Tsaris Mountains & Sossusvlei

We left cold wet London for Jo’burg, and then on to Windhoek as there are no direct flights. We had no idea what to expect, as I (Marc) had only been to South Africa, and Liz had never set foot on the continent.  Two uneventful flights later, we passed through the tiny Windhoek International airport and made for our hotel.  Our first impressions were how hot it is, what a lovely garden full of birds the hotel had. After a powernap and a swim it was off into the centre of Windhoek, for dinner. Joe’s Bierhaus was recommended to us, and for good reason. It’s a really cool restaurant where the indoors and outdoors blend seamlessly. We had our first taste of Africa animal, both living and on a plate; We ate Oryx steak (a mountain antelope that tastes like Vension) and while we were enjoying the food, to our surprise, a mongoose wandered into the restaurant.

Next morning we met our travel agent and picked up our rental car - a 4x4 pick up – and hit the road. The 4x4 part would later come in rather handy.  After an hour with the luxury of tarmac, the roads turned to gravel. Most Namibian roads are gravel, but on the smoothest ones you can drive at about 60mph. The distances are also vast. It’s uncommon to come to a town less than an hour from the previous one. On that first drive we saw baboons, ostrich, and springbok.

Four hours later we arrived at Zebra River Lodge, set amongst the Tsaris mountains. As we were greeted with a complimentary drink, Liz cried out ‘Macie’. The owner had an 11 week old Pug puppy called Bella. (Liz’s niece has a very similar pug pup called Macie).

We were both amazed what a luxurious place it was. We knew there was a pool, but we didn’t know we’d have a lovely little stone built room set in a beautiful garden. 

We enjoyed a wonderful evening. Dinner was served on a veranda overlooking a watering hole. The food was great, and after dinner the staff sang some traditional songs for the guests (all 7 of us). Once the sun set, we were treated to the most amazing sky. The stars are so much brighter and so many more are visible than in Europe with all our light pollution. We could even see Jupiter’s moons through a normal pair of binoculars. Then some visitors came to the watering hole – some Kudu, a warthog, and finally two zebra which looked almost ghost-like under the lights by the watering hole. We also watched an eagle owl up close in the garden of the lodge, flying around looking for dinner.

Next day we joined the owner and his kids on an early morning walk. We bounced along some very rough roads in his truck, then walked along a dried-up river bed for an hour to a beautiful, lush canyon with several turquoise pools where we all had a well-deserved dip to cool off. By the time we got back to the lodge it was seriously hot, which is why siesta’ing is popular here. But there was siesta for us. We had to drive to our next accommodation, a desert camp.

‘Desert camp’ doesn’t really do it justice. We had a simple, part canvas chalet with a brai (BBQ) outside on the veranda, but the view was incredible, across the grass plains to the Tsaris mountains 10 miles or so in the distance. Whilst swimming in the pool we watched an Oryx make its stately way to the watering hole. That night we BBQ’d Kudu and Eland steaks which were delicious, and had an early night because next day we had to be up early. That night we needed to have an early night (which we did) and sleep really well (which we didn’t)

Next Day we 4 x4’ed off into the sun rise to visit Sossusvlei within the Namib-Nauklauf National Park!  I can’t remember last time I set the alarm for 4:45am. We were at the gate by 5.40 having collected our picnic hamper from a local hotel, this turned out to be enough food for a small army! At 6 they let us in and we drove the 64km to the first major, and accessible dune. The last 5km were in sand. Low and behold we got stuck, but after letting out some air from our tires we were on our merry way, with a bit of help from Liz pushing us! Why do I always get the good jobs ;) The views were increasingly stunning as we went along and we saw the odd Oryx and impala along the way. We arrived at the huge dune and started our assent, which took about 40 minutes. Quite hard going as we went higher and higher. The views were amazing and as far as the eyes can see. Oranges, apricots and golden sand dunes wow, what a place! The views over Dead Vlei were beautiful too. As you can see (from the pic) it is a white pan area made of dried out clay and salt with dead camel thorn trees protruding out from it. It’s a photographers dream with the dunes in the background. We admired the panoramic view at the top then ran, walked and jostled down the sand dune to investigate Dead Vlei.  By now it was around 9am and we began to notice the rise in temperature. But the place was too beautiful to miss exploration and photo opportunity! By the time we began to make our way back to the car the mercury had began to rise…we had ignored instruction to wear closed toed walking boots and this was when we began to regret it. The sand became hotter and hotter on our 30 mins return journey. By the time we arrived at the car Liz especially was incredibly hot and panicky. I think I said “I would have died if we’d had to carry on for 5 more minutes”. Never have I been happier for air conditioning and a bottle of frozen water…In my panic I dropped my sandal and we had to drive back through the 5km of sand to retrieve it. On the upside we had a stunning picnic hamper under the tree J all’s well that ends well! Seriously, we knew it got hot in the desert but by 10am, really?!!!

