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Entries from February 2009

02
22
2009

Roasted in the Namib, Part 5 – Sweating it in Keetmanshoop

Note: this post is anachronistic. The fact is that the missing prior post about Sesriem, Sossusvlei and the desert is extremely photo-intensive and the pictures aren’t ready yet. So I’m skipping ahead one notch and here we are headed west into the return leg of our trip. I’m afraid there are no good pictures of this leg on my end. I think Marie did better than me.

We stayed in Sesriem for 3 days. On our last day, we embarked on a quest for diesel after finding out that the local gas station had none. The small town of Solitaire, some 80 km north, was the nearest station as per the map and we decided to push beyond it and drive around the entire Naukluft mountain range and investigate a campsite there for the following night.

We saw mountain zebra up rather close but the campsite was absolutely deserted because of the intense heat and buried inside a narrow gorge with overhanging boulders that Marie’s imagination immediately populated with what our guidebook evaluated as a « healthy leopard population ». There were no fences to the site and this lack of separation between tent and predator proved to be too much. We returned to our now familiar Sesriem campground.

The next morning, we packed up and took a slightly different road south towards Aus, where we spent another pleasant night. We had booked our following stop at a guesthouse east of the Fish River Canyon, which we intended to reach via the town of Keetmanshoop and its cool quiver trees.

As we drove away from Aus, heading east onto the nicely paved B4 towards Keetmanshoop, Marie hesitantly brought the Kgalagadi idea forward again. The gigantic game reserve was quite far and we had previously ruled it out due to lack of time and to keep things reasonable. But coming out of Sossusvlei one hardly feels reasonable and the tempting fact was that the entrance to the park lay at about the same latitude as we now were. It would just be a long drive east through the border to get there. We’d have to move fast to arrive the same day, as there were barely any options to camp along the way. We needed to find out what the entrance fees were like and if reservations were needed. We needed an ATM for cash. And we needed food. By the time we reached town, the idea had blossomed into a feasible plan.

Keetmanshoop is not an idyllic place. Isolated in the middle of too much harsh and barren overheated land, it fails at attaining the status of oasis and simply stands there, providing a bit of artificial shade and regrouping in one convenient spot both supplies and supplie-es. There is no harmony to the streets and people move about slowly when they do, preferring to stand in the shade, leaning against walls, idling through their day.

We drove straight to the Tourist Office, following the international « i » sign. There was no shade to be found and we parked the poor truck in the sun, hoping it would manage to cool off magically. My Suunto watch read 40 °C in the shade. Stepping out of the car was not unlike walking into a red-hot oven. The Tourist Office was open, or rather opened, but no one was there to help. We waited for a while and finally got our intel’ from a couple of very helpful South African tour bus drivers. According to them, the Kgalagadi was a go. We stocked up on boerewors and lamb chops at the local butcher, bought more supplies at a vague grocery store, found an ATM, and made quick calls to the guesthouse and Cape Town, announcing our route change.

Then we hit the road again. It was getting late. Suddenly, as we had finally found our way out of Keetmanshoop and I was leading us unto yet another dirt road, I had a flash and wondered out loud if the border crossing would surely be open. I remembered seeing a list of border crossing opening hours on the road map. Marie scrambled for it, twisted it in all directions, unfolding and flipping until she found an answer. She looked up at me, a doubtful look in her eyes. « 4:30 pm, » she said. I swallowed hard, glancing down at my watch. « We’ll just have to drive faster, » she said again, leaning towards me to eye the speedometer. I was driving at a comfortable 100 km/h, which wasn’t bad for a dirt road and still allowed for some fuel economy.

I did a quick mental calculation. At 120 km/h, we’d make it to the border between 4:15 and 4:30 pm. It was going to be very tight. I stepped on the gas reluctantly. I don’t like driving fast on dirt. A blown tire at high speed is never fun, they say, but on this volatile surface, it would be a nightmare trying to keep control. I decided to rely on the shining reputation of the BFG tires and crossed my fingers. By luck, the road was mostly large, well maintained and abandoned by all. I rarely had to slow down and kept a close eye on my speed and a tight grip on the wheel.

The landscape was incredibly boring and empty. This, it turned out, was the real desert. No beauty, no sand, no appeal. Just endless dryness, rocks, miserable bushes and the ever-present heat.

