Welcome back dear readers. When we left off, KT, Lisa and I were halfway through our trip around Namibia and had just arrived in the seaside resort town of Swakopmund on the Skeleton Coast. As promised, I saved the best for last!
After a nice dinner and a blissful night in an actual bed at a hotel in Swakopmund, Lisa decided to spend our free morning getting her hair highlighted, but KT and I were very focused on our goal: the Kristall Galerie, a smallish geology museum curated for Namibia’s multitude of rocks and minerals. We’d driven by it on the way to our hotel, saw the display of giant rocks outside, and were very anxious to get a closer look. We walked to the museum almost an hour before it opened, and thank goodness we did! The large specimens outside of the museum covered a host of rock types from Namibia, and we gleefully spent 45 minutes inspecting the rocks and having geogasms while shouting to each other about our finds.
Once the museum opened, we went inside for even more delights. The displays were full of beautiful geologic wonders from around the country, evoking geogasm after geogasm with each new specimen. We oohed, aahed, discussed origin environments and processes for the minerals, and in general enjoyed ourselves to the point that when we left, we both felt like we needed a cigarette and a nap.
While at the museum, they had mentioned there was a Roadside Geology book for Namibia, so we stopped at a local bookstore and bought the last copy on our way back to the hotel. Our long drive that day had us crossing mountain passes with many more opportunities to exclaim over the geologic wonders of the region, as well as crossing the Tropic of Capricorn.
It turned out that KT and Lisa had actually purchased the Roadside Geology book as a birthday gift for me, and what a fantastic gift it was—now, instead of speculating on what we were seeing in the roadcuts, KT and I had a detailed description and could watch for inselbergs and other items of particular geogasmic interest, making the drive much more exciting than spending hours in a dusty truck bumping over dirt and gravel roads would normally be. My excitement was compounded because we were heading for another of my “must see” destinations in the country—the Namib Sand Sea, with its incredible star dunes and the Deadvlei immortalized on Instagram.
The Namib is one of the oldest deserts on earth, formed approximately 21 million years ago. The current star dune system is estimated to have been active for the past 5 million years, composed of gigantic dunes that create a star pattern when viewed from above. Our first foray into the area was to climb Dune 45 and watch the sunrise. It wasn’t an easy hike to the top, pitched at a 30 degree angle, balancing on a crest a foot wide, climbing up 278 feet of loose sand, but definitely worth it to watch the shadows and colors change as the sun rose. Once the sun was fully up, we took the much easier hike down to eat breakfast and appreciate the beauty of the area.
Then it was on to the Deadvlei (dead marsh) that was created when a dune migrated across the Tsauchab River and cut off the floodwaters that had previously sustained the vegetation. We were herded into bumpy, open 4WD vehicles for the ride to the trailhead, then turned loose. Thank goodness it was still early because it was already hot, and we had a hilly 1.5 km hike through loose sand to actually reach the vlei. It was worth every step to stand in a desiccated valley between dunes hundreds of feet tall and look at the few live (and more dead) trees framed by the gorgeous red sands while the sun moved shadows across the faces of the dunes.
I spent a lot of time experiencing geogasms while inspecting mud cracks and other features on the clay pan and taking pictures of the dunes, trees, and sand ripples from every possible angle. When our time was up I reluctantly made the long, hot hike back through the sand, but luckily had some time to sit and admire the dunes from the parking area while watching birds and other critters go about their business.
Our next destination was nearly as geogasmic as the dunes: Sesriem Canyon and one of the thickest conglomerate layers I’ve ever seen, lying nonconformably over metamorphic basement rocks. KT and I scrambled around the dry river bed, happily inspecting the cobbles that were eroding out of the conglomerate and looking for the barely exposed contact with the basement rocks while also cringing a little at the large chunks of rock that had come loose from the canyon walls overhead. We were thankful there hadn’t been any rain recently to increase the possibility of a new chunk falling on us.
