan was unable to navigate a path down from the rocks in his slippery sandals. Andre suggested that Dan go “Joe Jackson” and shortly thereafter a sandal-less redhead was back amongst the geology students.
Our lesson continued with some fascinating desert foliage, including the elephant’s foot cactus growing out of the rocky sidewalls, and the bizarre and rare Welwitchia Mirabalis growing out of the rocky foundation
As the sun began to set, Andre flew us inland over more spectacular landscapes and dry river beds teeming with Zebra, and the rugged, dunes-lined, seal-laden, and shipwreck-dotted Skeleton Coast.
About 20 minutes from camp, Andre confidently handed over the Cessna’s controls to Co-Captain Anne, who did a great imitation of Kareem Abdul Jabbar in Airplane, keeping us on a steady course towards Kuidas camp, as Andre texted the staff regarding our pending arrival. Over Anne’s protests, Andre retook the reigns for a soft landing outside the camp.
We were greeted by Ricardo and “Y”ohnson (you can call me J and you can call me Ray, but you don’t have to call me Johnson), who boiled the water for our much-needed showers.
City Bumpkins Take One Giant Step
Before dinner, Andre had another treat in store for us. During cocktails, as we admired a sky lit up by a 2/3 moom, Then, he unwrapped the pièce de résistance--a telescope with a lens wide enough to fit Anne AND Nancy’s heads (or Rick’s or Dan’s) inside. Although tempted, we decided to view from the other direction, where we were shocked and awed to see a bright white sphere surrounded by diagonal rings. No way, that can’t be!!! And, we thought GM had shut down Saturn. Andre then programmed the telescope to find the Southern Cross, where we discovered that one of the stars was really a double star. Eventually, we pointed the scope at da’ moon, and, lo and behold, there it was, up close and personal, like a giant moldy Emmanthaler, just like in those Apollo 11 photos. A little more programming, and voila, we zeroed in and got all excited to see the Sea of Tranquility, with Neil took that one small step and planted the red, white, and blue. With our celestial seasoning complete, we headed into dinner and called it an amazing day and night.
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