Skeleton Coast Safaris - The Second Night in the Namib Desert

Leylandsdrift Camp

We took off from Quidas at 3 pm heading west, then north up the coast to Terrace Bay. It's a little bit longer than the straight-line journey but flying over the sea is a lot smoother than over the mountains. [You may want to read the previous, related post (night one) and also the next post (night three)]

I get the impression that my fellow travellers are bored. I have difficulty understanding this, but then I'm a lover of Namibia and not one of those “we've-been-around-the-world” travellers. Also, I'm a little tired of their conspiracy theories and gaslighting. “Let's keep the brilliance under wraps”, the wife tells her hubby. He's trying to educate me about biochemistry, which I taught for about 20 years in the UK. Anyway, they both fall asleep. Me, I can't get enough of this beautiful vista. Every now-and-then I talk to Henk, our pilot and guide, getting local information and insights.

Terrace Bay has “roaring” sand dunes, has roaring sand dunes. Henk drives us up the dunes in an old, I'll say classic Land Rover.

I sit on top to get a better view. It is a bit windy; I get sandblasted, but it is magical. At the top of one of the dunes, Henk slides down, the sliding sand making a unique sound that I cannot quite describe. I give it a try and also get the sands to roar with a nice vibration under my butt, very lekker. My travelling diary entry: “Awesome magic moments!” We drive back to the plane. Unfortunately, the wind affected the sound of a video that I took, but I've found an alternative on YouTube¹

The sun is starting to dip over the ocean, and we need to get to Leyland’s Drift [Camp 2] before nightfall. We fly over the Kuiseb river where we can see desert elephants, six adults and a calf, and giraffe below. These animals are not a different species but are uniquely adapted to desert conditions. Maybe we'll see desert elephants close up tomorrow?

We land at the Leyland's Drift Airstrip just before 7pm and drive to another beautiful campsite that sits on top of a cliff next to the Wuaraseb River, which is flowing strongly. “That is new water, it came this afternoon”, Joram tells me. Here they also have a school and home name:

• Othilie [Uatuurunga]: I was a lucky person who was very ill and got through the illness.

• Mervin [Vetjiutu]: They found me amongst many people

• Elizabeth [Ama-E]: Before her birth, her father wouldn't believe she would be a girl. Her name means “it is true”

• Bertus [Verukila]: it means “lion ranger”

• Joram [Muniozonggungo]: Born in a region where there are lots of stones.

Before and after dinner, I sit on the stoep [veranda] looking down at the flowing river. Most of the year these rivers are dry, it's the rainy season and they've had good rains upstream. Unfortunately, it's too dangerous to cross the river or drive the river valley the next day, Henk tells us. We won't be seeing the desert elephants up close; rather safe than sorry.

The next morning Henk takes us for a drive to the clay castles, which were formed when the river got blocked aeons ago and formed a lake with clay deposits. The San Bushmen were the only tribe in Namibia that made clay pots; other tribes excel at weaving.

As we drive through the valleys and over the koppies [hills], Henk points out various plants:

• Elephant's foot, which is good source of water.

• Bushmen's candle, a hunger suppressant that was licenced to Pfizer. 

• The Moringa tree, the green buds indicating recent rain, which has been very patchy.

• Camphyra, myrrh and Pedallium angustorum, which are fragrant plants.

Not that far from a river, it is dry, dry, dry. A Strandlooper site has pieces of metal around it, which probably came from the coastal mines as recently, maybe as recently as the 1950s or 1960s.

Later in the afternoon, we take off to fly to the Kuneni River. Below us, it is desolate with no visible animal tracks, though the rock and dune formations are incredible, constantly changing. Suddenly, between the dunes, I see two oryx. What do they survive on? Another well-adapted desert animal. They don't sweat and their faeces is very dry, thus helping to conserve water. They also have a unique set of cranial blood vessels that may help to cool their neural tissues in the desert heat. ²

We land at the Kuneni airstrip. It's a long drive to the campsite for night 3.

1. https://youtu.be/HJqaed0t05w?si=3uiie06AQxsjzUaC

2. Selective brain cooling in Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx): a physiological mechanism for coping with aridity? Hetem et al; J Exp Biol (2012) 215 (22): 3917–3924 [Selective brain cooling in Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx): a physiological mechanism for coping with aridity? | Journal of Experimental Biology | The Company of Biologists]