Next was Aus, a former prisoner of war camp. We stayed in a beautiful cabin in a very isolated portion of the property with stunning views of the surrounding rocks. We were also able to drop our laundry with the camp so we wouldn’t spend the rest of the trip stinking up the truck. After a night in the cabin, it was off to another of my must-see destinations: the ghost town of Kolmanskop (Kolmannskuppe).
Developed as a diamond mining facility in 1908, it was the location of the first X-ray machine in the southern hemisphere, a power station, school, and even a bowling alley. The town was abandoned around 1928 when a large diamond deposit was discovered in another area. Today, the buildings still stand, but the dunes are doing what dunes do and covering everything with sand. It’s a striking place to visit, and I spent a lot of time taking pictures (of course).
Just past Kolmanskop on the way to Luderitz was another geogasmic marvel – textbook perfect crescent dunes! And all of you (non-geologists) just thought sand dunes were sand dunes, but nope – there are multiple kinds and we saw all of them while traveling through the home of the original geogasm.
The next stop, Luderitz, was superfluous in my opinion. There’s not much to the town, I don’t care about whatever Portuguese explorer stuck a cross in the ground, and the water on the beach we visited was really cold. The only saving grace was, you guessed it, more rocks! And some interesting critters on the beach, but mostly the rocks. On the way back from Luderitz we stopped to see the desert horses that live in the area. They were incredibly skinny, as one might imagine of mammals trying to live in a desert.
Then to another must-see: the Fish River Canyon. We saw so many interesting formations along the way, including pink shales and limestones. KT and I were giddy at the prospect of seeing them, as those rocks are not normally found in shades of pink. We kept our Roadside Geology book close, following the descriptions and having mini geogasms as we headed south.
For the geogasm finale, the Fish River Canyon itself! It’s comparable to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and though it’s somewhat smaller, it’s incredibly impressive. KT and I immediately piled out of the truck, taking our very slow and sweet time walking along the rim of the canyon, oohing and aahing and geogasming at every turn while we inspected the area. Hiking into the canyon is controlled by permit, so we only got to see it from the rim, but that didn’t diminish our awe at the beauty of the area and the geologic forces that shaped the canyon over millennia.
KT and I at the Fish River Canyon, Namibia’s equivalent to the Grand Canyon in the US
After several hours of delighted exploration, we got back in the truck to see another of Namibia’s endemic plant species, known as quiver trees. The trees are actually aloe plants, even though they grow in a shape like a tree, and they are quite impressive. Some are thought to be over 200 years old; we enjoyed a quick walk through the “forest” during a gorgeous sunset.
After one last night sleeping in the cold on very hard ground, we were up early to hit one last geogasm-inducing site: the Giant’s Playground. The area is an exposure of one of the biggest sills either of us has ever seen, and covered in the spheroidally weathered boulders often seen when intrusive volcanics are exposed at the surface. The regional joint sets visible in the rock only added to our wonder, and we spent a happy hour playing in the rocks before getting in the truck for our return trip to Windhoek.
And that, dear readers, is a quick summary of Namibia: Home of the Original Geogasm. Namibia is a beautiful country with lovely people and many marvelous plants and animals. But for geologists, life is a field trip—and this field trip was the most geogasmic I’ve ever taken.
P.S.
For those interested in things other than rocks, here’s a partial list of the wildlife we encountered on our trip. We tried to write it all down, but honestly, we were much more interested in adding geologic wonders to our trophy list than birds.
| Dik dik | Waterbok | Egyptian ducks |
| Hydrax | Wildebeest | Vival birds |
| Oryx | Wild hare | White pelican |
| Impala | Hartbeest | White flamingos |
| Ostrich | Wild boar | Pink flamingos |
| Hippo | Mongoose | Peacock |
| Zebra | Termites | Guinea fowl |
| Lion | Giraffe | Weavers |
| Hyena | Fur Seals | Cape starlings |
| Jackel | Wild horses | Gray warbler |
| Elephant | Beetles | Pied crows |
| Rhino | Ants | Parakeets |
| Tembox | Vulture | Cormorants |
| Springbok | Secretary bird |