Day 12--Homeb to Spitzkoppe

Spitzkoppe

We left Homeb early this morning and headed for Spitzkoppe. It was a fairly long drive, and one could see the landscape changing. We went from the savanna to the prodesert. A prodesert is a desert that has adequate rainfall to sustain more life. We saw this as the landscape changed from small grasses and shrubs to more grasses, larger shrubs, and many small trees. Because there's more vegetation, it can sustain more animal life. While driving today, we saw springbok, oryx, ostriches with babies, and four giraffes! Burger also pulled over to point out two unique plants to us. The Hoodia is a succulent plant that the Bushmen used to eat when hunting. Eating it served two purposes: to get moisture from the plant and to suppress their hunger. When one eats this plant, one will not be hungry for a good while. The Kanniedood, meaning 'cannot die,' is a plant that appears very dead to the uninformed observer. However, when you break a twig, sap oozes forth. The Bushmen used this sap as glue. The plant appears dead most of the time because it uses its energy to make seeds first. Only after the seeds have been produced does the plant produce leaves to photosynthesize for a brief period. It then appears dormant until it produces seeds again.

We are camping at Spitzkoppe tonight. It is named for the mountain that it's at the base of. It is very picturesque. Stephanie and I climbed a large rock to watch the sun set.

After dinner, some of the Damara people that work at the campground performed a cultural dance for us. They sang to provide the tune (and harmonized quite well) and the dances resembled modern-day stepping. The thing that struck me the most was the juxtaposition of their ancient culture with their modern-day clothing and the addition of a song from The Lion King in their performance. Overall, the performance was very good and entertaining. They pulled members of our group to participate in almost every song. It was pretty comical to watch people try to mimic their steps!

Since we arrived at our campsite late and are leaving early in the morning, we didn't put up our tent. We just threw a mat on the slept under the stars. It was actually a pleasant night's rest. I never would have imagined I'd be sleeping under the stars in Africa...