Solitaire

We leave the guesthouse early, after a slap-up breakfast served by Tula, it’s going to be a big day. As we set out for Solitaire we know nothing about it other than the name, which is, you must admit, rather intriguing. My sister has brought a deck of cards so that she can play solitaire in Solitaire. Actually it is not our intended end destination, merely a stop on the way to the Sossusvlei area, where I fancy to see the red dunes of the Namib Desert. But first I have a date with an old adversary, a score to settle, a mountain to climb. The road takes us past one of the most famous dunes in the world. Just a few kilometres from Walvis Bay, the first dune in the range of mountain sized dunes that runs parallel to the coast from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund, Dune 7.  Even now, though nearly four decades have passed since it was a factor in my life, a small shiver runs down my spine at the mere mention of its name. BTW the origin of the name is rather obtuse - apparently it's the seventh dune past some or other bone dry river.

Dune 7 is reputed to be the highest dune in the world, it is 1,256-foot high and rises from the desert floor at an angle of 45 degrees on the front end. It was the mother of all instruments of torture in the hands of a sadistically inclined warrant officer, a day spent on the dune was a day spent in hell. Those days started off with a ten kilometre on-the-double march from our base at Rooikop, wearing fatigues, boots, steel helmet, light webbing, rucksack filled with spare clothing and sleeping bag, three full water bottles and rifle (otherwise known as 'full kit'). Once at the dune we played a game called ‘whistle, whistle’. The sergeant blows a whistle and we would go up the dune, blows again and back down we go, blows again and up we go, and so on... all bloody day long. The most demoralizing thing is that you don’t get to reach the top, the bastard always whistles you down before you could get any sense of achievement.

I recall our last excursion to Dune 7, we were coming to the end of our period of conscription and had reached a point of defiance that allowed us to finally achieve mastery over the dune, well a pathetic sort of mastery anyway. When the Sergeant blew his whistle to call us down, we just carried on climbing, and the stuff in our rucksacks wasn’t all that regulation shit, this time we had packed beer, not cold beer I grant you, but beer nonetheless. We dug our rifles in the sand, an act of sacrilege, to help us climb. When we reached the top, we sat on the crown of the dune, drank beer and shouted obscenities at the sergeants below, steadily turning purple with impotent rage. They threatened to charge us with mutiny, but we knew that it was just bluff, we were ‘ou manne met min dae’ (old hands with few days left), fuck ‘em we were untouchable. From that point on our daily routine was to get loaded onto trucks after breakfast and dropped 30 km into the desert, if we made it  back in time for lunch, then we ate lunch, if not, we ate supper. I don’t think I ever managed to get to eat lunch, but that didn’t really bother me, I was totally okay with the whole thing, best few weeks of the entire two years of service.  

View from the top of Dune 7

Today I face a slightly different Dune 7, it is scarred by the virus of humanity, litter on the dune and at the base, planted palm trees and concrete picnic tables, more litter and overflowing rubbish bins where the sergeants had once stood. Still it remains a magnificent sight, there is something pure about it, clean like a mountain stream, a pillar of wisdom, despite our efforts we have not managed to befoul it... it is just too big. Barefoot, my daughter and I start to climb, no whistles to summon me down I move steadily up the dune, two steps up, slide down one-and-a-half. Though it’s still cool in the relatively early morning I am sweating profusely, this is hard work! But I am in the company of youth and failure is not an option, onwards and upwards, I arrive at the top well ahead of the youth, but only moments ahead of an elderly grandma that started to climb more or less at the same time I did. What a sight, I know how Lawrence (of Arabia fame) must have felt, marvelous. Getting down is a lot more fun and accomplished so much quicker than the ascent, you bound down with strides like a giant, comfortable in the knowledge that if you fall it’s merely into the soft yielding arms of the dune.

Agent Smith had it right, we humans are a virus, a disease, a cancer of this planet.