We arrived at the border at 4:15 pm sharp. I looked around as I was parking. There was nothing. This was another middle of nowhere. I wondered for a moment what the life of a border control officer could be; I though I heard the distinctive sound of colliding billiard balls through a window.

The western gate was closed behind us as we walked towards the office and I figured they had called it a day. Paperwork was expedited and we got back to the car, where we were asked to open the hood. They were looking for the engine’s serial number, which they compared to a list. Landcruisers must have been a high commodity in the area. We drove into South Africa and the east barrier was locked again behind us, as employee cars departed simultaneously. I looked at my watch. It was 4:32 pm. We had barely made it.

The rest of the drive took us a while but we were now driving at a slower pace. To get to the Kgalagadi, one turns left unto D360, heading north into low vegetation-covered sand dunes. That intersection is the strangest place of all. No way to pinpoint where you are, a strange mix of African bush atmosphere and southern US looks. Bushmen, called San or Khoi, the Khoe-speaking hunter-gatherers of South Africa, are living pitifully on the side of the road, selling crafts and slowly but irremediably sliding down the slope of annihilation.

60 km later, we were at Twee Rivieren, the Twin Rivers, southernmost gate of the 38,000 km2 Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The Park lies mostly in the southern part of the Kalahari desert and is composed of red sand dunes, scarce vegetation and a few trees gathered along the dry beds of its two occasional rivers - the Nossob and the Auob - which flood and flow only every so many years, an exceptional event keeping the area alive. Two thirds of the park are within Botswana but we were planning on staying home.

We got in and waited an hour for a group of demanding Botswanan Government employees to sort out their stay. We later registered ourselves - initiating a log system that would allow us to sign in and out at control points to insure we didn’t go missing - and then, in the most unbearable heat, we managed to find the strength to fight about our choice of campsite. It was going to be a horrible evening and a miserable night. The Kgalagadi, a « place of thirst », was making us pay a high entry fee.


 

 Posted at 5:03 PM in Namib Trip & On the road: 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
02
22
2009

Roasted in the Namib, Part 3 – A dirty, dusty, duney, desert drive

We awoke to the chirping of birds everywhere. Our tree didn’t host a nest but the sociable weavers lived nearby and they flocked in for an early visit, cunningly sensing that a breakfast was about to happen.

These weavers are quite remarkably friendly birds (see previous post for picture). They inhabit huge colonies patiently built in camel thorn trees and divided to form individual nests, more or less oriented downwards. It would seem that there is a central chamber but I didn’t push my investigation too deep. I’ve read somewhere that in such harsh and hostile climate they normally manage to get all the water they need from an insect diet, so the water we served them must have tasted extra sweet. We soon found out we could attract nearly the entire flock with rusk crumbs (the bloody things are nearly indestructible and not good for anything else anyway) and our campsite was besieged by so many birds that we almost lost control. They were, however, extremely polite, unafraid and delicate, a rare combination that meant no risk for our fingers but did threaten the table. Packing up took a little longer than we had planned. When we left the campsite, the endearing overfed weavers must have gone for a collective nap.

The next dirt road, which according to our well-folded but probably flawed map should have lead north from Aus, was hard to find. When we finally spotted it, further down than expected on the main B4 and very much unannounced, we were left to ponder the consequences of wandering onto a road that, obviously, nobody wanted to be on. But as we eased our way northwards down an immense stretch of perfectly straight road, lifting a huge cloud of white dust that followed us like a trail its comet, the landscape turned yellow and wide, and we were drawn into it as if bound by a spell, without any more thoughts nor hopes of turning around.

There isn’t much I could say about the drive to Sesriem without the support of photographs. We had entered a singular space made of a million perfect images but missing its vertical dimension. This world had lost its height and now laid flat and thinly layered all the way to the horizon. The landscape was being crushed by an endless sky of the deepest blue, perfect and immaculate, deliverer of an invisible but tenacious heat that only blossomed as it coated the ground in tones of gold and reds and whites, and then oozed back up in mesmerizing mirages.

On our right, for most of the way, unfolded a very low outcropping of rocks, marking the actual edge of the desert and beginning of the subsequent inland plateau. Left, as far as the eye could see, stretched a field of very low and dry grass of yellows and steel blues over a reddish soil. An endless fence formed a rather theoretical boundary and defied the imagination, extending so far that its perspective morphed into a solid shrinking triangle.

