KANAAN DESERT RETREAT: AKA THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Welcome to the Desert!

When  people think of Africa they most likely have one thought: There’s South Africa and every other country is just classified as being in the middle of nowhere, including Namibia. Well this past week not I was not only in a “middle of nowhere” country, but I was in the middle of nowhere within the “middle of nowhere” country! Na/an kuse has a desert research center bordering the oldest desert in the world, the Namib desert, which is where they conduct research on cheetahs, hyenas, leopards, and the other wildlife running around in their 35,000 hectare reserve. So this weeks blog is based on that experience, so brace yourself because this is a long one!

On Saturday 17 October a small group of us volunteers headed out to the desert retreat, south of Namibia. The first 4 hours of the journey we got to enjoy the luxury of a minibus, which stopped along the way for us to get our first taste of ice cream in 6 weeks! The next 4 hours were not as smooth, as 4 of us (11 volunteers in total) had to sit in the back of a pick up truck (known as a “bakkie”) with all the bags. After enduring the longggg ride and being covered from head to toe in sand and dust, we had finally made it to Kanaan. We met Karl, who is the coordinator there, had a quick meal, and headed to our tents where wer all passed out within a hour.

On the Bakkie

Cheese!

The scenery at Kanaan is absolutely breath taking, and can almost not be described with words. I have seen a lot of different nature sceneries; from the glaciers of New Zealand, the tropical rainforests around Asia, the Alps of Switzerland, to the beaches of Thailand, and now I can add the serenity of the Namib desert to that list. The photo’s can justify my point! Along with that, another beautiful sight was the stars above us, with absolutely no light pollution, you could see millions and millions of stars along with the very clear milky way! Definitely the nicest night sky I have ever seen.

DAY 1: Let the work begin!

So day 1 started at a nice 7am to check the camera traps around the reserve. These camera traps are essential to the research as you can monitor the different species around the reserve, population sizes, sex distribution, etc. You would think that this would be a straight forward process… think again! Collecting camera traps around a 35,000 hectare reserve takes long time, especially as the cars we took had to stay on the designated sand road, so a 20 minute walk was included in the package ;) Whilst on our mission we also brought the telemetry gear to track one of the collared cheetahs, “Number 87”. He had been spotted 3 times in the past 15 months so we didn’t get our hopes up! As the telemetry gear indicated that he was closer and closer we were able to determine that he was on the mountain directly ahead of us, yet we had no sights of him. At this point Karl decided to hike up and scare him out of his spot, which had worked! For about 15 seconds we saw number 87 climb up the mountain and over to the other side. Absolutely awesome to see a cheetah in the wild, especially as he had been so difficult to see. 

Searching for Cheetah 87

Getting Close!

In the afternoon we headed back to the lodge (the lodge is an old farmhouse that has a couple of rooms for tourists) where we would do our data entry. This meant going through thousands of camera trap images and recording the species of animal, the amount, the gender, and the age. After about 600 images you become an expert in identifying sex and age of the animal! Sometimes the color of the wings gives it away (ostrich), other times you see by the horns, and sometimes you go back to the old fashioned way and see if you can spot something under their legs (if you get what I mean!). That evening we went out with a black light to try and find some scorpions (they glow when shining a black light). The scorpion walk ended turning into a lizard walk as we saw a handful of desert lizards but not a single scorpion (My mom would be happy!). 

Barking Lizard!

Day 2: The big hike

On our second day at Kanaan Karl had planned for us to explore a mountain for signs of hyena dens and to check up on a camera trap set 3 weeks ago. So starting at 7:00am we started our ascent towards the peak of the mountain, which was about 1500 meters tall with a 60 degree gradient making it quite a challenging hike. Fast forward 3 hours and we had made it to the peak of the mountain, discovered a hyena den, finished about 4 liters of water, and had a good laugh with each other. May I remind you that it was hot, and by hot I mean very hot (over 43 degrees celsius) which made a hike a bit more interesting! The peak of the mountain was also a great place to eat our packed lunch with a view of the distinct red sand dunes of the Namib desert. 

Climbing up the mountain

#CandidCamera

Signature Move!

That View...oh and me!

Taking it all in!

At around 3:00pm we made it back to the lodge where we jumped into the “pool” too cool off. I’ll intervene right away as its not the pool you might imagine in your head, this pool was a large cement structure that collected all the excess water from the water storage tanks, so it was filled will algae and 5 fish! That night we packed our stuff and headed to a remote area of the sanctuary to have a sleep out in the mountains. Which as you can imagine was a lot of fun, some of the girls were scared of the potential hyena or leopard encounters, and therefore my sleeping bag got strategically moved to the front of the rest, so if something were to come up I’d be the first one to go ;) Sleeping in a desert is something I can check off my bucket list now. During the night one person had to stay up for an hour to keep watch while the rest slept just to ensure that we weren’t a hyenas next meal! Whilst most people had trouble sleeping I slept the whole night (apart from my watch hour, I have to say this in case karl reads my blog!!).

