Tracks in the sand

After being in the Namib for quite a while now, I wanted to learn more about the desert, and especially who or what can actually live in these conditions. So I joined the Living Desert Adventure tour, showing us around the sand dunes just outside Swakopmund. The guy leading the tour, Chris, had made it his task to try and save the desert. As I learned the Namib desert is the most destroyed desert in the world. Mainly due to the extensive use of quad bikes. Due to their weight, they have crashed the top cover layer of the so-called gravel planes, leaving them open for erosion from now on forever. That's also why you can still see the trails of the ox wagons of the first German settlers around. So Chris tries to save as much of what is left untouched, by making people aware of how vulnerable the desert is, and also showing its beauty. And that's where the tour actually started. We were to see the small five today, five small animal living on the sand dunes just outside town, which you usually would never spot. So we learned all about the good chain in the desert, where the water comes from (the typical fog in this area is the main source, ad it hardly ever rains), and how to read the trails we found I'm the sand. At first we found a chameleon, sitting in one of the bushes. Since it was still foggy, and therefore quite cold, it only moved very slow, which gave us the possibility to observe it very closely, especially also it's tongue when catching food. Then we were shown how to spot the home of the White Lady spider (a little poisonous), the desert gekko, the skunk (lizard without feet), a lizard (with feet) and the Side Winder snake (quite poisonous, but probably not deadly). Of course we (Chris) than also dug out all of the above, told us interesting/funny stories about them, and gave us the opportunity for some great fotos (at least I hope they turned out great). The tour ended with a wonderful drive and view through the dunes (we learned all the different colors of the sand: in Sossusvlei they are red, here they are white, yellow, violet and black), ending with an amazing view of the dunes in front of the ocean. And what have I learned? I learned: you're never alone in the desert.