Pain Of Eight Sunsets

May 9th, 2006

A couple of weeks ago me and 5 other brave brethren undertook an 8 day hike in the Naukluft National Park in Namibia. The brave six were Emile, Pieter, Marcel, Jaco, Wynand and me. The whole trip took 12 days, 4 spent traveling 1 600km’s there and 1 600km’s back, and 8 days hiking 120km [1]. Following are some of the things that stuck in my mind from every day of the trip.

Day 1—6 guys in one car just smells bad, real bad!

Day 2—Almost immediately after you’ve eaten the hamburger at the local take away joint in Karasburg, the fear of “death by burger” sets in. Trust me these burgers are dubious as hell!

Day 3—The first day of the big hike has arrived. Grass can really be a bitch, especially if it’s the knee-high kind with lots of cleverly designed seeds containing tiny hooks and spikes that stick to anything woolly—like socks—and delve themselves deep down into your shoes to prick, scratch and generally irritate the crap out of your feet!

Day 4—Never go on a hiking trip without the most essential survival item… Ziploc bags! Cut 2 of them open at their bottoms, pull then over your feet, put on your socks and hiking boots and pull the Ziplocs over the tops of your boots. Now seal the end of the Ziplocs snugly around your ankle to keep out 95% of those sticky little buggers. The other 5% still manage to find the soft flesh on your ankles no matter what!

Day 5—Take more than 500ml of alcoholic beverages for comfort in the evenings! On the morning of day 3 I was down to roughly 100ml of Amarula. My fellow hikers warned me and Pieter that we weren’t taking enough “alcoholic provisions” (they took 1,5 litres each), but we didn’t listen! Fortunately, as on any hiking trip, there was a fair amount of bartering taking place later on.

Day 6—Namibia is supposed to be a dessert! The following things should not be found there: grass, mountains and rain. Yet I have found all three! Never forget to pack for the rain, not even if you are going to hike in the dessert! Believe me, it rains in Namibia.

Day 7—A man can walk very far and drink only 1,5 litres of water. In fact I walked 17 km’s and only drank 1,5 litres of water. It wasn’t fun and I don’t recommend it, but it is possible. Never trust the water points indicated on a map that was revised more than 10 years ago.

Day 8—After you hike up a seriously steep mountain and down the other side and back up another even more seriously steep mountain and every step feels like a terrible chore, after all that you can still run the 100m sprint like Frankie Fredericks. Of course you’ll need good motivation. A black spitting cobra glaring up at you less than 2m in front of you is extremely good motivation!

Day 9—It’s depressing to crouch underneath a rapidly swelling waterfall, high up in a mountain with thunder all around and frogs scampering out of the pools to higher ground for safety. If the frogs are looking for higher ground then surely something bad must be brewing? And seriously, the route planners must be joking if they think you are supposed to climb up this waterfall! Always take a good scout like Emile to find a better route when things get vertical!

Day 10—It’s all downhill from here! Running down a mountain for the ultimate prize, Tafel Lager, is a lot of fun.

Day 11— Upington is a seriously dodgy place. They serve damn good steak and beer at the local Dros, but the pimped up rides and their owners in the parking lot are more than a little scary, yikes! Seriously, who spends cold hard cash to install purple disco lights underneath their Citi Golf, just below the fender?

Day 12—It’s hard enough to get some shut eye in the world’s creepiest youth hostel, so getting up at 5am to the sound of a drunk guy trying to tell you why Naas Botha was and still is the best rugby player the world has ever seen wasn’t so bad! Sleeping in the car was easy.

To wrap it up, the Naukluft Hiking trail is an amazing experience in one of the most beautiful places on earth. If you’re in search of a great and challenging hike then this is it.

See some of my photo’s of the trip at www.flickr.com/photos/sizeight/sets/72057594130756862/. I’ll be adding some more over the next couple of days.

[1] Whether the route is only 120km is debatable, after 8days we reckon it is closer to 140km.