Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Q #1: what has driven some animals to become so remarkably tall?
Q #2: what drove plants to become taller than they might otherwise be, in open woodlands and savanna?
Look at this post’s featured image, and you may have – in part, at least – answered both questions…
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One very rarely sees a reptilian troika.
Unsurprisingly, Batagur dhongoka – this post’s critically endangered species – is this little series’ sole reptile.
The behaviour depicted is characteristic…and it greatly boosts a human’s chances of enjoying a proper look, even taking a reasonable photo…
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The featured image looks north/ish, to the silhouetted edge of the Namib’s “sand sea”, circa 40 kilometres east of Sossusvlei.
I took the photo at 7.37 pm – Sossusvlei’s sunset time on 21 November 2022.
This little series’ final image was captured 7 minutes later.
Had I had available the necessary time and technology, I would then have loved to listen to a particularly sublime musical creation which I first heard in 1989, and which amazes and inspires me, still.
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I took the featured image at 7.21 pm, 6 minutes before sunset, in the Sossusvlei area on 21 November 2022, looking south/ish from Kulala Desert Lodge.
Had I an additional pair of eyes in the back of my head, they would at that moment have been looking north/ish at a very different sight -the suddenly-silhouetted southeastern edge of the Namib’s “sand sea”.
However, even if my single pair of eyes had maintained an unmoving, “fixed focus, static camera” perspective they would have very soon delivered a beautiful example of “exactly the same, but completely different”…as this post’s final image illustrates.
Happily, I could – and did – move my head, hands, feet and camera.
The image below was taken just one minute later.
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The featured image looks north/ish from Kulala Desert Lodge to the nearest dune on the edge of the Namib Desert’s “sand sea”.
The sand sea’s most easily accessed portion is in this area, which includes Sossusvlei.
As you can see, the dunes are not “lifeless”; as well as being huge and exquisitely formed, their core structure is very much more stable than most people imagine.
The above photo was taken at 7.09 pm on 21 November 2022, 18 minutes before sunset.
Two hours earlier, when looking from the same vantage point, this dune was invisible.
The next photo was taken ten minutes later, looking northwest.
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6.55 pm, 21 November 2022, 32 minutes before sunset: all 10 of us – 8 “punters”, plus tour leader and nature guide/driver – are standing on the deck in front of Kulala Desert Lodge.
Individually and collectively, we are agog.
We have a 360 degree field of view.
Wherever we look, the landscape’s apparent nature is in flux – its face/s changing dramatically, second by second.
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At 5.08 pm on 21 November 2022 “our” Namib sandstorm was vanishing, as quickly as it had materialised, circa one hour earlier.
When I took the featured image, all visibly-flying sand was some kilometres east of us, as we stood on the deck of “our” cottage-tent.
Kulala Desert Lodge is around 40 kilometres east north east of Sossusvlei, and less than 2 ks from the southern edge of the Namib’s “sand sea” – the dune field in which Sossusvlei is the tourist “magnet”.
(Sossusvlei – our destination the following morning – has to be seen to be believed. It will, eventually, have its own series of posts. Suffice for now, what transpired on 21.11.2022 had a very beneficial impact on our 22.11.2022 experience)
For the next ninety minutes we relaxed in our quasi-tent’s interior; inevitably, it had been infiltrated by a generous dose of very fine, reddish sand – smoothly luxurious bedding had become decidedly gritty.
Then, suddenly, my ears and nose suggested something very unlikely was happening…
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Just before 5 pm we arrived at Kulala Desert Lodge.
At this point the sandstorm had raged for circa 45 minutes.
We rushed out of “our” vehicle, and into the Lodge’s hub/reception/lounge.
From there, the nearest of the nearby sand sea’s huge dunes is usually spectacularly evident.
At this moment, it was invisible.
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This post’s featured image comes from circa one minute after the final image in #2 of this series, but it looks in the opposite direction, toward the Namib’s temporarily-invisible sand sea.
On a normal day, the horizon in a photo taken from this vantage point would have been defined by the crests of some of the world’s most spectacular dunes.
Namibia’s emblematic mammal – the gemsbok (aka “oryx”) – is superbly adapted to its very demanding environment.(as will be detailed in at least one future post, devoted entirely to Oryx gazella)
As you can see, stoic gemsbok just “get on with it”, sandstorm notwithstanding.
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The featured photo was taken at 4.22 pm on 21 November 2022 – four minutes after the second one in #1 of this series.
The image looks across private property, once grazed by cattle, but now being “rewilded”.
Its present purpose is “conservation, funded by tourism”, as is true of much of the private land near to the Namib-Naukluft National Park – one of the world’s larger, more remarkable “protected” places.
Just one minute later, an appreciable amount of blue sky emerged, and it looked like the dust storm could be about to disappear as rapidly as it had formed…
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