Episode 6.


To the Coast. At dawn we strike camp and make our way back to Palembach, crawling along at a top desert road speed, about 10 miles an hour. There are reports of lions as we pass other vehicles, but the reports are vague and confusing.


There were lions in a ravine by the place near the other place on the way to blah blah blah.


I can't really find an analogy for how Namibia feels. Last year in the Kalahari the terrain was massive but the soft desert sand made the chance of finding and following tracks likely. At any moment really one could cut a trail and follow it.


What we are attempting here causes me to reflect on what might be the critical pillars of entering into a daunting wilderness.


Because it's true, we all have terrain in our lives. Everything from launching a business, to starting a hobby, to creating art, to getting divorced or moving to a new country, to having a child, we all find ourselves in new wilderness. And how do you know you're on the right path?


Well, periodically it disappears.


That'll tell you you're doing something very original. If you are truly living to a unique inner track, there should be unexpected twists and turns and new wild places to navigate in your life.


So, some strategies for new terrain.


Resource yourself but discern. There is someone out there who has already spent time on this.


Get as much information as possible, see if a few things come up consistently and and yet take no one's word as gospel.


I think it's smart to work where there is energy. Start where there is low-hanging fruit where you can build confidence and get things done.


Look for where you have some unique leverage.


Enjoy the process.


The process is the only way of getting to know this new landscape.


   You can't skip it, so you might as well enjoy it. And then finally, and this one in some ways is the hardest, relax into not knowing. There is not knowing, but much worse than not knowing is the thoughts and fears about not knowing. Try and jettison the latter. Another good rule is that if a door opens walk through it.


Use all of your advantages.


Given the above principles on this particular expedition, we need to make a call.


Word is that the lions have moved to the coast.


As the story goes, they are hunting seals.


Now the coast has sandy substrate, which will give us a bit of an advantage.


The coast is our low-hanging fruit.


where we might have some chance of cutting tracks, so we need to make our way to the coast.


There is a period of regroup, and then eventually someone says, fuck it boys, we leave now, we'll be on the beach by sunset, turning towards the coast in a last-ditch effort to try and find lion tracks to follow. Now, there is something profoundly unwelcoming about the Skeleton Coast National Park. Right from the arrival gate, where an extremely bureaucratic official asks us, what are you doing here? Where are you going? There is no fuel and no campsite. He seems to want to refuse us entry. We put on our most cooperative faces and luckily I have an official reservation for the only place to stay in the reserve at an old diamond mining outpost called Terrace Bay. Never has a national park exuded such a do not enter vibe.


On a board in the park office is a map of lion territories along the coast which gives me a tremendous dose of hope even though it's probably many years old.


I mean I tend to run optimistic and take this as a sign of sure success to come. As we drive towards the coast the temperature drops as cold air comes off of a cold ocean.


The rocky desert gives way to sand and emptiness.


A lonely, deserted feeling hangs in the air. We drive past abandoned campsites, where tracks of jackals dart across the sand. When I was younger, I marveled at the artist Keith Alexander's paintings of abandoned houses filling with sand set in Namibia.


And the feelings of those paintings make more sense to me now, as the feeling of a haunted loneliness pervades the land.


The Terrace Bay Resort looks like a resort from a horror film.


It's cold and scraggly fishermen walk around in the mist.




It looks like a fishing village in the Eastern Bloc.


Are there lions here?, we asked the lady behind the reception desk.


There are lions.


She says, don't walk around, it's risky.


Where was the last lion seen, we ask with excitement renewed.


It was seen by the waterfall, she replies.


James and I are elated and immediately start drinking beer to celebrate the imminent tracking and finding of a desert lion.


Alex, wise old operator that he is, remains quietly skeptical.


We have confirmation that a lion has been seen here.


5:55 - Unidentified Speaker
A lion was here.


So what we decide to do is leave at dawn to the waterfall where no doubt we will find fresh lion tracks and trail the lion down to the beach where it will be hunting seals in broad daylight.


We all need hope and ours grows as we drink more beer.


Morale on an expedition is a choice and I choose to believe in the lion.


As I fall asleep I see images of a young lion in the middle place somewhere between waking and the dream world.


When my eyes pop open at 4 a.m.a cold wind is blowing.