Nam Deserts

I post this over a week after coming back from Namibia, an incredibly arid country on the south-western shores of Africa. And one thing about this beautiful arid country is that it has deserts. Yes, deserts! The first true deserts that I have been in my life. The two main deserts are the Kalahari and the Namib – the Namib being the better of the two because 1) it is the oldest desert in the world and 2) it is the desert that we went to.

So here are some pictures from it:

Okay. This is a picture of the Gobabab desert research station. A sweet place, where we spent about four days. But those four days were the four hottest days of my life – the temperature reached 45 degrees celcius – don’t know what it is farenheit, but pretty damned hot. Most of our desert hiking we did from this place. Camped in two man tents in an ephemeral river bed which was quite dry and without water.

This was the station’s off-road vehicle. Made by South Africa for the Namibian Army, this guy goes over pretty much anything. But it doesn’t go up hill swell with a full load, so we had to get out and walk up the hill so the thing could get enough umph to get up.

From the back of the vehicle looking towards the upcoming dunes.

Fun times. It’s about 10am in this picture, and the sand is already getting incredibly hot. I didn’t even think about it before I came to Namibia, but after a barage of the sun’s rays for hours on end, the sand can become extremely hot. Barefoot in the middle of the day would give you burns. Bad burns. But here we’re fine in sandles and shoes.

Nalgene. Camera. Good shirt. Good hat. What more could I want?

(how about mountains, trees, streams, and trout?)

Anyway, I have a few more shots that I forgot to upload, including a beautiful sunset one. You’ll have to take my word for it.

**Update**  I have the sunset pictures finally: ***