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Tag: Desert

  • African shoestrings – Namibia Day Fifty – Fish River Canyon

    There was, we discovered the next day, a second viewpoint. This had been recently found and developed by Louie and without doubt it was pretty spectacular.
    Right on the bend of the gorge, the river was right underneath us, it was like looking down two canyons. Fellow guests, Alfred and Bridgett, had stayed in the more swanky lodge at Hobas, which was around three times the price, and had seen the hikers viewpoint, the main and most visited spot in the canyon. They reassured us that this spot was at least as spectacular, after we said that we wished we had managed to go to Hobas.

    Alfred and Bridgett were from Germany and whilst Bridgett spoke good English, Alfred struggled to understand us and put his thoughts into English. They both however were travelling in a classier style, they had hired a car and would have still been staying at the lodge in Hobas had it not been fully booked.
    To go from there to this rather basic and rudimentary lodge with the singing owner was a culture shock in more ways than one.
    They certainly didn’t know what to make of Gertrude.
    Gertrude is Louie’s mum and stays with Louie for around 3 months at a time and gives him a hand. She means well but she was an absolute pain in the arse!
    Her persistent chatter, interference and fussing in almost everything would have drove me to first degree murder had we have to put up with her for 3 months.
    In some sort of weird way she took a liking to Alfred, continually making sure he was happy and this is the weird bit, reminding him he was German. She was a sort of female version of Basil “whatever you do don’t mention the war” Fawlty.
    It was with some relief, particularly to Alfred, that another German couple Jurgen and Sabrina turned up to spread her attention.

    Louie may have been a rather average singer but he was a pretty good on the Barbecue. We had some good meals except one, Kudu steaks. Kudu are striking antelopes that are common around southern Africa and supposedly are good tucker. Sue couldn’t eat hers, mainly I suspect because of her love for any animal of the wild. I didn’t rush back for seconds. It had a strange soft liver type texture that made me wander whether it was ok! However there were no repercussions the next day so it must have been!

    I don’t know how hot it got but it was unmercifully hot! During the day the sun just beat down cooking everything and worse still heating up this lunar landscape of dark rock. At night freed of the sun’s rays this rock almost glowed as it radiated heat making the night more uncomfortable than the day. We had hoped to do some hiking in the canyon but there was no way we were prepared to risk this sort of heat. But the heat didn’t stop the group of hikers we saw earlier, who eventually found their way to the lodge; actually Louie picked them up from a prearranged spot in the canyon. They all looked terrible.

    After they had scrubbed up we got talking to a couple of them. They told us that they had run out of water at one spot and with a raging thirst drank from an old open livestock tank.
    Yuck!

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    Fish river Canyon, from a lookout, Namibia
    Fish river Canyon, from a lookout, Namibia

  • African shoestrings – Namibia Day Fourty nine – Fish River Canyon

    Our goal was to get to the Fish River Canyon around 120 kilometres away and Keetmanshoop was the closest large town. The catch was that there was no easy way there unless you hired a car, which a lot of people did. We had looked at that this and found the cost too exorbitant. Thanks to the Lonely Planet we had found an alternative.

    The Fish River Lodge offered reasonable packages including transfers from Keetmanshoop. We were picked up from La Rochelle by Riet just after lunchtime. Riet and Louie own and run the Fish River Canyon but with a strange twist. She (Riet) lives in Keetmanshoop with the kids and he lives at the lodge. An arrangement they have had for the last 3 years.

    Tough on your marriage!

    Both were from Cape Town and like many others had moved away from the turmoil of South Africa in search of better and safer life. As she told this we were looking out of the car window at a dull brown, rocky, flat treeless plain that somehow didn’t inspire us at all. Then she remarked that anybody coming here who has seen the Grand Canyon in the States must be so disappointed when they see the Fish River Canyon. Well, we had seen the Grand Canyon, so things weren’t looking good!

    The lodge is located about 40 kilometres north of Hobas, the canyons main tourist and information centre. There’s another area of activity further south at Ai-Ais Hot Springs resort, so we were starting to have doubts as to whether we were in the right place!

    As soon as we got there Louie gave us a beer each and whisked us off in the back of a Ute to the canyon 10 kilometres away. We drove down a rather bone jarring track onto the canyon floor and stopped there for a swim in the murky red Fish River. It was such a remote and desolate landscape, that the last thing you would expect is to see ten or so people suddenly appear along the floor of the canyon! This was a group hiking the Fish River hiking trail. Without exception they were all soaked in sweat and dust as they tore off their backpacks and all, bar a couple, jumped in fully clothed. Louie then took us back up to the canyon edge and to a viewpoint to watch the sunset.

    The lodge itself was pretty basic. With just two showers and toilets between six rooms; it was a cross between an old shack and a backpackers hostel. Apart from the lodge there was a dorm set away down the slight hill that the lodge stood on. Converted from a stable, it was a lot cooler than the lodge.