Eventually we turned west on the D707 that loops far into the desert’s edges, getting closer to the first real dunes of the trip which we only identified as such at the last minute because of their eerie orange color. It was the most amazing part of the day’s leg. We lost precious time on countless photo stops. I think we were a little speechless and spaced out.

Around five o’clock, after a full day of wonders and fierce heat, we reached Sesriem, unique gate to Sossusvlei. We had arrived at our destination. Beyond that point, we hadn’t bothered planning much, leaving the rest of the trip to improvisation and allowing for the unexpected.

We checked into the official, government-operated campground, despite the failure of our very necessary advance booking - read here « because of the completely worthless services of a local agency we had stumbled upon on the web. » Thanks to Marie’s charm, though, we scored the best campsite towards the end of the compound, with nothing between us and the distant sand dunes. The contrast between the privately owned Aus campground and this official machine was striking, but in the end, our goal mattered more than the means and we were delighted to stop for a few days. We settled into our third night, pitching the tent underneath a gigantic camel thorn inhabited by a comical lizard that came out every time we turned the tap on. Yes, the site had running water. This was no third-class third-world country and someone understood the importance of adventure tourism as a gold mine.

As the afternoon faded into a beautiful evening and the wind picked up and hauled like every night, barking geckos began their symphony all around us and we knew we had arrived. This was somewhere strange, different, a place that pushed our comfort zone sideways, a little corner of sand under a big tree next to the oldest desert on Earth. Sure there were people nearby. Our world has become so friendly to travelers that it’s increasingly difficult to avoid sharing its beauty with our peers. But this was no crowd, and the few other visitors were diluted into such immensity that they became quite tolerable.

Darkness and its best friend solitude closed in on us, the braai was lit up, our headlamps came into action and we ate with ferocious appetite. A jackal materialized in the faint glow of our candles but disappeared as soon as we acknowledged its presence. The ablutions block again had hot showers, a luxury I could never resist and was incredibly happy to find in the legendary middle of nowhere. Our mattress inflated, we carefully zipped up the tent to keep mythical jumping spiders and very real scorpions out and listened to the geckos. Later, when all was pitch black and the wind had calmed down, the jackal visited again. It would be back every night, shy but determined. In the morning, Marie found its footprints all around the tent. It would seem our jackal liked camping too.

 

 Posted at 5:03 PM in Namib Trip & On the road: & Photoblogs: 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
02
22
2009

Roasted in the Namib, Part 2 – Namibia begins in Aus

Waking up by the Orange River the next morning, I glanced at South Africa on the opposite shore and launched into my breakfast-preparation ritual, only to find that our gas burner thingy was too large to accommodate the cheap but larger stove-top espresso maker we’d acquired at Woolworths to spare the wonderful Bialetti. Fiddling with the top of a metal Illy Espresso can, I managed – thanks to my Swiss Army knife – to manufacture a ring that would support the coffee maker. I lit up the burner, put my coffee on the flame and waited, seemingly forever. My makeshift tool began to darken and smell horrible, probably because of the metallic paint that was covering it. Then Marie suggested I simply use the braai grill that had been threatening to jump in my face. Now I was awake.

The first brew failed, I’d taken it off and put it back on too many times. The second failed too because I managed to tilt the espresso maker and water spilled into the wrong chamber. I was getting grumpy. On the third try, we got a few drops of very average coffee. Things were looking up. Barely.

Taking the tent down and packing up turned out to be a lengthy procedure complicated by the necessity to fit everything back inside the car exactly the way it had been done initially, because that was the only way it all fitted. The campsite had an electrical hook-up and our fridge had remained plugged in all night, keeping all frozen meat quite frozen. We hit the road around 9:30 AM and headed west and then northwest on C13, the small dirt road we had picked up just after the border.

The Orange River would stay with us for quite a while, distant at times and very close at others. It brought an incredible fertility to the valley and we found vineyards in the most surprising setting, isolated in the middle of a perfectly harsh and hot country. The temperature was already high but with the air conditioning on and a careful application of suntan lotion on our arms and shoulders, we were rather comfortable.

