Dunes meet the sea

     After our first night in the city of Swakopmund, we awoke early to begin our day tour of the well-renowned coastline that lies south of town. The sand dunes along this stretch of Atlantic coast are famous for how they creep all the way up to the ocean and then drop off. Here, only certain times of day allow tour vehicles like ours to pass between the dunes and the sea; it all depends on the tide. The end goal of the tours here is to reach the spot known as “Sandwich Harbour”, a remote stretch of flat beach surrounded by towering dunes behind. Although the shoreline is wide and open at Sandwich Harbour, passing between the dunes and the sea further up the coast in some spots can be treacherous. In our case, we were able to narrowly avoid incoming waves against the dunes and plow through when the waves would briefly recede for a few seconds. We safely made it in and out of Sandwich Harbour, but it was certainly a thrilling experience to see waves come ashore below our vehicle. As for the scenery along the coast, it was unlike any other landscape I have ever seen. Literally, in some places, the sand dunes pile directly on top of the South Atlantic. Climbing up the dunes, I was able to gain unbelievable views of the sea below as the soft sand sunk around my feet. There, I was standing about two hundred feet almost directly above the ocean while gazing out on the sequence of dunes along the coast. Our guide dropped us off on top of the tallest dune above Sandwich Harbour and drove himself down to the beach to allow us the experience of running down a sand dune. Descending a dune like this, your legs begin to skip over large portions of sand and your tracks become wider and further spaced. Now running, you’re kicking up a lot of sand and it is coming down with you. Essentially sprinting, you finally reach the base of the dune and turn around behind you to see a whole avalanche of sand coming down in the track where it was disrupted. On the tour with us was a mother and a daughter from Paris who were also vacationing in Namibia. My lack of fluency in French despite four years of taking it forced me to communicate with them solely in English except for the occasional term that I could understand. 

     Additionally, on the same tour, we stopped multiple times at the marshes near the city of Walvis Bay. Here, flamingos coat the shallow water with their vibrant pink attire and they are often be seen in mass numbers. I captured many images of a single flamingo, however, in order to demonstrate their individual beauty. These birds are lanky-built and typically hang around the stinky lowlands of the coast, but their colors are certainly something to be impressed by. Flamingos use their elongated legs to dig into the mud below the water and hunt for crustaceans and small fish; the chemicals in their diet is what provides them with their famous pink color.