One evening, in the middle of a safari that took me to the south of Namibia, I hear myself say: “Tomorrow guys wake up at 4”. At 4 o’clock? Let me understand, there are fifteen days of absurd alarms but at 4 means in the middle of the night, which then in Africa at night, allow me, is still much more night of the other continents! And this alarm that would immediately re-discuss the concept of vacation, what do we owe it to? I’m told: we have to get on the dune 45 to see the sunrise . At this point I was silent because the idea, although a little crazy, or perhaps because of this, I liked it all right.
And so it is precisely with the alarm at 4 am starting this day, which will remain one of the most memorable of our entire trip . In absolute darkness, helped only by the torches placed on our heads that make us look like so many miners about to challenge the heart of the earth, with the usual morning frost (or better, nocturnal) represented by a 4 degrees indicated by a thermometer, dismantle the tents and we load our luggage on the truck. Needless to tell you: the conversation this morning is scarce and I’m sure that a single voice echoes in the head of each of us and punctually says the following words: “But who made you do it.”
But, despite the rumors, at 5 we are in front of the gate of the campsite that will open from there to a quarter of an hour. Here the surprise: madness is not just our business, apparently we are in good company because other cars are in line with our truck. Right now I understand that the question is big: or the completely crazy people around are more than I expected, or what we are going to see really deserves every kind of uproar. Only after a half-hour drive we arrive in a square where there are already some other cars from which descend people who head for a mountain of red sand very hastily. Eggià, because the novelty is that, as if it were not enough the uproar, here it is also about struggling, and to work very quickly. Our driver advises us to start the climb to grab the seats in the front row to see the sunrise. It is easy for him, who knows then if on the dune 45 it never really climbed.
The climb is remarkable and the fact that the feet sink into the sand as in quicksand, makes it all very tiring. So much so that, I admit, I also thought not to make it. But it was enough to stop me to take a breath and move the concentration that until then had been catalyzed in putting the feet in the right places, to the surrounding landscape, to find the motivation to continue.
