The Namib
Desert stretching almost 2000km from the Orange River on the southern
border with South Africa up north beyond the Kunene River into Angola is
an inhospitable region characterised by searing heat during the day and
bitter cold at night.
For the
most part it's bone-dry with life being nurtured to a large extent by
wind-borne nutrients from the interior and moisture from the rolling fog
which forms when dry heat rising from the desert sands meets with the
air from the cold South Atlantic's Benguela Current.
This is
not conventional "safari country" - it does however contain an
intriguing diversity of flora and fauna which has over some 80 million
years adapted to the apparently barren habitats of the Namib. The entire
area harbours ancient archaeological sites providing evidence of the
hunter-gatherers who have inhabited the region for as much as 750
thousand years.
The areas
of particular interest to us are the Namib-Naukluft
Park located in the central Namib and the Skeleton
Coast along the northern coastline.
