19 March Road trip to Sossusvlei

Sossusvlei is the site of the largest and highest star sand dunes in the world. Unlike crescent sand dunes these don't migrate across the landscape. As the winds rotate their sides will vary, but the main dune is in the same position all year and they have more than two arms extending from the top.

bird nest

typical scenery

The decision about how to get to Sossusvlei was a choice of 4WD vs sedan, 500km on mostly gravel roads vs 800km on mostly tarmac roads and what vehicles were available; a Nissan truck at N$1100 / 500kms per day or VW Polo Vivo at $450 per day unlimited mileage. The man at Avis said the Polo would be fine. David was the British champion rally driver in his class for two years. We took the VW Polo for three days and had a hoot.

Namib-Paris rally entrant

Cooling off

entrance to Hammerstein Lodge

The first part of our journey was 125kms on good tarmac road before we turned north on a gravel road. The scenery is amazing; semi arid flatlands between flat top mountains, an ever changing landscape. On the way there were trees with impossibly large multi bird nests. How did they stay in the branches?

Lisa

blind in her right eye

Five hours after leaving Luderitz we arrived at our accommodation, Hammerstein Lodge. We chose Hammerstein based on a previous cruisers blog; close to Sossusvlei, good value and the clincher, they have a wild cat rescue centre.

We were too early for the afternoon tour to see the cats so took the luxury of lounging around the pool, me swimming for the first time since cleaning the hull in Madagascar.

young male caracal

At sunset we visited the cats. Lisa the leopard was the first animal to arrive. She was an abandoned cub, raised by the owner of the lodge. Poor lady is now 19 years old and has gone blind in one eye. It wasn't safe to enter her enclosure. 

There are three adult caracals who we could visit in their enclosure - a pregnant female and two males. The first pair to brought here were litter brother (Romeo) and sister (Juiet) who were cubs found without a mother by a local farmer. The second male (Willard) was a wild cat attracted there by Juliet. He turned up one day, refused to leave and eventually joined the group. In a second caracal enclosure there were two young males who are the sons of Juliet and Willard. They weren't used to humans so we didn't go in with them.

Wilde

Wilde

The two cheetahs are siblings, brother and sister who fight so have to be kept separately. Their mother had been caught in a trap. When she was released she didn't want to know the cubs and they were brought to the lodge to be raised. The male is Oscar and not considered safe with strangers. Female Wilde, is quite used to people and we spent a long time with her.

In an ideal world all big cats would live in the wild, but the world isn't ideal. A new report estimates 50% of all African species will be extinct by 2100 because of the action of species homo sapiens. It's a sobering prophecy.