From our accommodations at Hammerstein Lodge we awoke at 4:15am, for a 5am departure. After dressing and packing for the day, JD and I walked out of our room into the still-dark morning to see Aquarius and Saturn in the western sky, Orion towards the north, and Jupiter in the east.

We boarded Stevie, our Nomad truck, bound for the Sossusvlei Dunes, in Namib-Naukluft National Park. After an hour’s drive in the dark, first light gradually began to appear as we approached the Park entrance at Sossus Oasis. Stevie lined up with 20-30 other vehicles waiting to enter the Park as dense fog rolled in, cloaking the mountains and descending into the valley. At 6:45am, just as the sun crested the mountains behind us, the Park opened its gates.

The fog began to lift, revealing extensive orange-red sand dunes to the south of the entrance road. Goodness informed us that the source of sand for all of these dunes the Orange River, which our group canoed a few days prior. The orange color of the dunes is from iron oxide. At the valley floor, dunes gave way to an extensive carpet of dried, yellow grasses. After awhile, acacia trees began to occupy the transition zone between dunes and the valley floor.

Our first stop was Dune 45, a prominent dune adjacent to the main Park road. I, along with several other Nomads and Park visitors, climbed to the top of the dune. As we climbed higher, the dune ridge was so narrow that we walked as if on a balance beam, sand shifting beneath our feet. Walking back along a lower side slope, I noticed seeds collecting in the depressions formed by thousands of human footprints inthe sand – forming safe sites for seeds to germinate, and plants to grow.

After our climb, we boarded Stevie and drove further into the Park, transferring to open-air 4×4 Toyotas with 12-passenger seating capacity. These rigs shuttled us to Deadvlei, for another dune hike. JD and I opted to venture through the dunes on our own, following various tracks in the sand, ranging from antelope to birds, to small, round beetles about the size of lady bugs, that scurried under vegetation in response to our footsteps. We sat together in silence in the sand, savoring the silence of the desert for several minutes, before returning to our group.

JD and I rode up front with Victor on the drive out of the Park. We learned that Victor, a young father of two, speaks Shona, whereas Goodness speaks Zulu. He and Goodness communicate with each other, and Namibians, primarily in English, with some Zulu mixed in.

Next up: our evening game drive with the white rhinos….