Sands of Time Meets Father Christmas

Growing up, I always appreciated the fact that Santa was driving his sleigh through sleet and snow to circumnavigate the globe delivering all those toys. Sitting in my tent on Christmas eve at just outside the entrance gate to Sossusvlei, I had yet another revelation regarding Santa. He doesn’t just drive through winter storms, he also powers through mountains of sand. And, as with many lessons, I learned this the hard way.

After more than six hours on the graveled Trans-Kalahari Highway, I pulled into the Sesriem campsite anxious to secure my campsite for the night. Advice I received online mentioned that the campsite is often booked months in advance. “We are fully booked,” the African ranger explained from behind the counter.

I mustered the nicest face I could and pressed as to whether there was no space for one more tent. She mentioned some overflow camping, but it was not in the shade, a key factor when it is over 100 degrees in the Namib desert. Pointing to a cardboard box lid, doubling as an impromptu map with a rough ink sketch of camp, the ranger directed me to a spot behind the “ablution blocks” or bathroom. It was there, she explained, that I might find a spot with some shade.

Eager to get into the gates before sunrise, an option offered only to campers, I drove my Toyota Corolla rental toward the site. However, what was going to be a “checkout the site before you buy the camping permit expedition”, turned out to be more like a tour of quicksand. Driving through the campgrounds, my head scanned from left to right, looking for the overflow site. But in the search for a flat patch of sand to drop my rent-a-tent and director’s chair, my tires spun their way into the first sand dunes.

100+ degree heat, six plus hours of intense driving on the gravel roads and faced with the prospect of sleeping behind the bathrooms, six inches into the sand with each push of the gas spinning the car deeper into the desert floor, I now had to face the prospect that my cost saving rental car maneuver was revealing some hidden costs.

With each of my front tires six inches or more deep in sand, I fruitlessly spun my wheels trying to pop the clutch hard enough to yank the car in reverse. The time had come, the unenviable time on a trip when you need help. No AAA tow service number and no cell phone to call if there was a number, I scoured the campground for volunteer “car lifters/pushers”. At first, I tried backing the car out while two incredibly strong African guides lifted and pushed my car backward. It was not enough as the front axle was going 20 mph, but the tires were barely moving. Finally, six other guys from Chicago semi-reluctantly took on the task and relieved my car from its prison of sand.

Sweaty with sand “glitter” adhering to my body like a dried pancake of exfoliating scrub I fell asleep wearing (no, it has not happened to me before), I returned to the campground office to explain my long absence from my five minute “scope out” the camp site excursion. Upon seeing me, the ranger smiled at me as if observing a young child. I explained the reasons for my delay and she pointed to the cardboard map to show me the errors of my way.

With the new route in hand, I ventured out to see the campsite allegedly “upwind” from the bathrooms. Turning down a new sandy lane, I was cautious moving forward, not wanting to again draw attention to being one of the “cheap guys” in the area who didn’t get a 4 wheel drive. Pushing forward slowly I scanned the horizon for the elusive bathroom block. “%@$$%@$!!!! Are you kidding me?” were the next words uttered by my mouth. The little car that had safely transported me across a thousand kilometers on gravel roads was now stuck again. It was the little car that couldn't. Fortunately, I knew the way out, but it would once again involve strangers pulling together to assist. Thankfully, to avoid embarassment, this time it was a different group of strangers due mostly to the fact that I was in a different part of the campground.

One tow later by a 4x4 pick-up and I was free again. Driving back to the ranger’s office, I began to question my commitment to on the eve of Christmas. Surprised to see me still in the campground, the ranger broke out her permit book and began immediately writing me a permit for not one, but two nights of camping at an actual campground, not even overflow. I had paid my “dues” and provided a welcome source of desert entertainment for the ranger. While I wasn’t the first, perhaps I was one of an elite group who managed to get stuck twice in a 2 hour period.

Feeling the cool air inside the car, I celebrated my permit victory by heading to a nearby lodge where I stay for the night. Hot and out of patience, camping wasn’t going to happen on Christmas eve as planned, but would be reserved for Christmas night. At the Desert Homestead, an eco lodge, about 22 kms from Sesriem I celebrated Christmas eve with the other guests as a long candle lit table of nearly fifty people was assembled. A mini-U.N., people from at least fifteen countries enjoyed a desert feast together under the brilliant southern night sky. It was no substitute for time with family and friends, but twelve thousand miles from home, it was at least a celebration with my human family.

Historically, one of the few mornings you could count on me springing out of bed early was Christmas morning. In my mid-teens I boycotted that plan as my bones stretched while I slept, but as it seems my bones are no longer elongating, I am back on my old schedule. While Santa was surely making his way somewhere over Europe, he was finished in southern Africa as I watched the sun creep up behind the Tyrias Mountains across the desert plain on Christmas morning. There were no colorfully wrapped gifts under an ornamented tree and no stockings hung by the fire, but there was God’s gift, the magnificent sunrise, cueing all of the wild creatures to awake.

Excited to see some the oldest and some of the largest sand dunes in the world, I headed back to 2 wheel drive prison where I would set up camp and head into world renowned Sossusvlei. Speeding through camp I was determined to keep my wheels spinning. Look out kids, this car ain’t stoppin’!

Tent secure in campsite 26, I made the 64 kilometer drive on tar road through the park gates. Dune 45 stood firm as strong mult-directional winds whipped against it for millions of years. Apricot, orange, red and maroon all lend themselves willingly to the naked eye as the dunes rise more than one thousand feet from the desert floor. I began the climb to catch the Christmas sunset. One step forward, half a step back, the sand on the ridge swallowed my foot each step. Wind physically moving me north, my hike was the perfect for the "one step at a time" mantra.




Making my way to the top, I celebrated Christmas snapping photos and sitting in God's custom sand chair, molded perfectly to my hind quarters. Sitting on top of Dune 45, there was nothing between me and the heavens. It wasn't Everest by any means, but this was not the Himalayas and there was nothing taller as far as the eye could see. One side of the dune was cold (in the shade) while the other side was hot (exposed to sun). Yin and yang, the balance of mother nature ever present.



Getting down the dune was even more fun than climbing. Top to bottom, it was less than three minutes as I walked on the moon for a brief time. Leaping straight down the dune, the sand sucked me into my calves with each step, but with the steep slope it was easy to use the momentum moving lightly across the western face. Speeding back to the campsite, dusk was consumed by darkness as I was the last car out before the gate closed until 5 a.m. when I would rise to catch the sun's return on "Big Daddy", the largest dune in Sossusvlei.

(Making my way across the ridge of "Big Daddy" dune.)