Why I love Namibia and the poisonous trail.

Touring around Namibia in a two-wheel drive is not ideal. Especially during the tail end of their rainy season, the rainiest season in 11 years which even brought the Swapkomund River flowing into the ocean.  The rain ensures extra water sources for wildlife through-out the dry season and brings on new life of high desert plants and the rebirth of trees.

The difficult task of maneuvering our car through the land is a small price to pay to experience the overwhelming growth brought on by the ever-needed rains.

Just east of the coastal town of Swapkomund is a small pit stop turned hotel/ bakery/ restaurant called Solitaire.  We arrived there in the early afternoon with intentions of a quick stop to taste the famous Afelstrudel made by the German owner, bringing a little bit of his home to the high desert town.

We were blown away with the landscape and the price of $10 camping so we pitched our tent for the night and enjoyed the 3.8km sunset walking trail just behind the property grounds.

I made the wise decision to switch into my full sneakers, socks and long pants and set out on the trail expecting the worse of harassing bugs.  Apart from "bees" (more like flies that take the sweat from your face and use the moisture to make honey) constantly in your face, the only bug visible were huge crickets the size of my hand scrambling around the trail and running quickly away as we approached. They looked like massive armored-out spiders that ran away too fast for our cameras.

You ask, what was posionous about this trail, Connie. As you will shortly see below, we came upon a weavers nest (a little bird that builds colonies in one giant nest which ever-so delicately hangs on tree branches. They get so large that a third of the tree is swallowed up by them).  Dangling in the middle of them was a huge, thick yellow snake which we continued to stare at for sometime.

It was eating its way through the nest and just once poked its little head out to see what all the trouble was.  After the bees had officially scrubbed my face clean of sweat I decided it was time to walk away from the snake and continue on our way.  We, of course, took loads of photos to take back to the staff in hopes that someone would be able to give a name to our new slithering friend.

Further and further we went until a startled shout came from Heath when he almost stepped directly on this cute, little scorpion. This marks my first actual scorpion sighting so I was quite happy.  The little bugger was scrambling around, digging in dirt without the slightest interest in us at all. He would even walk up within a few steps of our feet and happily poised for our camera, loving the limelight.

Happy with our decision to take this walk we headed back and soaked up the moment. The wind was warm and blowing slightly, the air was sweet like honey. A huge cloud hovered over the mountains which only looked threatening but it never made its way over to us. For some reason it was being held on by the mountains which made for a fantastic photo.

We headed back with our photos, happy and content. We approached one of the staff members and questioned him about our new friends. A look of shock and horror came over his face, he muttered "what did you see".  Look at the photos, I said.

Our happy yellow snake in fact was a Cape Cobra, the deadliest snake in Namibia, with a neurotoxic venom which can kill you 2-5 hours after bitten if not treated. Even then, without immediate artifical respiratory help your chances of survival are 30%.

The cute, little scorpion turns out is a yellow dune scorpion which also has neurotoxic venom. Yikes. To think of how close we were!

A dusty old worn-out truck bidding us good-bye as we pull out of Solitaire, leaving our deadly friends behind.