day 4
Brought to consciousness
early—by the industrious sounds of camp being packed all around us, I stumbled
over Ali and out of the tent, my bladder compelled in the cardinal direction of
the ablution block.
Arriving back at our campsite (no. 11, picked for its proximity to the toilets and it's relative privacy), Ali was standing sleepily looking over the
remnants of the previous night's festivities.
We agreed to
breakfast at the canyon, and began to pack up camp.
The fire pit was easy work, as I’d cleared most of it the night previous, apart from the
coals. It was the
tent which proved to be moderately vexing.
When I said
we flung it open the night previous, I wasn't joking.
You pop it
into the air, it opens up, et voilà.
It had been
a while since when I’d packed the sucker last, but my memory served to remind me
that the five step process suggested by the pictorial instructions, was in
reality three steps that harbored very little similarity to those on paper.
We figured
it out, threw it in the back, and trundled out to the rim for breakfast before
we would head to Keetmanshoop for our next stop.
Due to some
miscommunication, once in cell service we found ourselves without a place to
stay for the night, so we decided to take in all Keets had to offer, then head
north to another volunteer’s site in Mariental.
It turns out
Keets has a thing or two to offer, those things just differ greatly from person
to person. In Ali’s
mind, I think that offering came in the shape of the tripod pug at the Quiver
Tree forest site. She reacted with the same wonder and joy I would witness the
next day upon her interaction with cheetahs.
For me, the hyraxes
topped the Kokerboomwoud (Quiver Tree forest). Hyraxes are thick, furry and
rounded herbivores, usually around the size of a household cat. Once pegged as
harmless tourists – and therefore no threat – the mother of the hoard opted to ignore
us, sunning herself atop a mound of stones. The adolescents scrambled at any sound, and the babies,
curious, peered from the rock crevices, less adventurous, and more likely to take
cues from their matriarch.
After
we downed the bulk of a couple pizzas under observation of an encroaching flock
of birds, we hop, skipped, jumped down the road to Giant’s Playground... which
was for me, a bit meh.. But, Ali is down for bouldering, likely due to her
geographic origins, so off she went exploring the odd and random geometric
patterns effected from wind erosion, while I would occasionally holler to
ascertain her location, trying to figure out if there was anything to see here,
other than a tourist’s trap..
Midday, we
headed up to Mariental to hang with Sinthu and Evie.
I think in
the end, it was better all the same for the change of overnight locale…
Namibia is host to a large number of ephemeral rivers. Though most of the year they are dry basins, they are never-the-less marked at each bridge along the highway. In the north, the names of these dry tributaries are varied—in the south, such imagination isn't evident. Aub, for example is, I'm told, a Herero word for watering hole. Wasser is, well, wasser.
From day one, we'd taken to calling out the names of the river placards as we passed them.
Aub, Aub, Aub, Wasser, Fish, Aub...
This was day four, yes?