In the kitchen where I’m sitting drinking my morning tea, a
salt-stained, fishy breeze enters and wafts across the room. Today it is
unusually warm for this little coastal town with its mild weather.
I arrived back in this place yesterday evening after a
four-hour drive through a constantly changing landscape. Over the course of the
drive, the large, desert trees and shrubs slowly give way to sand and dunes,
and the distant mountains and valleys flatten out to a solid yellow-orange
tinted vastness. I recognize when we were getting close to our destination by
specific landmarks that I always remember.
Randomly spaced, crescent-shaped, baby sand dunes appear along the side
of the road just a few kilometers before we reach the eerie ghost town of
Kolmanskuppe and the tiny, local airport across the road from it.
At this point, if it’s not too windy, you can see the blue
ocean expand and blend into the horizon behind small rocky hillsides. After 10
kilometers, you reach the beginning of town marked by a large Hollywood-eque
sign placed on a high rock hill reading LUDERITZ in big white letters.
I stepped out of the mini bus of the local transport queen,
Auntie Anna. She knows practically every one in both towns from which she
carries people back and forth a few days a week. She’s loud, brash, and sweet
and blasts hip hop and rap music the whole drive. If you ask anyone in town if
they know Auntie Anna, they will most likely say something along the lines of ‘Oh yeah, I know her. I ride with her
whenever I’m going to (Luderitz or Keetmanshoop).’
The stale, thick air washes over me as I get out of the bus
and I’m shocked at how warm it is. “It’s
swimming weather!” saying Anna. I think about humid Georgia mornings that
feel similarly and shutter, instantly hoping that colder weather will come
again soon. After all, it is supposedly “winter” right now, yet the temperature
rests in the mid 80s.
Once I reach home and put down my bags and greet the dogs
(Buddy of course pees on me, unable to restrain his excitement), I wander out
to the porch. Overlooking the bay and the ocean, the view is unbeatable, plus the
sun is setting over the water. The sky looks as if it has been painted with
bold strokes of color, —oranges, reds, and purples—and I stand there and soak
it in. As much as I say I’m a mountains gal, the coast is growing me and I’d
missed this view in the two and a half weeks that I’d been away. I watched as
the saturation dripped out of the sunset and the sky slowly faded to deep navy
blue.
Now, as I write this, the morning air has changed as it does
in a split second here. The warm breeze has been replaced by a cooler one, one
with a bit of a bite to it. I go to grab my lounge pants and a hoodie and step
outside where the bright, late morning light stings my eyes and the chilly air
refreshes my senses. Ahh, it’s good to be “home.”