Youthful feet 'hanging' over the edge of the dune

Sand clings to my skin and occupies the more private creases of the nether regions a little more than I had expected, but this must be ignored and endured, we are not going back to the guesthouse for a shower. We bid Dune 7 a fond farewell and head for the famous red dunes of Sossusvlei a few hundred kilometres south of Solitaire. We take the C14, it is one of the main routes of Namibia, but only careful scrutiny of the map reveals the truth about this road, it is paved for a very short distance. We pass Walvis Bay Airport, which in my day was a military airport, the turnoff to Rooikop and then the pavement ends and its gravel. It’s not too bad, but the pace must by necessity slow. I don’t say anything, but I already have doubts about reaching Sossusvlei, such an expedition, I suspect, needs more vehicle than the VW Polo and probably an overnight stay. When you are used to travelling on good paved roads, maps can be misleading.

Sossusvlei didn't seem that far

Of course, I remind myself, this is not one iota about the destination and all about the journey. The conversation is great and the scenery is even better. The road to Perdition may well be paved with good intentions, but the road to Solitaire is unpaved and lined with the most incredible scenery imaginable. I suspect though, that walking this route would be pure hell. As the morning wears on it gets hotter and, if possible, dryer. I know that there is life a plenty here, now and again catch a glimpse of some green desert plant, when I stop to take a pee I spot a lizard and get harassed by a persistent fly, but how these creatures live and where they get any moisture from is beyond my imagination. Closer to the coast there is the fog that rolls in almost every night, but here it’s about as dry as it gets.

It's pretty darn dry here, but there is still life

We stop to view Vogelfederberg, it means Bird Feather Mountain in English, and with a bit of imagination I can indeed see it in this interesting rock formation, though it is not a mountain by any means. We’d like to get a bit closer, but there are signs telling us that we require a permit to do so. We hadn’t known that we would need permits, and this seems to be the case of many such attractions - we are actually in a nature reserve. Law abiding folk that we are, we turn around and head back towards the road. One can in any event not tarry at every point of interest along the way.

Bird Feather Mountain 

Kuiseb Pass is something to be seen, utterly out of this world, but somewhat treacherous, the road has deteriorated substantially by this point and doing much over 60 Km/h is not safe.  It is clear to us that reaching Sossusvlei is definitely not on the cards, even Solitaire is going to be a bit of a stretch. Normally on a trip I budget for about 100 Km progress every hour, which allows for coffee, brief meal and pee stops, today we are barely making 50 km for every hour, and there are no places to get coffee or take a pee in anything other than el fresco conditions, of course the entire desert is one huge lavatory if you are that way inclined. The C26 exists to the left, which would take you to Windhoek, indeed the shortest route between Walvis Bay and Windhoek, but the road is definitely not for the faint hearted. By now I am becoming concerned about getting my deposit back from Avis, horrible noises as rocks shoot up from the tyres and crash into the under carriage are no longer occasional occurrences. On the rare event of encountering a vehicle travelling from the opposite direction the hail of pebbles we go through is enough to make me shit myself.

Kuiseb Pass  

The topography is changing, now and then there are trees, though some of these are of the Naboom type, I guess this translates to ‘almost tree’, the Naboom is a cactus like plant that has the appearance of a tree.  There are also real trees, especially flanking dry river beds and more often than not these trees carry massive nests built by colonies of certain weaver birds. It is said that these nests are always built on the on the western side of the tree, giving a lost traveler the ability to take a bearing and so find the way home. Personally I think that if you are lost in this area, presumably without water, and taking bearings from nests in trees, you are pretty much fucked and might as well lie down and expire gracefully.

Weaver nests ...more or less on the western side 

We go through another pass as lovely as Kuiseb and cross the Gaub River, not a single drop of water flows of course, but otherwise utterly gorgeous. It is by now well past lunch time and hunger gnaws at the entrails. Solitaire seems to be elusively far away and a sign post invites us to stop at a guest farm and enjoy lunch and a beer, I am all for it, but my sister points ahead, Solitaire or bust…damn. The road is dreadful with lots of corrugated stretches that make your teeth chatter and by now I am convinced that my deposit is long expensed, but Solitaire finally arrives, or I guess more correctly stated, we arrive in Solitaire. Big surprise, this is not your usual one horse town.

