Journey to Spitzkoppe

It had cooled nicely under the starry night. I woke up in my current unwanted pattern at around 3.30an and lay awake watching the stars until I got up to shower and breakfast at 5.30am. The horizon had reddened beautifully for thr forthcoming sunrise. We set off from Cheetah Park to head further south into Namibia. We drove along stony rough roads that made for a bouncy and challenging journey. We stopped off in a small village for provisions. There were some local women street sellers in the topless dressing that is traditional in this area. Tribal name?They also wore bead necklaces and bracelets. We passed on into increasingly dry and arid landscape. The trees grew less and smaller and the areas of yellow sands grew bigger. We were now entering the Namib desert. We moved out of the flat plains and into a more mountainous area with impressive ochre coloured rock formations. The mountains also rose in a dusky red from the yellow sands. This was more the classic image of the Namibian deserts. We drove through scattered houses that had a ramshackle appearance of various poles shackled together. One house had strange mannequin figures outside and there were pieces of wood stacked in small square columns. The women dressed unusually with head scarves that had a long thin top to them.
The rock formations got more spectacular and the mountains got higher as we approached Spitzkoppe. They were formed out of a rounded, pinkish orange granite with large boulders balancing on their tops and sides. We turned off into a large campsite with spectacular views of the mountains behind. There were no facilities on our camping spot so this would be a more wild bush camp. We climbed up the rounded rocks behind the site which led up to a large rock arch where we stood and took photos. This was an atmospheric place with an austere but beautiful rocky desert lanscape all around. We sat amidst the rock formations before returning to the truck for dinner. We played cards on the truck before dinner which added some fun to the late afternoon and kept us out of the intense sun for a while. I pitched my tent without its waterproof outer cover to help stay cool in the night and watch the stars. I had to peg down the inner tent as there was quite a strong desert wind blowing.
The sun began to sink towards the horizon as the early evening approached and we wanted to walk up to a high point on the big rounded rock formation behind the camp. However, it was quite a challenge to get up there as the rough granite sides were quite steep. Lauren and I walked around to the back of the formation and managed to find a route up to the top but it still required some difficult climbs through rock crevices. We met some of our fellow travellers at the top who had jumped across a rock crevice and found a way up from the front of the formation. The view from the top had breathtaking views over the surrounding mountains and rock formations. The large orange sun slowly descended to a gap in distant mountains and created one of the most atmospheric and beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. The sun slowly disappeared behind the mountain and the sky reddened dramatically. We decided to pick our way back down through the rocks before it became too dark. Some of our fellow travellers tried to come down thr same side of the formation later and got a bit lost so we had to help direct them down the right way. I got some lovely photos of the reddening skies at the bottom. We then had a wonderful dinner cooked by our driver, Often, and tour leader, Jemma. There was a beautiful thin crescent moon and Venus shining bright nearby in the darkening night sky.
People retired to their tents early. However, Lauren and I decided to take photos of the stars and milky way in the clear night sky. We got some wonderful photos and it was lovely to spend time under a nightsky with no light pollution and so filled with stars. We could see the Southern Cross constellation rising. At around 10.30pm a large 4x4 vehicle drove past us and then returned and drove into our campsitr directly heading for our fellow traveller, Vincent, who was camping out of his tent to sleep under the stars. We had to literally run and jump in front of thr vehicle with our head torches on in order to stop Vincent getting run over. It turned out that the vehicle contained young Chinese tourists who wanted to visit the rock arch in the middle of the night. We advised them not to try and negotiate the tricky and steep formations in the dark with only phone torches. However, they ignored us and walked around the formations getting lost and talking noisily waking up our fellow travellers in the process.
We continued to watch the stars and take photos until I became too tired and returned to my tent to sleep at about 11.30pm. I slowly fell asleep in the warm night air looking at the stars through the netting of my inner tent. Czytaj więcej