On the way back to the lodge we stopped off to see the Seisrem Gorge, which is impressive but by then it was too hot to hang around….and needless to say we spent the evening gazing into the horizon with a delicious salad, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and listening to the calls of the wild. Bliss!

Namib Desert Resident

Sunset over the Tsaris mountains

Our home - but only for one night

Dead Vlei

Too hot, even for the trees

On top of the Dune, looking down on Dead Vlei

A kitchen with a view

All 360 degrees of our Desert Camp at Sunset

Gorgeous Galapagos

We met up with our new friends Clare and Yvonne, and following a short flight, bus ride and very short ferry crossing we arrived in the Galapagos proper and were very happy to be there too! A rep from LEAD (the volunteer company we went with) took us to our first tourist spot on the Galapagos, a giant tortoise conservation centre, before taking us to our hotel on the beautiful island of Santa Cruz. These giant beauties were free to roam but tend to gather in the highlands areas. They were wallowing in natural pools and generally doing tortoise type things – moving slowly. We were able to get as close as a metre away. They also had a tortoise shell which was big enough for us to climb inside, and almost too heavy to lift. Giant tortoises were a first for both of us, so we were both blown away. There is a breading programme well underway on the islands as the tortoises are endangered due to hunting by man and due to goats being introduced to the island, which eat the tortoises food. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who would win in the food race!!!  

That's a big crash helmet

That lizard has got one on too

I guess we might get that wrinkly if we lived to be 200

500kg and slow moving 

Shortly after we met up with the 5^th member of our group – Kaileen. Just a few words about our new mates. Clare was about our age and travelling for a year, making periodic stops off back in the UK to see her family. Yvonne, was a retired married lady who left her husband at home as he doesn’t travel well, and Kaileen, a 19 year old American on a gap experience who was volunteering in the Galapagos as a teacher’s assistant. We were quite the mix and all things considered got on pretty well J

Moving on...The next day we visited the Charles Darwin Centre, explored the town and went to Tortuga Bay (Turtle Bay), the most beautiful and unique beach we have ever been to. It takes 30 minutes by foot to get there but my, was it worth it!!!  It is a very long stretch of white powder sand. Marine iguanas patrol the beach, walking in their almost pre-historic way, leaving trails of footprints and tail swishes. At the far end of the beach was a headland where we saw hoards of marine iguana both huddled up together, snorting salt water out of their nostrils and swimming in the sea. There were blue-footed boobies (no, boobies are birds!), pelicans, enormous candelabra cacti and mangroves. Behind the beach was an area of natural foliage where the tortoises bury their eggs. All in all the most natural and beautiful place ever!!!

Blue-footed boobie

Hungry pelicans watching fish being gutted

His beach. We're just borrowing it

What a beach

Next time, use a kleenex

A gold star for the Tortuga Bay

The next day we were off bright and early to start our first volunteering project called ‘Pajarro Brujo’ (Red Bird). It was an organic farm located in the highlands, not somewhere you would imagine finding on the Galapagos. To be honest the project was pretty disorganised and a long-term volunteer, Sylvie, was doing her best to keep it together, and made our time there as productive as possible. We were a very enthusiastic crowd so we worked hard and got lots done! We made a 30ft long compost heap from scratch with various layers. It was very hard work hauling the earth, banana leaves and bark shavings, ashes and horse poo by the barrow load, BUT we all had a huge sense of satisfaction once our day was doneJ. Other activities included milking cows, making cheese, watering, weeding and generally maintining a greenhouse full of sapling trees. The reason for the who project, just in case you are wondering ;) is that due to many factors including, the impact of tourism, and the accidental introduction of mosquitoes and other invasive animals and plants, many farmers have abandoned their farms, as it’s difficult to farm with the mosquitoes (we found out more about these on our second placement). So these voluntary orgs are setting up organic farms to demonstrate what can be done, and how the Galapagos can be self-sufficient once more. Growing sapling trees is done because so many indigenous trees and plants being endangered and lost, mostly strangled by non-indigenous plants, which I’ll come onto later! This is having a huge environmental impact on the Galapagos. For example, the giant tortoise only eats certain indigenous plants and trees and without them cannot prosper. The environmental status of the Galapagos is considered to be threatened.

