Day 14: The End

By Sanjayan

I am ensconced in a Cessna Caravan — a new plane, flying eastward above the Skeleton Coast National Park — and I am cool and clean from a dip in the ocean. For once, the salt I taste on my lips is not mine.

From the air, this country is immense. I am glad I am seeing it this way now and not before we began — for it would likely have frightened me into submission many times over before I began my journey on foot across it. 

After 14 days and almost 300 kilometers of meandering with six camels through the world’s oldest and driest desert…we arrived, only about 30 minutes late.  

The last morning was as anticlimactic as our journey was dramatic. We walked fast but seem listless. We no longer explored tracks that cross our path (brown hyena, porcupine, springbok, oryx), and we didn’t say much to each other. I took 1,000 pictures, but as I review my shots now I find that I actually don’t have one from the journey's end. 

It was a moment I thought about for many days, but now nothing is as I would have imagined. 

An Official Greeting and a Swim

The governor of the district (Kunene region) and the regional reps somehow found out about our journey and were there to meet us on the beach. It was a kind and thoughtful gesture. He made remarks about his support for the People’s Park, for conservation and for Save the Rhino Trust (SRT).

Rudi was happy to see him. I did my job and said a few words about The Nature Conservancy and thanked the governor for his support. He is clearly a friend of conservation, and at any other time I would have more fully utilized the meeting. But I was just then too distracted by the journey finally being over to make much hay from the opportunity.

Then we all jumped into the ocean—all except the SRT camel team. They won’t go anywhere near the ocean, and none of them can swim well. We thanked each person individually, and made a presentation of knives and such as a small gesture of gratitude.

And then it was over. Rudi and I jointly declared the expedition at an end. “Go kill yourselves,” he says in parting. “Not my department anymore.” Typical gallows humor.

Guilty About Air Conditioning

The SRT trackers see us to the little airstrip at Terrace Bay. They wave as we take off, and I open an ice-cold can of soda. 

I feel a little shabby sitting in air-conditioned comfort, on still new, crease-free leather seats, waving to them below.
 
After our plane is out of sight, they will turn the camels around and recross the desert to reach their camp in about five days.

Then next week they will go out on a two-week rhino census patrol. They will continue to sleep on bedrolls laid out in the sand. They will drink water from desert springs, eat bully beef and sardines every day for lunch, millet meal (mealie pup) and stew for dinner, and brew tea with a little fire on the sand.

At night they will guard against lions. And by day they will walk, track, record and walk some more. The thin patina of desert dust that the ocean washed off me in seconds will continue to coat them for the rest of their lives.

They, as the Conservancy's Richard Jeo says, “live close to the source." When they come upon an egg in the desert, away from our eyes, they and not us will decide what to do with it. An egg is an egg, after all.  

Our expedition is over. They continue.   

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Sanjayan/TNC (Claudia Hernandez and Richard walking down the Uniab - about 4km from sea); Photo © Sanjayan/TNC (Totsi in the dunes of the Skeleton Coast); Photo © Sanjayan/TNC (Sanjayan and SRT Scientist).