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Dawn is a time of awakening. The sun warms but the desert is still cool. Desert animals are still sluggish while we people are still perky. As the sun rises, the sand and stones turn a glowing red as if the desert is on fire.
The warmth of day energizes the poikilotherms. (Don’t you just love that nerdy zoology word? It means cold-blooded animals). In the wink of an eye a shovel-nosed lizard burrows into the side of a dune leaving behind no trace of its presence. Tock tock beetles, endemic to the area, scurry about at top speed leaving nifty little abstract footprint artworks in the sand.
Another piece of nature’s artwork,a graceful gemsbok, grazes on the meagre desert growth against a background of dunes that rise like momentous sand tsunamis in the otherwise flat landscape.
We walk to Hidden Vlei, a surrealistic place. We have this still, strange, dry place all to ourselves. It is like a silent dream. Nothing moves, not even a breeze. The arid earth is cracked. Here and there solitary, parched, thousand-year-old trees bend and twist towards the sky like pointing arthritic fingers. They offer a sliver of shade to sit in and ancient branches for birds to perch on. It is a stark and simple beauty.
A black breasted snake eagle and, later, a pale chanting goshawk circle, hover and watch.
Back at camp we take a siesta. The temperature in my tent is 42° C. I lie on my mat in my underwear, legs and arms spread out like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man, panting like a hot, hot dog.
As the afternoon cools we come alive again and drive out to Sesriem Canyon. We walk along the narrow and wonderfully cool canyon floor, carved by the Tsachaub River. In some places the canyon is 30 m deep. In days of yore settlers drew water from the river, which is only wet a few months in the year, by tying six (ses) lengths (riems) of oxhide rope together – hence the name Sesriems.
