Where the Sacred Dwells, Namaste

May 3.  We return for a final time to see the dunes at sunrise.  They continue to amaze, appearing to have been sculpted expertly to change shape and color with the shifting light and the angle from which you view them.  We leave them behind, satisfied that we have not “overdune” them.
Return to the lodge to pack and have breakfast.  The Sossus Dune Lodge was another very good place to stay, comfortable and beautifully situated to afford great views while blending with the environment.  This would be my second favorite, with the Elephant lodge (in some ways the ritziest) third and Mowani Mountain Camp the clear winner.
Today is spent driving back to Winhoek, with stops for a marvelous apple crumble at Solitaire Bakery and a quick sandwich along the road.  I have two sessions with Nevada, reviewing photos on the bus, which are very helpful in identifying problems with my photos and somewhat encouraging, because I’ve improved pretty significantly based on incorporating suggestions from our earlier session together.  We arrive at 3:00 and have a welcome and luxurious 3 1/2 hour break before drinks.  We are back “home” at Galton House, where we started the journey and are even assigned the same rooms.  It’s been a tiring trip with very early wake ups, temperatures of over 100 degrees in the sun during midday, long rides in the van and some fairly challenging walking, sometimes in high winds.  So the afternoon respite is very welcome.
We meet for drinks at 6:30, and Carol reads drafts of a couple poems she’s written about the dunes and I read the spoof blog I’ve written about what really happened on our trip.  Both are well received.  We drive to a local restaurant with a lot of character and have an excellent meal.
Carol and Jeff will be leaving the group tomorrow to fly home, as they are not doing the five day extension.  The rest of us will be heading north.  I’m told that we won’t have internet for three or four days,

May 2.  Another very early start for a 5 o’clock takeoff for our balloon ride.  Six of the group elect to take this optional, but not inexpensive ($450 each) one-hour ride.  We get to the site and one of the pilots tell us that, because of the wind, there’s only a 50-50 chance we’ll be able to fly.  We’ll have to wait until sunrise to see whether the winds calm down.
Happily, they do and sixteen of us get into a large basket, segmented into four rectangles, two on either side of the pilot.  We crouch down for liftoff and enjoy a very pleasant ride that gives us a sense of the overall terrain that we’ve been driving and walking through for a couple of days.  We fly low over the (waterless) river, skim over tree tops and get aerial views of game.  The flight gives another perspective on the incredible landscape. And the experience of ballooning, which we’ve had only one other time, in Myanmar, is exhilarating.
The pilot says that there are two kinds of landings, exciting and very exciting.  Because of the winds, ours will be the latter.  We hit the ground, are dragged along the road in the basket and then the basket tips over for us to crawl out.  Awaiting us up the road is cold champagne and a quite luscious buffet breakfast.
We return to the lodge and have four hours to relax, swim, lunch and take care of whatever we want to take care of.  At 3:30 we take off for another trip to Deadvlei, which we photographed yesterday. The wind makes the hike in more difficult, but again it’s spectacular.  We have special permission to remain in the park after hours, so we can photograph the sunset and the rise of the full moon.
After we gather at our vans at 7:30, the winds are too strong to cook, as we’d planned, but after a 20-minute drive, we find a spot where the wind has died down, and we can enjoy our steak meal under the stars and full moon.
I’m sure this sounds like a hell of a lot of dunes, and it is, but they are so majestic and spectacular that it’s worth all the time we spent there.  I hope that these photos will give you some idea of what I’m talking of.

April 30.  After breakfast at the hotel, we drive a short distance from Swakopmund to visit two poor townships nearby, Mondesa and DRC.  They are a stark contrast to the prosperous city we spent the night in.  Again, Nevada delivers photos she has taken last year to the people, including  Agnes of Agnes Barber Shop (hair parlour).  People are friendly and, except for one guy, willing to be photographed.  This is a side of Swakopmund that visitors would not normally see, just as visitors to a US city would not see its poorer areas
We continue on down the coast and stop to photograph a huge flock of flamingoes and some Pelicans.  The weather now is very chilly, making us happy we wore fleeces this morning.
Along the way to our destination we make several stops–for a picnic lunch in a dry river bed, for various unusual forms of plant and animal life, including quiver trees from which Bushman make quivers to carry their arrows, hoodia a type of cactus that looks like a coral reef and is sold as a hunger suppressant and was used by Bushmen to avoid eating game before bringing it back, a huge social weaver nest, a pygmy falcon and more oryx.  We stopped for pastry at an excellent bakery, the Solitaire, in a most unusual desert location.

Around 6PM, we arrived at our hotel, the Sossus Dune Lodge, which is situated inside the Namib Naukluft National Park, and gives us great access to the stunning giant sand dunes of the Namib Desert. The Lodge is ideally located with dramatic views out over the surrounding desert landscapes; its unique location allows us early entry into the dunes at Sossusvlei an hour before sunrise and a late exit an hour after sunset. The Lodge has been constructed on stilts linked by wooden walkways, thus creating the least amount of impact on the fragile desert environment. Accommodation is in very comfortable en-suite wooden and canvas chalets that lead on to a private wooden veranda overlooking the expansive desert plains. There is a large main area consisting of a dining room, a swimming pool, and a pleasant bar.
After a welcome shower, we go up for a good dinner at the Lodge.  Dessert includes a surprise birthday pastry with candle and singing for Erika, which I have arranged.  It is a complete surprise, as it is not Erika’s birthday, nor was it her birthday two nights ago, when we had the first surprise party for her.