Leaving Onguma - Etosha Game Reserve - Namibia, Sept 2013
Leaving Onguma : breakfast, animals, etc. morning at pool etc. mongoose eating a black scorpion, quiet time and Whatsapp and Blogging.
Leisl, the manageress, whose partner is a big boofy bloke,who is terrified of cockroaches and does the whole 'girly on the chair thing' bids us farewell, asks us to return, and says she will miss us. For a young woman living in the middle of nowhere, and,having met some of the people she deals with, I can believe her. I would miss us too. Big Reit has spent the last half hour with us, beams with his large tip, and the small gifts I give him. As Gerald is paying for our drinks, Reit, In a flurry of intimacy, which happens so often in those saying goodbye, tells me he is 36, not married, has a partner who 'will not accept my marriage proposal', but is the other of his two children, a girl aged 15, and a boy 10. She has a good job as a primary school teacher many kilometres away, he works as a safari guide in remote locations, and they seldom see each other. He says relationships are hard to handle. I feel sad for this big gentle, humble man, so far away from his loved ones.
As we leave the lodge, I see a couple who,have just arrived sitting at our table, and feel a pang of propriety. The name 'Onguma' means 'The place you will never want to leave' - and it is true.
On the twenty minute drive to the airstrip, Reit stops several times for Gerald to take photos of animals, and we laugh and remember things we have shared over this last short, intense period of life. The plane is waiting, and as we say goodbye, this big bear of a man hugs me tightly, with tears in his eyes, I hold his big round face in my hands, feeling a sense of,sorrow at this departure, and the many gifts,he has given us in three days.
Onguma. petrol can holder for cleaning materials
Slender mongoose digging and eating a black scorpion
I feel immense gratitude for what he shared with us ad what he taught us.
Nik our pilot looks 12 years old. German extra Turin highly comple. Family remarriages, kids, half siblings full siblings etc.
Cheat sheet - texting calculations and clock time. Cessna centurian 210 fly 8500 feet
We leave at 3.15 arr at 5.30 freezung desert winds Flight from Onguma to Palmweg is 1.20hr middle of nowhere, tony refuels - this is 700 m - been here nine years and says it is wonderful - spotless,loo plus,hand cream! to refuel then 20 mins to Doranawas. Pilot will stay here with us till we fly out Saturday cheaper than to fly him back. Flying thru mountains was a bonus as,he was refuelling to take us,direct to Wwd on Saturday, lucky!!!
Mountain range Etendeka mountains and Grootbeg Range. 7500 above Etosha plains
Moonscape, petrol green velvet carelessly tumbled, diverse terrain and colours and we fl y
thru a gap in the mountains - it looks as though a massive flood has been through her, the swirls and eddies and flow shapes on the sand. Sage, ochre, khaki, petrol gree, grey, wrinkled elephant skin, sandy Huab river, wide river beds, trees in ancient Ugab. river beds,
Quote: I have only been once before - Nik says, re Palwag, so we are fortunate. Not many get to see that, not normal flight schedule.
Damara means "moving around/ nomad
Aruba and grasses to more green then trees then salt pans and plateaus valleys and cliffs and mountains ahead. Table mountains everywhere
Of all shapes and colours, getting bigger land bigger one,like a Chinese pointed hat, others flat tops chopped off, volcanic country. Rocky,outcrops like piles,of elephant poo. Mountains higher than we are. Red sands Ppearing. Hills I can touch. Mtns give way to Sandhills
Mad max with tony filmed here last year surreal.
Namibia good for first time Africa travellers
Springbok on airstrip - bumpy thru mtns
Rocks like piles,of elephant poo we arrive at 5.30.
Greeted by Richard and Aggie at the lodge amazing house, all polished concert walls and floors, hand written note to welcome us, hot water bottles and goodnight poem. Dinner with Nickolai. Fire in pit and orange bean bags.
Young people, intrepid travellers like Nepal, hippy sorts ...
