september 4th was almost entirely a driving day. on the one hand, that’s an “i’m hot and sitting in a moving box with at least 20 other sweaty people”-day, but it also means “i get to see a summary of the vegetation changes along a 300 km drive within a few hours.”
our route: swakopmund [G] – walvis bay [G] – kuiseb canyon [G] – sesriem [G]¹.

we had a first encounter with quiver trees (aloe dichotoma), had a look at the flora around kuiseb river (or kueseb river), which is carrying water underground for most of the year, and finally arrived at sesriem restcamp in the late afternoon.

sunset was observed from this spot: [G] on elim dune, with an optional sip of red wine.
on the way back, most of us rolled down the dunes (it was completely dark by that time, and we had forgotten to bring flashlights), which is about ten times more fun than it sounds now.
a side-effect of this was, that the professors and maria ended up with all our backpacks, which they had kindly offered to carry down during our phase of extensive rotation. i don’t think they knew how many backpacks there were when they made the offer. :-)
 

[view photos: swakopmund to sesriem]

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(die deutsche version gibt es weiter unten.)

here is one of the reports that i’ve been working on: the complete trip report of the botanical excursion to namibia and south africa in september 2007.

a minuscule summary:

Botanical Excursion to Namibia & South Africa
30.08.2007 – 18.09.2007

Route: [Namibia] Windhoek, Spitzkoppe, Cape Cross, Swakopmund, Welwitschia Plains, Walvis Bay, Sesriem, Sossusvlei, Keetmanshoop, [South Afrika] Springbok, Eksteenfontein, Kamieskroon, Knersvlakte, Nieuwoudtville, Cederberge, Cape Town

Destinations/Highlights:

• Thornbush Savannah
• Spitzkoppe with the Green Kobas (Cyphostemma currorii)
• Central Namib
• “Lichen Desert” and Seal Colony, Cape Cross
• Welwitschia Plains with Welwitschia mirabilis
• Sossusvlei
• Sesriem Canyon
• Quiver Tree Forest near Keetmanshoop
• Goegap Nature Reserve
• Hike in the Rooiberg Mountains (bordering Richtersveld National Park), with Pachypodium namaquanum
• Succulent Karoo Knowledge Centre
• Namaqualand National Park
• Griqua Ratelgat Trust, Knersvlakte
• Geophyte Flora, Nieuwoudtville
• Fynbos-Vegetation, Cederberge, with Widdringtonia cedarbergensis
• Good Hope Nature Reserve
• Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

the report is almost completely in german, and the images had to be way downsampled – still, maybe somebody wants to have a look.

Exkursionsbericht Namibia + Südafrika (german, pdf, 6MB)

[more...]

day 4 of the excursion started with breakfast, which – let me quote barbara – “we preferred to ingest while standing due to the low temperatures”. the weather was, as it is known for swakopmund, cold (around 10 °C) and foggy.
we soon got on the bus and went east to welwitschia plains [G] – an area which accommodates one of the most fascinating plants (for botanists, anyway):

welwitschia mirabilis, a so-called “living fossil”, can become hundreds of years old and only ever develops two leaves¹. these leaves continuously grow at their base, and the tips eventually die.
its looks are often described with the words “compost pile” in travel guides.
welwitschia is a gymnosperm plant, so it’s most closely related to conifers like spruce (picea abies) or fir (abies sp.). its reaches 3 to 4 meters deep into the ground, and the root system can develop a radius of up to 15 meters. the species is endemic to the namib desert in namibia and angola.
more information can be found in wikipedia: [de] [en].

after this extensive stop (apparently, our driver noah kept asking what was taking us so long, after 30 minutes. we were there for more than an hour.) we drove on to walvis bay to find the falmingo colony. there were not as many birds as usual, though.
we had the afternoon off, and while most of the others went shopping or sightseeing in swakopmund, aaron and i decided it was the perfect opportunity for a quadbike-trip. :-)

we booked a trip with outback orange, and since there were no other clients for the afternoon, it was just aaron, me, and our guide willy.
we went up and down the dunes rollercoaster-style, up to 80 km/h, and also did some jumping etc.
i had no horizon for my orientation, so i got really seasick. after about an hour of driving, we took a break and drank some lychee-juice (which most likely added to the sickness). with hindsight, i think the greasy burger i had had for lunch, right before the quadbike trip, was a bad idea too.
i ended up puking in the golden dunes near swakopmund. twice.
BUT it was a fun afternoon, and i would do it again (just without the burger).
a member of the crew picked us up at the base and gave us a lift to our accommodation. he told me it was cool to finally meet somebody who got sea-sick in the dunes, because up until then, he had only heard about those people (no kidding!).
 

[view photos: swakopmund and welwitschia plains]

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on day 3, we drove from spitzkoppe to swakopmund.
on the way there, we had several stopovers: we botanized in the desert, visited the lichen desert [G] near the coast (in both the desert and the lichen desert, fog is the major source of water for life), took a look at the cape fur seal colony (the biggest colony of , up to 250.000 animals!) at cape cross [G], and eventually drove down to swakopmund.
the little seaside city somehow had an odd sense of “you’re-not-safe-here” to it, which was probably because of all of the security guards and special guards for the parked cars in front of supermarkets…

for the night, we stayed in bungalows at swakopmund restcamp [G]. it was an o.k. place to spend a night – photos of the facilities are in the gallery.

[view photos: spitzkoppe to swakopmund]
[view photos: spitzkoppe to swakopmund - the botanical side]

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the direct product of several study breaks (probably too many):

photos of day two, showing the drive from windhoek to spitzkoppe – namibia’s very own version of the matterhorn. ;-)
you wouldn’t believe the night sky out there, VERY far from all the light pollution of modern civilization… i’ve never seen the milky way so clearly!

the weather was so nice that evening, that we decided to ditch the tents and sleep open air on the sandstone massif – almost exactly here: [G].

the photos were split into “travel” and “botanical” photo albums.

[view photos: windhoek to spitzkoppe]
[view photos: windhoek to spitzkoppe - the botanical part]

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day one of our 20-day botanical excursion to namibia and south africa led us to the capital of namibia: windhoek.
after almost 24 hours of travel (with uncomfortably long layovers in frankfurt and johannesburg), we were welcomed to windhoek by our tourguides tom peschen and noah chisanu.
we were given a short city tour, had dinner, and soon fell asleep in our beds because of a mixture of sleep deprivation and jetlag.
the beds, by the way, were part of the furniture of tamboti guest house [G] – a nice and friendly place to stay.

[view photos: windhoek, namibia]

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some of you have been bugging me about photos from the trip to namibia & south africa.
here’s an (extremely shortened and minimized) set of impressions, with less than one picture per day.
but hey – it’s a beginning! ;-)

[view photos: namibia & south africa - a preview]

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