Eventually, the environment turned into an almost lunar-like landscape. Heat and dryness were the two only constants here and they would stick with us for many days. The road was still dirt (and would remain so for 2000 km with a few exceptions) but it was very manageable and allowed us to drive at speeds ranging between 60 and 100 km/h. We never saw cars going in our direction, and meeting an oncoming vehicle was extremely rare but lifted a huge cloud of dust that would drop the visibility to nothing for a few seconds.

Marie and I being who we are, there were many photo stops. She ticks mostly for flowers and vegetation, and I, for landscapes. Landscape shots were everywhere, one more beautiful than the previous, and things would keep becoming more and more dramatic as we proceeded north. But surprisingly enough, even in such an inhospitable climate and desperately barren soil, there were plants all around - small, rugged, brave plants that survived from the tiniest trace of water, going for months at a time without rain, if not years.

The C13 rode the northern bank of the Orange River into the Richtersveld and Ai-Ais National Parks, each in its country but managed and operated jointly in an effort to promote the continuity of very similar environments. To the north of us on a different road, was the Fish River Canyon, said to be one of the deepest in the world. But at this time of the year the poor Fish River, which we eventually crossed, was as dry as a piece of old biltong.

About 150 km from our departure point, we reached the very strange town of Rosh-Pinah. Of an obvious mining origin, the town seemed either young or reborn and extensive new housing developments suggested recent activity. We wondered if diamonds could be at the origin of this flurry of construction since we were on the inland edge of a very large coastal diamond restricted area. Beyond Rosh-Pinah, the road towards the main B4 was extremely well paved and quite new. Mysterious large trucks were going back and forth with unmarked cargo. Further research revealed that we had been wrong: our mythical diamonds were in fact simply zinc.

We headed north, relieved to take a break from the tortures of our Landcruiser’s rather rough suspension and relishing the hypnotically smooth pavement that lead to Aus.

Aus was a surprise, and wasn’t. Nested into orange rolling hills marbled with enormous granite boulders and slabs, the very small town had a cute church, a gas station, a hotel - and a pretty praying mantis on said hotel’s steps. Marie was charmed by the sight of a lady polishing the leaves of a plant and I, by the fact that we were almost there. We followed directions to Klein Aus Vista, where we were to camp. It turned out to be a delightful little lodge, well isolated from the road and with its campsite even further into the hills.

We unpacked and pitched, already getting a rhythm. As Marie has said it, the site had been neatly raked, everything was clean and the ablutions block showers – a quintessential feature when the temperature soars in the upper thirties - were quite welcoming. Later that night, sitting by the glowing coals of our braai and sipping red wine, we agreed that we could have stayed there longer. But the road was calling and morning would see us head away from comfort and into the edges of the Namib.

I walked around in the darkness and marveled at the stars. My dear Southern Cross was flying high, like a kite in the sky. I found Canopus and Achernar, drew an equilateral triangle towards an imaginary point sent by the cross, dropped down to the horizon and there was south. As always, my thoughts were drawn back to 1993, the South Pacific, five giant sails in the night. I smiled. This was so different, and so much the same. The southern hemisphere has a way of making one feel alive. And this time, I wasn’t alone.

 

 Posted at 5:00 PM in Namib Trip & On the road: & Photoblogs: 3 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
02
08
2009

Roasted in the Namib, Part 1 – The River, the Border and the Crook

We had been casually dreaming about this trip for months and then actively planning our route for weeks but it was only on the eve of departure, as various gear items and supplies piled up around the house awaiting to be loaded into the 4x4, that we fully realized what was happening: we were about to hit the road to nowhere.

Ambitious but quite doable, our goal was to head north from Cape Town along the South African west coast, cross the Namibian border at the Orange River and continue half the height of the country into the Namib Desert, in a short burst of 2 or 3 full-day drives that would place us early at the heart of our target area - and leave the rest to improvisation. We would thus avoid the malaria-infected northern regions of Namibia and stay in arid climate, but there also lay the rub: it would be hot. As in very hot. This, after all, was the African summer.

I could hardly say we left empty-handed or unprepared. Our camping trip was going to be one of relative luxury, thanks to the help and generosity of many. I will of course thank our sponsors later. But at 7:00 AM on the 10th of January when we finally drove up Sun Valley Avenue at the wheel of a fully packed V8 Turbo Diesel Toyota Landcruiser, Marie and I felt like the world was ours to conquer.