 Baby Boom?

The place is actually not very old, in 1948 it was just a two room cottage on a newly established karakul sheep farm. Now it has a lodge, general dealer, bakery, gas station and restaurant, and a small settlement that houses the people that work in the afore mentioned. Solitaire gained some international fame through the book, Solitaire, written by Ton van der Lee. Ton described his experience of living there in 1996 with a character called ‘Moose McGregor’, whose real name was Peter Cross. Moose apparently was a master baker, and baked an apple crumble that supposedly attracted people to cross miles of desert to visit the place. I’m not sure if it’s the pie, the trip itself, the place or Moose himself that drew the visitors, though Moose now occupies a grave right in front of the lodge, he died in 2014. The restaurant serves a decent meal, and provides a reasonably cool retreat from the heat, though it is no more than a large thatched shelter, open on all sides. There are birds that run around on the floor seeking to grab any morsel that may fall from a table. I order an Onyx hamburger with salad, it’s really good and very filling so I don’t try the apple crumble, obviously not baked by Moose, but at least by Moose trained bakers. I do however order two slices of pie ‘to go’. This turns out to be two very generous portions, complete meals in themselves. Despite the isolation of the settlement, it is after all called Solitaire, the restaurant is quite full, and a tourist bus arrives in the middle of lunch to fill up the empty spaces. English is not the language of choice here, it is German.

Moose's bakery and confidence booster

There is a collection of these in Solitaire

These are the guys that run around on the floor in the restaurant

Namibia is infested with German tourists, which is great for Namibia, and I don’t mind them one little bit, they are well mannered, mind their own business and if you do open a conversation they are friendly and polite. I do just that now, there are a group of them at a nearby table that are obviously motorcyclists by the kit they have with them. I spotted their machines outside the restaurant, Austrian KTM 660s, I recognized these from one of the motorcycle rental places websites. I admit that I am GREEN with envy. It’s a mixed group of men and women, more or less my age. We chat for a bit, they are from somewhere in Bavaria and like me have to put their bikes away for nearly half of every year. We mutter a bit on that sad fact. I see that they have mesh jackets, gloves, mesh trousers, boots and motocross type helmets. ‘Hot?’ I ask and they affirm, the afternoons are 'difficult' they say in that peculiar, understated, German way. I can just imagine, it is 38 Celsius, windy and dusty, but wearing any less protective gear would be pretty stupid in this terrain. They are drinking large glasses of Coke – I presume that dehydration is a real danger, potentially lethal. It’s great to be with my sister and daughter out here in a VW Polo and I wouldn't swap this holiday for anything, but I think that I would also love to do a few days with these guys, heat, dust and all.

 KTM 660s

It’s almost 4 p.m. when we head on back to Walvis Bay. We did get to see a few red dunes on the way, small ones that will have to satisfy my red dune need. Soussevlei and Big Daddy, a 325 metre high dune, will have to wait for some other time, probably never I suppose. Oh well, you win some and you lose some, it was a pretty good day and Solitaire was worth the drive, actually to be truthful, the drive was worth the drive. We follow the same road home, my passengers do a fair amount of napping. It’s all uneventful until about 80 km from Walvis Bay when the duff, duff, duff of a flat tyre brings some additional excitement to our little lives. The rim has a decent dent in it and the tyre is completely toast. It looks like I hit something 30 or so Km back and the air has slowly been leaking out. Damn I am not covered for this. Happily the VW has a real spare and not an ‘emergency tyre’, this is not the terrain to be driving on a Maria biscuit. It takes no more than fifteen minutes to change the tyre, the trickiest part is cutting the cable ties that that keep the plastic hubcap in place. 

Changing the tyre

 We make it back to the guesthouse not too long after sunset, for a most welcome shower.  Supper is crackers, cheese and half a slice of Moose’s apple pie, washed down with a few large whiskeys and soda with lots of ice.