Spitzkoppe

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Did You See Some Seals?

At Cape Cross our senses were slapped with the sight of about 3000 seals and their collective shit. Back in 1486 a Portuguese seafarer sailed through unchartered waters to acquire some more land for the King. Only except he was told to lug a huge three metre tall stone cross with him. Months later, he sees the opportunity to offload his cargo, amongst 3000 barking seals. Wading through surf coloured slimy green by their crap, he erects the Padrao in reverence to his monarch. A few centuries later, replaced by a stone replica it was whisked away for eternal preservation. In Germany. Poor Diego, all that work and then only to have it poached by the Germans, but at least they were kind enough to put up a second copy made out of granite. Now tourists can take two pictures of not the real thing.
Like the penguins, the vast amount of seals is pretty spectacular but they also aren’t the action masters of the animal kingdom. If anything, they would be the awkward sidekick what with their hind flippers stuck together. The seals would flop side to side, head wobbling in all directions shuffling over anything including each other to grab a spot in the sun. In the surf it is a different story, they rocket through with spiralling agility. For twenty or so minutes, we watched them bark, flop and sleep in the sun, Anouk with her nose pinched the entire time. Little pups were annoying their mothers for milk while the men were off on their own private women free island.
‘Did you see any seals?’ I asked Harald.
‘Oh, I saw a few over there.’
‘I’m coming back as a seal,’ Carl decided. ‘They have their own bachelors club, they eat and sleep all day and when they want to, they come over here and have sex with a few dozen females.’
‘I’m going to make a movie,’ Alex decided. ‘I’ll call it ‘A seal’s Life’.”

Orange Boulders & Dreams

The rain well and truly gone left us exposed to the searing sun. The plains stretched out in front of us in full bloom once again but in the horizon you could see the island of mountains. One hundred million years ago, a volcano collapsed and left itself exposed to the harsh winds of the Namib Desert. Split, rounded and baked by the many forces of nature, the bizarre rock formation is a stunning massif. I took myself for a walk around the other side of Spitskoppe. A family holidaying from Joburg waved and we chatted for a little while before going our separate paths up Spitskoppe. It looks easy, but it was incredibly challenging, not least of all the heat of the granite boulders made it highly uncomfortably to place your bare hands on it for leverage. In the dead of summer, it is impossible to climb as the rocks absorb enough heat to burn your skin.

Boulder hopping for a while, I decided it was time to give up when I disturbed a family of rock hyraxes or dassies I think. They scattered in every which direction so fast I couldn’t identify them. They look like guinea pigs on steroids and unlike the rabid squirrels of London, didn’t chase me which is a plus in my books. Walking across the veld, high with waving grass and blossoming yellow flowers it should be a quintessential scene from a movie, especially with the orange massif behind me against the bright blue sky. In reality, the grass itch like mad against your bare skin and the ground is far from flat. The hidden ridges and holes make for a fair bit of stumbling. Inevitably I stumbled into a rather large hole and went down like a sack of potatoes. It was more a scene from The Benny Hill Show rather than Little House on the Prairie. Luckily for my pride no one saw me go down and for my sanity no one heard me burst out laughing at the stupidity of it.

We were camping near the base of Spitskoppe tonight. All of us but Nicole decided to seize the last opportunity to camp wild and threw our mats on top of the truck. The sun was about to set and team Scandinavia went left, team America went right and the lazy ones went up onto the boulders behind the truck. Dragging a bottle of wine with us we picked a beautiful spot to watch the sun slide behind a ruler straight horizon. Flickers of purple, pink and orange splashed across the sky and reflected off the boulders. A perfect hemisphere of orange over the plain, it slid gracefully away. Over, we stood up for the climb back down. With my earlier efforts, I doubt it would be as graceful, especially not with a near empty bottle of wine in my hands.
“Can you manage?” Derick asked.
“Nope,” and with that I promptly handed him the bottle of wine. Sure footed he made his way down before Nicole and I had even taken a step.
“Screw this independent woman thing, I am so done with it,” I stated after handing over the bottle of wine without hesitation. Nicole laughed. Well, lets be honest, what did I need to prove? If a gentleman wanted to help me out, I am more than willing to let him. Every Friday afternoon at the special school I had been working at, the men would just sit on the benches casually untangling climbing wall harnesses while I was struggling to set up a competition standard trampoline and construct a stage platform with another female colleague. This feat is normally conducted after three hours of supporting profoundly disabled children in a hydrotherapy pool. So stuff the suffragette movement, I’m on holidays.