The two tanks were full, 90L for the main and 120L for the auxiliary, giving us a theoretical range of over 1500 km. We were not planning to drive around all the time with a full reserve but South African fuel prices had just gone down and we figured we might as well fill up on cheap diesel rather than pay more once in Namibia.

Behind us in the trunk - next to a large cooler, 2 plastic crates with imperishable food, cooking utensils, a gas lantern and a stove, camping chairs, a dome tent, charcoal, pillows, sleeping bags, an inflatable mattress and many smaller absolutely necessary items - was… a fridge. Almost the size of the one that saw me through my 3 years of college student residence, the little beauty was plugged into our cigarette lighter and set for a radical 3°C. It had been lent by our no. 2 sponsors Jay and Guy and was filled with frozen meat, vegetables, butter and many other goodies we didn’t rely on the cooler’s ice to keep fresh.

On the backseat, wedged between a suitcase-full of clothes and my camera bag, was a case of wine. And I mean a case: 12 bottles - 3 of Prosecco and the balance a mixture of red and white, offered by Marie’s parents to quench our spiritual thirst and turn simple meals into feasts. « But you’re going for 14 days! » they’d exclaimed as we stood astonished, worried we would run out. We didn’t of course, and indeed feasted every night thanks to Marie’s fantastic cooking as much as to the wine. As we drove out of Cape Town and settled on the N7 for our long journey north, I still couldn’t believe what traveled with us and kept laughing silently at our luck – and abundance.

Marie had never really gone camping before and free of any prejudice or preconceived ideas (outside of Karen Blixen and Hemingway,) she packed half the house along in an attempt to recreate on the road the familiar setting of a friendly kitchen. We had a folding table (thanks Andy and Jonathan) and another small wooden one, a paper towel dispenser, real wine glasses, a cast iron pan and pot, a cutting board, glass candle protectors, multiple dishes, cloth napkins, serious knives, a glass vinaigrette bottle, salt and pepper cracker, and a clamping braai grid… To this I added a cute blue metal-finish thermos and my Swiss Army knife. I know my priorities.

For the road, we had packed and kept handy a pink bag containing biltong, fruit bars, marshmallows, white chocolate, sausage and other heart-lifters. There was a very small second fridge between the front seats, allowing for a bottle of Prosecco to chill for the evening meal along with some juice or beer for lunch. The bird book was at the passenger’s feet and the binoculars in the glove compartment. Our maps were folded to the day’s drive.

The two of us carried 3 cameras and a total of 46 Gb. of memory cards. My Christmas present, the new Canon G10, came to complete the line up and assist when Abetoo, my DSLR, became too bulky (with a tight pouch that fits on my waist, I can take the G10 and its 15 MP just about anywhere, while still shooting RAW images. It’s remarkably lightweight and sturdy at the same time and I have already grown very fond of it. It will accompany me on trail runs and/or urban expeditions where a large camera would be too obtrusive and jut basically works superbly as a passe-partout).

For the first two hours of driving to Porterville the scenery was familiar as we had gone there last year trying to get me airborne. Marie had in the past ventured on her own as far north as Springbok, last decent-sized town before the border, about 600 km from Cape Town. After that, we were in virgin territory.

When the main tank approached half, we switched the auxiliary pump on to transfer diesel between tanks and start emptying the reserve, which would eventually remain empty for the rest of our trip, making us much lighter. But despite extensive fiddling, the pump never started pumping. We had to come to terms with our fate: we would most likely carry 120L of unusable diesel around with us for over 3000 km...

The landscape had long turned arid and the heat risen slowly when we reached the end of our day and approached the Orange River marking the border between South Africa and Namibia. Suddenly, the dry and dusty mountains were streaked with a line of lush vegetation and green erupted into the picture with an odd boldness.

With over 700 km weighing down on our lower backs, we arrived at the border and looked for procedural clues. A few cars were stopped in the main lane, empty. We parked behind them to get out and stretch, eventually greeted by an official who instructed us to leave the car right there and proceed to doors 1, 2 and 4, the Immigration, Customs and Police services respectively. We showed passports, ID’s, declared nothing and explained that no, we didn’t have a letter of authorization from the vehicle owner, in our case a generous dad. But we had registration papers and got through even after Marie joked « I hope my dad trusts me with it » and was awarded a laconic « But I, (accent on the I) might not trust you, Ms. » by a suspicious but bored officer.

