Monday, May 14, 2012

Naukluft

For the start of the holiday I hiked with some friends on the Namib-Naukluft hiking trail. It’s a 120km hike in the Desert Mountains with searing hot temperatures during the day and freezing temperatures at night. The first day was pretty easy with some light hiking (15km) around some hills. There’s a shelter between 14 and 18 kilometers each day hike. The shelters are four foot high walls with a roof but a noticeable gap between the walls and the roof. Day two is when the trouble started. I had a few hot spots (spots that will likely blister) on my feet at the end of day one but nothing too bad. I had one on the back of my heel and the balls of my feet each had one. Day two is when I noticed that my hiking boots from Florida might be great for hiking on the soft ground in Florida but they weren’t up to standard for a semi dried river bed full of sharp, jagged rocks. By the end of day two I had two popped blisters, one on each foot. I started taping my feet to provide a bit more protection but the chains were difficult. When I say chains, I’m referring to chains set up by the park service that help you climb up and down rock faces. Most of these inclines are about a 75 degree angle and the chains aren’t entirely necessary but they’re helpful for people like me who are terrified of heights. The rest of the days passed without incident. We woke around 430am everyday and broke camp by 530am so we could hike before it became too hot, we finished before noon most days. However, we decided to do the eight day hike in seven days by combining the last two days into one 30km day. We woke at 330am and left camp by 430am. We started up a mountain and nearly reached the top by sunrise. This is considered one of the hardest days because it has one kilometer of chains to assist you going up the mountain. We agreed no chains in the dark but the sun was rising when we reached the first set. The only difficult one was up a waterfall. It wasn’t a fast flowing waterfall but it made the chains wet and there was slippery green moss on the rock making foot holds difficult. To add to our problems, baboons were occasionally dropping rocks down on us. None of us got hit but it certainly scared us. We pressed on for several more hours. I started struggling when we reached a dry river bed for (what seemed like) the hundredth time. The sharp volcanic rocks were cutting my feet. To make matters worse it was hot. Really hot. I drank four liters of water that day but by the end of the hike I was down to my last 1.5 liters and I needed to conserve some. I became pretty dehydrated. When I finally walked into the shelter (I was the last person) I had difficulty walking a straight line, felt like vomiting, and felt extremely cold despite the hot sun. I drank oral rehydration salts and rested. I was, by far, the worst off in the group, though we all had aches and pains on the last day. The following day I noticed that one of the blisters on my left foot looked infected. I was still pretty dehydrated so I got a second opinion and she agreed it looked infected. So I sliced it open with my pocket knife and drained the pus out. When I got back to Rehoboth I soaked my foot in a bucket with salt water. I’m supposed to hike Fish River Canyon (a much easier hike) in about 4 days but I’m not sure if I will. I need to see if my feet can recover fast enough.

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