Liz working hard

Marc thinking hard about working

Well, enough environmental ranting lol. After a week on Santa Cruz we took a boat ride to our next island, San Cristabal. This was smaller, and gave us our first up close experience of sea lions. They lounge around the pavements when the colony on the beach gets too cramped. You can go right up to them – and the pups are incredibly cute.

Cute little guy

Sea Lions on the High Street

Our second project was ‘Jatun Sacha’ (Deep Jungle). This was a much larger and better organised affair than the first. We met with around 20 volunteers aged between 18 and 60. Those SKIers (Spending Kids Inheritance lol) are everywhere, and good for them!!!

Jatun Sacha was a whole new ball game. Midges everywhere – got bitten loads, even on my face (Liz) and lots of the time we had to wear face nets! Huge brown spiders and lots of Mora to chop down (Mora is an invasive blackberry that has swept across the Galapagos strangling endemic species along the way). Again we were very productive J Our tasks included tending another nursery of sapling trees, cutting down Mora with large machetes, grinding and roasting coffee and weeding. Marc got to do some non-conventional weeding by setting light to a whole field of weeds to create space for a new pineapple plantation. I always thought he was a bit of a pyro J. We also spent time watering a huge allotment, harvesting oranges and making the best orange juice we’ve ever tasted! Hard work and again lots of fun!!! We stayed in a 100 year old wooden house on the farm, sleeping in bunks with mosquito nets and listening to all the noises of the wildlife outside. We soon got used to that, but the spiders and mouse we were sharing our room with weren’t so welcome.

Marc 'weeding'

Coffee grinding is thirsty work

Sunset from our hammocks

No star bedroom

A couple of evenings we visited a bar, which quite literally was in middle of nowhere. We believe that it only opened when people from the project went there. There were two choices of drinks, namely, Beer (lager) or Cuba Libre (white rum, coke & lime). It was actually a lot of fun, dancing salsa (Liz not Marc – seriously did you think Marc would be doing the Salsa J) and thrashing the locals at pool on the worst pool tables you’ve seen in your life.

It tastes better after all that hard work

At the start of the final week we took two rather bumpy boat rides to get to the beautiful island Isabella. It was very different than the other two Islands; not very populated and with roads made of sand. Here our time was our own. We went on a few excursions and had the time of our lives snorkelling is the best places we’ve ever snorkelled.

There were many highlights to our Galapagos experience and here are some that stand out to us! Bartolome Island, which is known for its volcanic lava and impressive views (it’s the most photographed place in the Galapagos Islands).  We had numerous snorkelling experiences, each of which was totally amazing. Some of the snorkelling had us hanging out with black tip and Galapagos reef sharks, most of which were approx 5-6 ft long! Yikes! Swimming with an eagle ray was amazing! We also shared the water with some 4-5ft turtles, at a cleaning station’ where we watched fish nibbling away at the turtle’s shells to clean them. We even got to see two large turtles taking a pop at each other (see photo). In the same bay we snorkelled with marine iguanas, which was such a unique experience. One of these fascinating creatures swam almost into Marc’s face, freaking out at the last second when it realised how close it had got to Marc.

Bartolome Island

Breathtaking view, and breathtaking climb up.

Frigate birds flying along beside our boat

  

During one of our snorkelling excursions I (Liz)became overly enthusiastic and decided to swim out on my own, with the boat close by, and was justly rewarded by swimming above two hammerhead sharks. Looking down in the water to discover these beauties look my breath away, partly because I was on my own and felt a little nervous, if the truth be told, as they too were rather large!

  

Lobos Bay was another treat, where we were surrounded on the beach by sea lions of all sizes, including cute little baby ones. Remarkably we also got to snorkel with them. Magnificent! They tend to weave around about you, blowing bubbles and being generally playful. However, when the alpha male comes into the water, it’s best to swim off in the opposite direction!!!

One afternoon, like the Von Traps we headed off on bicycles along a stunning coastline, stopping off at lagoons, lava tunnels that head into the sea, beautiful bays, and mangroves and watching the beautiful flamingos flying in and feeding in a lagoon. Bliss. This particular day we also visited the wall of tears, which is a huge stone wall constructed by convicts to keep them busy. Unfortunately, many of the convicts died building it –hence Wall of Tears. 

As with all good things our Galapagos experience came to an end. We had grown to love this place so much and I have to admit to shedding a tear on the way to the airport whilst vowing to return one day! One thing this beautiful archipelago reinforced for us is how fragile ecosystems can be. If we wish to keep such magical wonders as the Galapagos we must do more to look after and protect them. And so it was – AMEN!