We had cleared SA immigration and customs, and left relative civilization behind. We drove 100 meters and arrived at another control. The Namibian side, which effectively acted as gateway to the bridge, appeared quiet. Fortified by our previous experience in the field of African Border Posts, we parked next to another car and walked in. A single official sitting behind a high counter growled towards a set of forms to be filled. There was nothing to write with. I considered using my blood as ink but decided it would be a health hazard and went back to the car to fetch pens. Another uniformed officer standing outside seemed annoyed that I ostensibly locked the car back behind me. We presented our passports, paid the border crossing fees and exited as proudly as we could.

About to board our vehicle and head out, we were approached my yet another official, who could have been a police officer, or not. He looked through the Toyota’s windows and asked if we had anything to declare. The mention of wine got him thinking. He asked how much. We had to tell him. Then we had to show him. 12 bottles? I could almost see the wheels spinning slowly in his head and hear the cash register bells. K-tching!

He hesitated, trying to decide how to best pluck us. He had good eyes because he must have seen the Canadian passport between the seats and asked which one was the Canadian, aka the pigeon (that’s a French expression.) « You? All right, please come with me, I’d like to show you something. » Here we go, I thought. I followed him to a small room where he got out an old photocopied page of some Law Article. « First, » he explained in an official tone, « you do not have the ZAR sticker. We used to give a fine for this. » He pointed to the circled relevant Article of Law. « Second, you should have declared the wine. Over two bottles, you must pay duty. » Marie had walked in after me and was following the lecture. So, one of us said with a smile, « What must we do now? We are happy to pay the duty, and we’ll get the sticker. Can we buy it from you? »

I swallowed hard not to smile. That sheet, in front of me, was the wall of shame, the list of all the losers who had walked through this door before us.

There was a long pause, followed by some muttering about the guys, or them, not being there right now for the duty, and how he would try to attempt to see and evaluate what he could possibly maybe do. But he didn’t go anywhere. Instead, casually, almost smoothly, he whipped out another sheet and explained as he was showing us a list of names, signatures and amounts written by hand, that this was a donation form for their soccer team.

I swallowed hard not to smile. That sheet, in front of me, was the wall of shame, the list of all the losers who had walked through this door before us. I glanced at the amounts, found that $N100 was an average, and since I happened to have it in my pocket, picked up a pencil - graciously provided this time - and filled in my line on said wall. There was no shame. I was happy to play the game and get away with a simple $10 bribe rather than a lengthy pain in the butt about wine and duty.

He pocketed the money, and when asked whether he was part of the team and if they would win, he said yes, and yes. We all headed outside where he looked around unconvinced and admitted not to see the proper duty authorities. Then he just let us go.

We got in the car and exchanged a glance. Marie was furious. I was just glad to be done. I’d gone through the same rituals in Peru where one carried carefully calculated amounts of money in a special wallet in case of official trouble. In Mexico, a friend used to keep a pile of Playboy magazines in her car to bribe Traffic Officers. In Vietnam, the authorities invented a landing fee when we arrived on our first cruise, and since there was no precedent and they realized how important this was for us, they simply doubled the price every time we came back. In Panama, I unsuccessfully tried to buy my way out of a difficult situation. It turned out I had bid much too low. But of all these, the donation to the soccer team will remain my favourite. It’s inventive and almost funny, in a sick way. It’s robbery with style. It’s a poetic crime even if the crook will probably never know that he has a sense of humour.

We crossed the bridge and changed countries. The Orange River might not look like much but it is the largest river in South Africa. A few more kilometres on a dirt road and we arrived at the campsite, nested right against the northern bank of the oddly greenish river. We bought ice, pitched our tent, set up the field kitchen and Marie, overwhelmed by so much novelty and a bribe she still hadn’t swallowed, cooked our first delicious dinner accompanied by perfectly chilled Prosecco.

Later, as the sun had dipped downstream below the horizon and a fish eagle glided by, we watched bright stars fill their sky and the moon rose slowly to greet us on our first leg of the journey. We had left the comforting real world behind and resolutely stepped into the unknown. We were committed. My heart began to beat slightly faster. There is a thin line between the safety of ordinary times and what lies beyond, and crossing it has always been a rush. Here we are, I thought. Nowhere. At last.

 

 Posted at 5:41 AM in Namib Trip & On the road: 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply