Saturday, October 29, 2011
Our first wake-up call on board the Desert Express is on a
quiet stretch of track where train tracks are the only sign of civilization.
Soon enough, and right on schedule, two buses appear – the same ones that will
follow us during our entire journey – to take us to the canyon. As Connie
Martin points out, it’s like summer camp all over again, only without the group
songs, thank goodness.
Today’s agenda allows us enough time to take in the views of
a “canyon within a canyon,” where the top is formed by tectonic movements,
leaving spectacular rock formations above a vast plain. In time, this plain was
eroded by wind and water to form a deep lower canyon, where the few remaining
pools of last autumn’s rains mark the Fish River itself.
We return to train for lunch, and soon we’re off again for
the Kokerboom, or Quiver Tree Forest, one of the strangest places any of us
will ever see. Fifteen to twenty-foot plants, types of aloes, really, stand in
volcanic rock and grass in the largest numbers anywhere on earth. Compared to
the natural beauty of this morning’s canyon, it’s pure science fiction.
For most Saturdays, the world’s second-largest canyon and
largest gathering of quiver trees would be enough. But not for Road Scholar and
our Namibian rail safari. We end the day with a sunset visit to Giants’
Playground, a place where a huge underground basalt rock was eroded to form
piles of smaller rocks stacked as if someone placed them there. Stained red by
iron oxide, they’re the perfect place to watch the sun go down.
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