Moorish outlandish building with 17 thatched roof houses
Very cold - fireplaces and moonscape all around - driveway needs 4 wheel drive to get up, vast wooden doors, and Aggie charming and boisterous to meet us. She says we drink a LOT of beer here, so drink up. Big fireplaces, huge verandahs all around, elevated position so we can see for miles in 360 degree views of flat land and desert and rocky outcrops. Run out of water second morning and Agnes says "oh those naughty elephants!' Outdoor area with beanbags and a big fire in ce tre of building, dining area inside and outside, but it is absolutely freezing, snowing in Cape Town and the wind here is cutting. In the open sided jeep I wear three blankets and a big khaki fleecy poncho with plastic outside to stop the cold, but eyes and nose run and cheeks bite with cold.
The rondavel is thatched with open beams, dark concrete floors and walls, circular, white muslin, huge fluffy doonas, and the thickest rust blankets ever, they give us hot water bottles tonight, and a good night poem, written in a sweet childish print, quote poem Striped linen curtains , wooden tables with bowls cut in, in the bathroom. Wooden pole to hang clothes on - cleverly designed, understated luxury, a true African experience , and the view , oh my! A flat unending yellow dust plain, how could anything survive here? I cannot wait to see the desert elephants ...
Also a welcome note, all on hand made paper. Water is at a premium,if you can bear to take your clothes off to get wet that is, you place a tin bucket to catch the first drops of water, till it warms up, only flush when you have to. Bed centre room with concrete wall and large stone behind, four poster as always, indoor and outdoor shower. We can roll our beds out on to verandah to sleep but its too cold tonight she says, we would have loved that, but she is right, there is frost and desert winds to freeze. Huge sliding glass doors open to massive verandah, totally private. Sound carries far and we can hear people muffled voices from the rondavel closest to us.
Dinner and we invite Nik to join us, he looks so lost, like a little boy without his parents. Food not nearly as five star as Omguma, but smiling happy staff, and we are tired. Someone asks Nik who he is, he says I am their pilot. I feel surprised. We are one of those rich couples I met on occasion as a hitching teenager.
Bed at 10 - awake at 6 am and warm water , Richard wakes us 6.30. Up already, breaks, jeep - trees and rocks ? Oh no, river beds, dry dry dust and rocks and breakdown. damaraland mtns are 560 m years old
we view a.large elephant, babboons in bush then breakdown. No diesel. Gerald repairs a hole with bandaid and pPer tape, but it is no fuel. Visit to village De Riet village Daniel Rebecca nd Fredericka - sign says "a womn must stand by her man in his problems" kids, photos, loving the I phone and swiping the photos across they were relocated forty years ago from sa to this desolate place then masses of elephant come down to the water hole so the morning was spectacular.
Baked clay. caking face mask., cracking, so is mymskin and nails, dry dry dry. hair stuck with dust, but water is short. re ains diety. Afternoon drive to Damaraland living museum - incongruous bare breasted woman writing out an invoice in triplicate with carbon, men dressed in grass and bones, tool and jewellery making, skinning goats, dancing. Maureen!!!??? On film. We see rock engravings 2000 - 7000 years old rocky outcrops called the organ pipes, and burnt mountain - sundowners with Nikolai and ri hard biltong and nuts Nd wine and gin and tonic. At lodge drinks by fire with those two men, joking and laughing about running out of diesel. I ask them what,didmyour mothers teachnyou: richard: hard work and discipline and grandmother in hols thentrth. n saysmethics. gerald: fairness.His motto from here on in as "Lways fill up before you leave. - with diesel and wine!' He has a sense of hu,our and likes he. !
N is an earnest nerd I see when he puts on his glasses, clever, factual, and reminds us of a very tall very skinny Sam. He loosens up with us, and T dinner, eats my dessert, just like Sam would. That is a perfect ending to a great day, n eats with us, he is such a boy, so eager to please, naive and knowledgeable, I like him, he laughs at my observations of him which I must share as Gerald is giving him the blog. At the end of dinner the staff come out and sing and dance, the sound touches some part of me from long ago, and I feel tears. Too dark on film but the sound is great.
To walwedans : Up early, it is bitterly cold, oh my, richard comes to saymgoodbye and get his tip, he has the rude foursome to guide today, whomwe met with riets in onguma. after breakfast 8am depart to walwedans. gerald is very nervous and n is already prepped and strapped us in me in front at g's request, prop spinning, when Gerald suddenly asks to get out he has to go to the loo. We wait, he comes several mins later, saying he fertilised the soil, his stomach is in such knots. We go through take off procedure again and take off is straight forward, I am impressed with n. we fly 300 nautical miles, 500 Kms, 2.5 hours n has asked permission to fly us over Sosseivlei sand dunes, 8500 ft above sea level. We c.im. Out of Twyflesfontein Mtns ( doubtful fountain) a farmer settled after war and found water but it ran out.