“What are we having for dinner tonight?” one of the boys asked.
“Seal Steaks,” Derick replied as he placed them on the braai grill.
“Really?” Carl asked looking at me for confirmation. I nodded.
“What would you make for a girl for dinner?”
“Seal Steaks,” Derick replied.
“Really?”
“No, Kudu steaks,” he corrected. At this stage the boys realised that he was lying to them. It was Kudu. Another animal to my ever growing list of African wildlife I have consumed in the past year.

The wind kicked in as Albert and Anouk dragged their mats to a nearby boulder while the boys and I unfurled our sleeping bags on top of the truck.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I wasn’t trying to!” Hendrik protested.
“Don’t touch me,” Harald repeated in a dead pan voice.
The boys carefully orientated themselves to prevent any spooning from occurring. Anytime one of us rolled, a ‘bop’ sound in the roof was created causing the next person to automatically roll over, sending a chain reaction down to the end. Every twenty minutes all you could hear over the wind was ‘bop, bop, bop, bop, bop…’ as we turned over. Eventually I descended into sleep under the Namibian sky for the last time.

The toilet is utterly useless. It did not have a door, just three and a bit walls surrounding a western style toilet seat over a long drop. It was situated directly in front of where the door should be. Exposed to anyone who happens to walk by, I couldn’t decide whether to shock them with a frontal view or a side view. For that matter, there was no way the greying cracked toilet seat was going to touch naked butt cheeks. Flies swarming around, butt hovering over a crusty toilet surrounded by redundant wooden walls, the image sent me straight over to a cluster of boulders. Sometimes the simplest solution is best and at 4am in the morning, in between the boulders it is.

The morning sun came up over Spitzkoppe and the boys woke up one by one, grumbling from the sporadic sleep they endured. Alex looked stood, hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “Apart from the first night, this is one of the worst. My hair was blowing all over my face,” he grumbled, running his hair through his long blonde hair. “I had a nightmare last night. It was here. I imagined I was being chased across the whole desert by all these snakes. Then I woke with all my hair across my face.”
“I had a nightmare too!” Carl sat down with his cereal and shook his head. “I dreamt we were asleep and then there was all this banging. And Derick was looking over the edge of the truck and telling us to stay down because there was a leopard. A leopard!” he emphasised. “The leopard was walking around the campsite. I was so scared!” he swore again. “THEN, I woke up to see Derick looking over the side of the truck!!!”
“I remember that, I dreamt my hat blew away and then an old lady was chasing it,” Derick said, “I did look over the side of the truck, but it was next to me.”
“And your torch! How bright is it and how many times do you need to go to the toilet?” grumbled Carl at Nicole.
“Is it that bright? I only shone it once up onto the roof to see how you guys were doing.”
Honey, it’s a friggin’ light sabre.

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Photos

Spitzkoppe
A giant volcano that collapsed long ago, is now one incredibly awesome place to rest the night.

One Seal
'..More like the awkward side kick what with their hind flippers stuck together..'

Many Seals
A Cape Cross our senses were slapped with the sight of 3000 seals, and their collective shit.

Padrao
Its not the real deal. The Germans stole that.

Island of Boulders
Looks easy to climb, but the granite rocks becomes hot enough to take a layer of skin off

Nearly to the top....
About as far as I got.... then i disturbed a family of guinea pigs on steroids

Ground View
Ineveitably, I went down like a sack of potatoes....

In Between the Boulders
At 4am, it was a better alternative to the utterly useless toilet ....

Sunset at Spitzkoppe
Yet another beautiful sundowner...

Grace
Beautiful... stunning.... graceful...