June 16th
I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but the Kuiseb River is still flowing. As of today, the water has flowed 9x the average of ~2 weeks and 6 weeks longer than the previous record.
I went on an awesome barefoot run upriver yesterday – the water is mostly mid-shin depth now with only occasional patches of quicksand – a tough workout all around. Living with the Kuiseb has totally changed my perception of “a river.” Now that rains have long stopped, I keep asking myself where the water is coming from. I don’t think I’ve ever wondered that about a normal perennial river before…
While the intense heat of February to April has dissipated, winter has arrived in force. Days have been sunny, dry (try 3% humidity on for size!), and basically perfect, but night time temperatures sometimes dip down to 40 degrees F. Last night there was a total lunar eclipse. The progression of a brilliantly bright desert moon into a blood red orb framed by the milky way and back into a full moon will not be forgotten anytime soon.
Enjoying a week of leave (hence time for this quick update…), but only a month to go until I will have to leave Gobabeb. Then three weeks of traveling with my brother and mom, and then ??
My third quarterly report was recently published on the Grinnell College Website – check it out. I also (finally) updated my Flickr as well.