    And then there was Louie!
    Rough and ready, there were no airs and graces about Louie. He was one of those blokes you’d find down any pub tossing it down and talking gibberish with the rest of them. That we could handle!
    His singing was another matter!
    After tea he would bring out the guitar and sing the only song he knew “The horse with no name” for those of you born since the heady sixties, this was a big hit by a band called America. And ever since Louie sung it, I’ve been scarred for life. Talk about or see a desert and that damn “In the desert you can’t remember your name” comes into my head.

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    Fish river lodge, Fish river Canyon, Namibia
    Fish river lodge, Fish river Canyon, Namibia

  • African shoestrings – Namibia Day Fourty eight – Keetmanshoop

    We got back to Upington in the early afternoon and were ‘treated’ to a wimpy!
    A wimpy for those of you who don’t know, is the British equivalent to McDonalds and just about serves up the worse hamburgers you can get from a fast food restaurant (well at least this one did). Mind you as far as I’m concerned most fast food places are like that. The first two or three bites taste pretty good ’cause your hungry the rest resemble cardboard and have you thinking why did I bother? Because you’re hungry of course!

    We set up camp in the local Caravan Park, where the others were sleeping the night. We had a bus to catch to Keetmanshoop in Namibia that night and Hannah and Si were catching one to Cape Town. But we had enough time to rest up for awhile and watch the locals set up their caravans and crack open a few tinnies.
    This was, according to Roland “duchy country”. Duchy refers to the ‘real’ Afrikaners, people who had ancestry back to the first Dutch settlers in the seventeenth century. I had tipped Roland to be a ‘duchy’ but he apparently was not from that stock.

    A couple of them came up and started chatting to us. These guys were big bulky blokes who had tinnies almost disappearing inside their massive hands. They were the archetypal beer swilling rugby and cricket mad South Africans that most of the world recognises as the white South African. We had a bit of banter over rugby and cricket and they asked us over to the local bar to watch a rugby super twelves game with them. I was hanging out to do something like that but our bus departure time wouldn’t allow that and Michelle and Alex rightly felt it was not a good idea for them to go alone.

    The Intercape Mainliner to Keetmanshoop was 45 minutes late leaving, which allowed us plenty of time to say our good-byes. Roland was like a mother hen with our bags, making sure that they were loaded on carefully and near the front, as our stop was one of the first. We had all given him a generous tip in foreign currency, which he collects, so he was happy as a lion rolling in the Kalahari sand!

    The bus ride itself was an another overnight job and would have been pretty uneventful except for South African customs wanting everyone off the bus so that their sniffer dogs could sniff around presumably on the possible scent of weapons. We eventually got to Keetmanshoop at 3 am and were met by George from the La Rochelle B&B our overnight stop. We had booked a night here, figuring that arriving at 3 am in a strange town, without a place to stop the night was not a good idea.

    George was the first of many ‘Germans’ that we met in Namibia. Even though Namibia was only a German colony for thirty-one years from 1884 until 1915, its influence in certain areas is still very strong amongst descendents of that era. George was we were later to find out a typical example. He had been born in Namibia but still spoke with a fairly strong German accent and the B&B itself was very central European in its style and ambience. All dark wood and German style trinkets and furniture.

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    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz
    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz
    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz
    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz
    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz
    The ruins of the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz

  • The travel photographer FAQ’s: How do I get good shots of the locals?

    How do I get good shots of the locals?
    Good question. It really depends on where you are and what shot you are after. Begin with making sure that your camera is ready for an immediate click! This is essential. Nothing worse than loosing a shot because you weren’t prepared. So lens cap off, camera on and the right settings in place, usually a wide aperture i.e small f stop. If you are after candid shots of people just going about their business then a reasonable size zoom lens is handy and usually if you are far enough away you probably won’t need to ask permission. If you are going to try and get close up then it really is courteous to ask permission and then you may need to have a chat to make them feel comfortable. The trouble then is that they will pose which is often not what you want.I take an initial shot of them posing and then continue chatting and taking pictures which tends to yield more relaxed portraits. Beware of cultural sensitivities – in some countries there’s a believe that you are taking away a part of their soul.

    Old women at the Ranipauwa market. Ranipauwa Nepal is also called Muktinath after the sacred site nearby and close to the Tibet border.
    Old women at the Ranipauwa market. Ranipauwa Nepal is also called Muktinath after the sacred site nearby and close to the Tibet border.

  • View of eroded rock from Zabriskie Point Death Valley NP California photo

    zabriskie Point
    The infamous Zabriskie Point, more famously known as a movie is actually a lookout over an interesting landscape of yellow, brown and black rock formations called Badlands. Death valley itself straddles California and Nevada and as its name suggests is hot, dry, dusty and surprisingly the biggest national park in the lower 48 states of the US. But probably not somewhere you want to get lost especially in summer. I spent a bit of time just trying to capture the waving formations and the shadows they cast.