Desert Camp

Pictures from Drifters Desert Camp

September 23 Fish River Canyon to Desert Camp

September 24 Drifters Desert Camp

We spent a day and a half at the “Desert Camp”, a privately-operated nature conservancy adjacent to the Namib-Naukluft National Park. To get from the road to the camp, we had to drive through a sandy river bed. This required us to lower the truck’s tire pressure to half of normal, so we wouldn’t get stuck in the sandy river bed. As it turned out we got stuck anyway, so we had to spend nearly an hour getting the truck unstuck.

The area was very arid, with an annual rainfall of only a few centimetres. And it had been having lower than average rainfall for the last five years. But the desert plants were still surviving as best they could.

The campsite was set in a small bowl at the base of a rocky slope, in such a way that it was protected from the prevailing wind. The kitchen area was protected from the sun by a thatched cover, and so were the individual tent sites.

Our guide was the resident manager, Peter. He took us on a night-time game drive, where we saw all kinds of animals (such as an aardwolf and several foxes) we wouldn’t have seen in the daytime. Then the next morning he took us on a tour of the desert and told us all about the desert environment, including the animals, plants, and landforms. Peter was also the person who had built the campsite and even the roads over which our drives had gone.

One of the desert plants we saw was the Namaqua Rock Fig (Ficus cordata). This tree grows in rocky areas where there is a small amount of water seeping out.