The Desert’s Cosmos

I can drive at 60 mph on a dirt road with the ugliest of corrugations and make passengers feel as if they were gliding on air. The 750 miles of bitumen between Cape Town and Windhoek is a different kettle of fish.

Things seemed to go awry at the start already; the time was 10 AM and the trip was supposed to have started at 5 AM. The 4×4 that I would be driving was missing a wheel spanner and a jack on departure day. The spare wheel was substandard and unsuitable, and the transmission on the walkie-talkies became garbled outside of 50 meters. At this point, the overland tour company that I was doing the transit for was still scratching around for paperwork.

The vehicle, when it made itself apparent, turned out to be a Toyota 2013 model CVVT DoubleCab. Not as tenacious as the 2007 model, but it would do the job. It had the world’s biggest bullbar and was so high off the ground that the trailer hitched to it looked like it was going uphill already.

I was not happy, but at this point, the tables had turned and the company was rushing me to leave. After some kind of agreement, I finally pulled the truck out of the yard and pointed my nose north.

The first night was the most memorable. Three hours after clearing the Namibian borders’ cantankerous officials, exhaustion set in for the first time. At this point, I was pulling up to a small town called Grunau. I turned into a shabby 24hr truck stop and kept the motor running while I studied my surroundings. Old habits. Nobody grows up in Hillbrow and takes safety for granted. When I decided that it was safe, I climbed out, pressed the fob, and went after some phone credit.

Back in the truck with the engine running, I noticed a mobile number scrawled on the back of my receipt in black pen. I looked up and the attendant was looking straight at me. I gave her one of my devilish smiles before driving off in a cloud of dust. There was no way I would even consider it.

An hour later the tension of the day’s drive started taking its toll. The time was 11 pm and I became conscious of the ache in my temples. The road was dark, narrow, and perilous. It darted as straight as an arrow through the desert wilderness.

I was aware of the clearness of the sky, the play of my headlamps on the blacktop, and sparse brown grass growing on the side of the road. Everything else ceased to exist.

I experienced anomalies that night. The first one was a red glistening hairy mass sprawled across the center of the road. I became aware of it just as the furthest extremities of my high beams touched it.

The road had no shoulder so that wasn’t an option. While there wasn’t any oncoming traffic, the rather large baboon corpse extended from the middle line halfway across both lanes. Slowing wouldn’t have mattered much; I was doing at least 75mph. The obstacle seemed at least three inches high.

At what seemed like the last possible moment I swerved over the center line so that it was positioned in the middle of the vehicle’s nose. I could say that I hoped for the best, but there wasn’t time for that.

I heard the trailer with its narrower wheelbase bump and rattle. The pickups’ wheels must have passed comfortably on either side of the roadkill. From the first time I saw the roadkill to the time I completed the maneuver, no more than 30 seconds had transpired. The weariness evaporated, replaced by adrenaline, it didn’t last for long.

Less than an hour later a Kudu with the largest set of horns reared up onto his hind legs, turned on a dime, and was gone. Reflex edged the vehicle ever so slightly to the center of the road once more. My mouth became bitter and my heart rate went into overdrive with blood pounding in my ears. Finding a place to stop in the inky darkness became the main priority.

I reduced speed and eventually found what the Namibians call a ‘rest stop’. I pulled into it, switched off my lights but kept the motor running. I bowed my head with my eyes closed, waiting for my nerves to recover, and soon drifted into a slumber.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that but when I lifted my head I saw something I’d never seen before. I have witnessed a full moon bathing the world’s oldest desert in a crystalline blue, heard the forlorn baying of the jackal outside my tent but never have I ever seen what I saw that night.

There are more stars in the firmament than there are sand granules in the Namib desert, this I knew. Or did I? It seemed as if the sky was white with black in between, instead of the other way around. Scorpio became lost among his peers and the Milky Way was a broad streak through the sky banishing all doubt of its existence. The brown and misty blue of our galaxy was ever so clear. For all of that day’s frustrations and challenges, this one moment made it worth it. This moment made my taxing career as a tour guide worth it. Glimpses of surreal and natural beauty such as this made life worth it.

In my tired trance-like state, this sight both awed and consoled. I sat there paralyzed, wondering just how I would describe this to my next batch of guests, to Nikki, or my grandkids one day. I realize now that I may never be able to relay exactly what I saw. I realize that I may never see it that way again, and much less are chances that I may ever capture it to show another. What I do know, is that the sight will remain burned into my memory until the day I die.