Summer on the Kulala Wilderness Reserve
As always here in the Namib Desert, summer means high temperatures, and it's been nice and warm (although the first week of January reached temperatures of 45° C, and even as local Namibians, we felt the heat). Luckily, we have our newly renovated swimming pool to keep our guests cool. We also gave them ice-cold kikois to cool down with under their fans.
Landscape
The grasses that recovered after the good rains of last summer are dry now, and we are back to a desert landscape.
We have received some drops of rain, but really, very little. That said, one of the guests took a beautiful picture of an electrical storm here in November.
On the evening of 1 January, it rained in the Naukluft mountains, east of the reserve. On the morning of 2 January, we were surprised to see some water in the Tsauchab River in front of the lodge. This is the river that feeds the Sossusvlei pan, but this time the water was not enough, and it dried up before reaching the 2x4 parking near Sossusvlei.
Wildlife and birds
Most of the animals have moved off to other parts following the greener grass; however, from time to time we do see small herds of oryx and springbok, and of course, our little black-backed jackals and brown hyena.
You know it is VERY hot when an oryx is standing in the shade of the solar panels. One of our guides took this pic while out on an activity.
Camp and guest news
At the beginning of January, we hosted two guests who had booked a hot air balloon trip. He was planning to propose to his girlfriend while in the balloon, but unfortunately the trip was cancelled due to bad weather. The team quickly jumped in with Plan B, and prepared a special private sundowner trip for them. All went well and she said yes!
We had 2 groups of Polish guests (each a group of 45) who stayed with us in December. What a lovely group of people. They booked out the whole lodge. They visited the Sossusvlei dunes, Sesriem Canyon and then we had a bush dinner for them on our Kulala Wilderness Reserve. They came back to the lodge, and danced and sang around the fire until the early hours of the morning.
Staff News
The Zambezi Training team (Zimbabwe and Zambia), together with the Wilderness Namibia Training team, visited KDL at the end of November last year. We showed them what we have to offer on activities, and they made it up all the way to the highest dune, Big Daddy. Well done guys! On the last evening they joined in with our staff, who were singing and dancing for guests after dinner.
During the off season when we are not busy, we do things we normally don't have time for – like pathway maintenance. We had to start early in the morning, as by 08h00 it was already too hot. But teamwork from different departments helped, and we finished quickly.
We welcomed two new members to our KDL team who were transferred from Damaraland Camp – Andreas Hidishanse has joined the team as our new Food & Beverage Manager, along with Mechanic, Sem Alweendo, who arrived in December.
We also welcomed a new ‘old’ face – Michael Amchas, who will be a guide here. He previously guided at Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp and Serra Cafema, before leaving the company for a few months, but he is back now in the Wilderness family.
One of our guides, Vilho Hailonga, attended a guiding refresher and first aid course at Doro Nawas along with other emerging Namibian guides.
Several staff members received long service certificates for their time at Wilderness. Congratulations to the following staff:
- Castro Katembo Ngongo – 10 years
- Maureen Vlees – 25 years
- Joas Kandjou – 10 years
- Raymnda Coetzee – 15 years
- Daria Isaks – 10 years
Newsletter by Christelle Jansen | Photos by Christelle Jansen & Alfred Haneb
