As promised -- more about the Namibian dunes....

Once at the dunes I elected to go on a guided walk despite my predalection to
avoidance of all things touristy.  I did it anyway after I'd heard a little of
the guide's story and am very glad to have done so.

My guide was a white Namibian who gave "Bushman" as his name.  In fact, if you
send mail to Bushman, Sesriem, Namibia, and use the correct postage it will be
delivered to him.  He told me that he had spent 6 years selling upmarket life
insurance products to rich white people before visiting the dunes for the first
time.  That first visit became the last as well as he's not left since.  He's
not worn shoes for 7 years.  He's not had a sip of water during daylight hours
for nearly that long.  He's never worn sunblock lotion.  He's the only person
to have walked from Seriem to the sea over 50km's of hot, desolate, unforgiving
sand.  He did it in three days carrying only 6 liters of water, and amazingly
finished the trip with two liters of water to spare.

I think the tug of the dunes is communicable, for I too was torn by the urge to
remain.  The immense dunes, parched valleys, and irridescent sky were starkly
beautiful as nothing I've seen before.  Iron flakes stain the sand on it's
multi-thousand year journey from the sea, turning it into a red that in the
morning is dried blood and in the shimmering heat of midafternoon masterfully
glides between orange and pink.  The sky, offset by the sand and sheltered by
mountains to the east, was consistently cloudless and glowed as if suddenly the
sun had shifted closer.  The animals were masters of efficiency -- beetles that
spent the night sleeping on their head so that water condensing on their backs
would slide forward to be consumed throughout the day, spiders that burrowed 30
cm's below the surface of the sand, lizards that could dive Remo-like into the
earth (pardon the pathetic reference), and Oryx that wouldn't run despite
hazardously close approach.  Each living off equally i!  mpressive plants.
Each cherishing water as it's life determinant.

I'm not quite sure how to communicate the scale of the dunes.  300 meters tall.
As tall as the Eiffel Tower, nearly as tall as the Empire State building, much
taller than the Washington monument, as tall as the lighted castle-like
building next to the Sears Tower -- so large as to dwarf the imagination and
warp real perception.  Dunes that looked close were too far to visit, hills
that looked swiftly climbable took hours to climb.  Distance played with
perception while grandure lured the senses.

I will never forget the tawny beauty of sunrise over Sossusvlei (the correct
spelling, sorry for the phonetic attempt in the last note) nor how to catch the
quick little lizards that, in a pinch, can be eaten raw for their water.  Catch
the next flight to Swakupmund, Namibia and find out how to catch the little
buggers yourself.  It's worth a month's salary.