Katie's Very Excellent Adventure: Africa 2013: Day 16: The days of old...

Our campsite was located on the "foothills" of the volcano, which is located in southern Namibia. It's called Brukkaros Mountain and is about 1600 meters at its tallest peak. About 80 million years ago, the volcano erupted leaving behind a ring of mountains with a large "crater" in the middle. There are now several paths that one can follow around the perimeter as well as in the interior hollow. We starting hiking and climbing upwards so we could get a view of the middle as well as the surrounding ring. It was beautiful hiking and the rocks were really neat and like nothing I had ever seen before. The view from the top was amazing. Not only did we have the beautiful view of the mountain ring and inner-depression, but the surrounding landscape and the vast nothingness that surrounded us, made me feel incredibly small and insignificant. If we had had the time, I think we would have hiked all the way around, but we got to the top of the first little peak, hung out for a little and then made our way back down.

After we packed up the car and headed out of the empty campground, Neil suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, turned the car off and asked me if I was ready to drive. I never learned to drive stick when I was learning to drive and the cheapest cars were all stick (one of the reasons why Neil was invited because he could drive stick), but I had told him that I would love to learn. Given the straightness of the road and the fact that we were the only car for miles, it seemed like a pretty good place to learn. So, we traded seats, he gave me a quick lesson and I was off. I would be lying if I said I was good at it. I stalled a few times, made it a little ways down the road, and decided I had had enough. Neil got back in the driver's seat and we headed off towards Keetmanshoop.

Keetmanshoop is a largish town which was founded by German missionaries in the mid 1800s. Outside of town there are two quiver tree forests, one of which is a national monument. The area, according to our guidebook, was also home to some interesting sounding fossils. The fossil site also had quiver trees, so we figured if we went there it would kind of be like two for the price of one. We pulled in to the site, met an elderly gentleman named Geil and headed off to the site where he would give us our tour. The fossils had been discovered by his son in the 80s, while they were working on their farm. While we walked around and saw the fossils, which had been left where they had first been spotted and covered with small metal roofs, we got a history lesson. The Permian Period, which started around 280 million years ago, was the dawn of the amphibians, as land reptiles began evolving in favor of more aquatic lifestyles. One of the first known amphibians was the Mesosaurus, which means "middle lizard" in Greek. The largest were around 70cm long and had broad tails and webbed feet which helped propel it through the water. They had a thin snout with small, sharp teeth. It is unclear however, whether or not these teeth were used to chew or to filter pray.

This period was also categorized by violet dust storms that would leave heavy deposits in the water, essentially drowning the creatures. The cool thing about the Mesosaurus is that it is used to help justify the idea that the continents were all once connected. The southern mega continent, which has been named Gondwana, was thought to have a large lake, Lake Gai-As, that was the home of the Mesosaurus. Around 120 million years ago, the land mass started to split, into the continents of the Africa and South America. Very similar fossils of the Mesosaurus were found in Namibia as well as in Brazil, which helps show scientists that the two lands may have been connected at one point.

It was super interesting to learn about the fossils and to see them so up close. We got to hold them in our hands and look and touch the imprints as well as some of the fossilized bone that was left behind. After our tour, we went to see the quiver trees and the dolerite rocks. The quiver tree is an aloe species that is endemic to Namibia. The branches were traditionally used by the San people to make quivers for their arrows, thus its name. The trees themselves are kind of hard to describe, so you should probably just look at the pictures below. Around the quiver trees were interesting dolerite rock formations. These formations were formed around 180 million years ago as the continents began to drift and the surface of the earth went through huge changed. In this area, magma forced its way through cracks in the surface. Over the years, because of erosion, the dolerite has been exposed, which is what we were seeing.

Before Geil left us to watch the sunset, he showed us a fun fact about dolerite. He went over to a specific formation, took two smaller rocks in his hands and then started "playing" the rocks. I say this because each different spot he struck had a different pitch and when struck in succession, it sounded like music. He played the South African national anthem for us. After he left, Neil and I played some rock music, climbed around on the rocks and found a good one to the watch the sunset.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we headed out of the park to find a place to stay. We found a potential location for parking the car, but as we started to drive off the road, we realized it wasn't going to work. When Neil turned around, our car started to get stuck. I got out and pushed, while Neil drove and we made it out. We found a different place behind a bush, but really close to the road. We decided that it would probably be better if we didn't have our white car way out in the open, so we camouflaged it by draping my tent over it and we would sleep in the car. It was a little bit smaller than we were expecting, and much warmer than it usually was in the tent, but without the violent wind we had experienced on the volcano, both of us slept much better than the night before.