The Sleep out!

 Day 3: Digg’n in the Desert

After a good nights rest in the mountains our 3rd day consisted of project work, which refers to any work that needs to be done within the reserve. Our job was to dig up old fence posts (They recently bought their neighboring farm so all the border fences had to be removed) and transport the fences coils to the scrap yard. Along with Ralf and Adam we were dropped off at the first site where we had to remove two large fence posts. This might sound easy, but you could not have been more wrong. With cement going a meter deep into the ground the task was absolutely grueling. Here we are, in the middle of the desert, not a bird in sight, digging holes, at temperatures reaching 45 degrees. A nice 1cm splinter in my thumb didn’t make it any better, and to take it out we had to use the old fashioned way of getting a knife, slicing over the splinter and pulling it out! Anyway, for those that have read the novel “Holes” this was almost exactly the same! After 4 hours of working we managed to remove both posts which felt like a major achievement! Another thing to note, you know when you watch those desert movies and people are stuck without water and they see a pool of water distant, well that mirage effect is definitely true as even I was tempted to walk toward it and take a nice fresh dip! 

Digging em' holes

Celebratory Photo

Once we got back for lunch, which was top notch, we all felt too drained to go out and work again as it was just too hot! You’d think that having lived in Asia for 15 years would prepare me for the heat, but no, even for me this was waaaay to hot! 

In the evening, once it had cooled down a bit, we climbed a small mountain for our sun-downer which was beautiful! The sky was lit with the colors of the rainbow, from the dark blue night sky, to the purple, orange, yellow, red sunset. At 9:00pm we headed out for a night drive in an attempt to spot the less seen animals. Looking forward to seeing potential hyena and aardwolf we headed out in the bakkie and a strong flashlight. Unfortunately the most we saw was some springbok, but hey! that’s nature for you! 

No Caption Needed!

Stunning Sunset

*Jaws Drop*

Day 4: A Hike with Drama

On Wednesday we headed out at 6:00am to explore another side of the reserve. By now I had earned the reputation of being the last one to be ready, as…well, I would set my alarm for 5:55am and run down to the lodge ready to go! For the second exploration hike, we didn’t go as high, but we covered more distance along a former river bed. Having split up the groups, I went with Karl and 3 others whilst the rest went with Stu (another coordinator who came up with us). Never in my life have I looked at so much poo! To track hyena you look for footprint in the sand and their poo, which is very distinct. I also never expected to be so excited when I found poo, I guess that’s what the desert does to you! After 2.5 hours we had finally spotted a hyena marking area, this is an area full of hyena poo which is their way of marking their territory, letting others know they are there, and even telling other hyenas that they are ready to mate. Karl put up a camera trap and only time will tell if there is actual hyena activity in that area. Another thing to note is that man has most likely never set foot on the the lands we walked, which is quite special. 

With Some Hyena Poo

Without a single area of shade the heat was getting to all of us, and this is when the drama comes in! Just after setting the camera traps, one of the volunteers suffered from heat stroke and fainted! This resulted in Karl and I running back to the car as fast as possible to get her back inside. Never did I expect to be running 5km in the middle of the Namib Desert, but then again you never know whats going to happen! After probably setting a new record for the fastest 5km in a desert environment, we luckily got the volunteer back without any more problems! We ended the day with a delicious Braai, where I ended up being the butt of the jokes as I probably ate a whole lamb to myself!

Day 5: What a Game Drive!

The next day we headed out early to do a game count of the reserve, so fully equipped with binoculars we set out with the bakkie to count the game! In two hours we counted over 140 animals, which mainly consisted of oryx, springbok, and ostriches. Midway through the count I was guilty of accidentally falling asleep (The night before was late, I promise!) and this was noticed by pretty much everyone in the car! But other than that, It was a great ride. In the afternoon we cleaned the cheetah enclosure; at Kanaan they have one very large enclosure for four cheetahs that cannot be released back into the wild. Their enclosure includes a dune which allows for some great photos!

Chubby with her meat!

Chilling Together

Day 6: Final Day

The last day we woke up at a mesmerizing 5am to cater for a dune sunrise breakfast! Although waking up was hard, very hard, this was another cool experience. We were also greeted with a pleasant surprise, a desert coral snake, which are quite rare! We got that afternoon off, to relax, play cards, and make the most of our last day in the desert!

Dune Breakfast

Sunrise

The Coral Snake

All in all this trip to Kanaan was an absolutely amazing experience that I will remember for a long, long time. I’m back at Na/an Kuse for a week before heading on my own Namibian adventure. Renting a 4x4 truck with camping i’m going to go explore Namibia for myself! Till then, have a good week :D

P.S shout out to Adam and Nici for these Photos!!