I opened the door to the car, the midday sun scorching down on my back. I wiped the sweat from my brow as I clambered into the car, burning my legs on the hot, black leather seats. I fumbled around for the key, clicked it into the ignition and turned it. The car gave a weak growl, juddered once, then fell silent. Strange. I thought, scratching my head. Let’s try again.
I retracted the key before slotting it in and turning it again. Nothing. Not even a feeble attempt to start. Oh, no. I thought. We can’t have broken down? It didn’t seem like a feasible option at first and I attempted to start the car a few more times with no avail. Then it dawned on me. Shit – we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere!
Let’s rewind a couple of hours, to where we last saw each other, entering the ‘Rostock Ritz’ campsite in the middle of the Namib Desert. We’d travelled for 3 hours, all the way from the coastal town of Swakopmund, in the Skeleton coast. What a drive it had been! We’d driven through 2 incredible canyons and even stopped for for that classic (and obviously not over-done) photo with the Tropic of Capricorn sign.
As we entered the gates to our campsite, my adrenaline was pumping. I’d never seen a place like this before. The small gravel road that led to the apparent site, stretched onwards into the distance, with no visible end in sight. We were bumping along this small, winding road for well over half an hour. To my astonishment, this little road yielded some incredible animal sightings and it wasn’t long before I laid eyes on my first oryx sighting of the trip.
In case you didn’t know, oryx are a type of desert antelope, mostly found in Namibia. They are incredible rare outside of Namibia. They can be identified by their grey pelts with a black dorsal stripe and facial strips and most notably their incredible long, straight antlers.
As well as the animals, the landscape had me in awe. The terrain was a beautiful golden colour, strewn with rocks of various shapes and sizes. However, the star of the show was the great mountain perched on the horizon. The sun caught it, lighting up the rock and making it glow a vibrant orange. In contrast, the numerous dents and crevices in the mountain were concealed in a beautiful blue-tinted shadow.