On the right is the Doros crater volcanic, skeleton coast and wide b.ue Atlantic ocean to the west, blue against khaki, khaki edged with black seams. Uranium mind, largest open pit mine in the world,.
Then on rt Huab river , Ugab river, on left Brandenberg mntn and the Messum Crater (meteorite) then Omaruru river and in the east. Distance away is Spitzkopper mtns. We can just see Swakopmund on right hand side on coast in distance followed by Walvis Bay. Then the Kuiseb River where the Namibia Sand Sea starts - second world heritage site in Namibia, the Namibian national park. Then Tsondad Vlei , we fly over red sand and entering Sosseivlei and the Sosseivlei Dune Corridor. Pavlova, browned too much. Shepherds pie, forked into peaks that are crisped, caramel pudding , rocky road, peanut brittle , green channels and hills, comb like ridges, giant ant lion holes, rows of oven baked bread (valley of tears) impressions in the sand . Dry dusty skin sucked dry of moisture, white pans of salt., blue blue sky.
Sosseivlei means " the river that ends here". N says he Pplied for a job with wilderness air but wasn't good enough. It is spectacular, indescribable, yellow red blue lilac valleys Nd dunes and rust hills as far as you can see. Last twenty mins G looking fragile, rscue drops, won't even speak to me.
Walwedans
Landing smooth, n checking and reche king , boulders Nd rocks and a smattering of buildings, heat rising shimmering currents of heat, Ben tall, black, quiet, mindful. our guide meets us. There is Internet here, v shaky, and g downloads and I put a msg on FB no Internet as watt sap not working. Twenty mins to lodge through scrub, red dirt, not a tree, and mountains and more and more. Eric meets us with a champagne glass of Pple juice, col damp,towels on silver, and the building is a series of wood walkways over sand dunes, furnished out of Ernest Hemingway old suitcase, brass lamps, huge leather sofas, rocks, baskets of reeds, acacia seed pots hanging, sisal mats - an olde worlds luxury 1920's Africa camp, African queen, kAtherine Hepburn could walk in with bogey a y time. I love it - no walls at all, there Re canvas sides with zippers to do up to drop a flap, and mosquito netting rigid zipped at sides. Dark wood, the pharmacy for medicine (grog) a dining room with gas heaters and vast candelabra, copper piping in loos, big. Cushions African skins .... We are driven to our house, which sits with fi e others nestled into the sand, lever.y camof.aughed, a gentle footprint in the desert - Russell an Aussie guy we meet says he thinks Namibia could be the leading conservationist country in the world.
Sunshine is our server, and Meaghan. Too cold for snakes. Do not drive off track, damage cannot be repaired in a hundred years.
The room is stunning. No other building can be seen, a large tent with wide wood verandahs, zippered doors Nd windows, a huge bed in the middle of the room, white muslin netting, canvas and dark wood tables and chairs and lamps, a bath room with furniture and a chair and a wardrobe ..... Our view is straight to Loose Berg mountain - got lost from the others - terracotta pots and succulents, and Oryx Everywhere - waterhole at the main lodge full of birds and oryx. We unpack, have springbok stir fry for lunch so much for,our ethics - and a nap, Ben gets us at 3 Nd we head out for the sundowner drive. He is a silent man, who speaks only when he has something of I,port to say, watchful, and eyes like a hawk. The desert may look barren but it is teeming with wildlife that are so cleverly designed by nature - ostriches in black and grey so both male and female can sit on the nest by night and day - sociable weaver birds who,build vast thatched nests in the acacia trees only accessible by entering from below, to keep snakes out ... Snakes can climb up trees but not down, they just call to the ground - beware being under such tree when birds are flitting as a snake is a out to fall. Namaqualand Sand grouse carries water in a teaspoon like feather on chest to his chicks up to 2 Kms away. Also only drinks morn and night, rest of day in grass heavily, disguised, flies a short distance away from water, then walks in a crowd the last distance to confuse the eagle from swooping and eating it.
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