The quiver tree forrest: A spine quivering sunrise

Upon arrival at Quiver Tree Rest Camp, we were eager to freshen up and unpack our vehicle before dinner. This was not an option, the barefoot hostess told us. Politely, she directed us to help ourselves to an authentic Afrikaans carrot salad, local meats and an enormous bowl of white rice at the buffet. With the resident cat and hound paying their routine visit to our table, we ate up and skedaddled to our suites.

I was a keen photographer at the time, dabbling in the art as it was one of my subjects in high school. My teacher’s instructions were that I was to wake well before sunrise in order to capture the dawn break over the Quiver Tree Forest. Now, the Labuschagnes are a slow-starting lot. So far I had never seen a sunrise in my 17 years of existence – proof

of the fact that 10 am is the customary wake-up call in our household. So, needless to say, my enthusiastic knocking on my parents’ door at 5 am was met with low growling – the kind displayed in brackets in thriller movie subtitles, right before bad things happen. By hook or by crook I managed to assemble my entourage and we trekked the short distance from our accommodation to the forest.

Hannah from Heidelberg was promised a forest, so the sight of the sparsely scattered quiver trees had her puzzled. I had visited her hometown just the year before and saw first-hand what forests actually look like (they have nothing of our kind, I assure you.) As dawn broke on the boulders to the south, promising yet another scorchingly hot day, I pulled out my birthday present of a tripod and propped my nifty DSLR on top – giddy with excitement about the good grades these photos were going to get me. It was in that instant that Hannah skittishly dared to ask where the forest was, as she couldn’t understand what I was photographing. A brief moment of silence followed, and my half-asleep parents broke out into rapturous laughter, loud enough to wake up the nearby hungover town.

In all honesty, I don’t think we ever filled her in on the fact that said sparsely scattered trees were, in fact, the forest. She probably gathered as much from our soul-shaking silence – neither I nor my parents, who have lived in Namibia their whole lives, had seen the Quiver Tree Forest, let alone at sunrise (or an actual sunrise, for that matter).

We spent about two hours wandering about, playing hopscotch with the massive granite boulders. Upon returning
to our accommodation, the other guests just sitting down for breakfast. Jeez, I thought – these people have no idea what they have missed. They were bound for the forest well after breakfast which, in my opinion, albeit beautiful, doesn’t compare to the light on those trees at dawn.

We gathered our belongings and took to the road once more, all of us a little bewildered by the fantastic landmark we had just visited.

I have always appreciated sunsets. My favourite memories are of the whole gang on the deck of our family beach house in Henties Bay. We’d gather thereafter our separate daily doings – with bubbly and Zimmer & Gerrard – and watch the sun dip into the Atlantic. On camping trips at Oanob Dam and on hilltops in Windhoek with friends, the fire on the horizon would start a fire in me. But ever since that day near Keetmanshoop, when my parents got up at 5 am against their will, and my exchange student was underwhelmed by our definition of a forest, sunsets have sort of taken the back burner. The fact that Namibia has – in my biased opinion – both the single most beautiful sunrises and sunsets proves that whatever happens in between is nothing short of remarkable.

The grades were mediocre, so I’ve resorted to inspiring you with my colleague’s professional images instead. Through photography, we try to capture a scene in the most beautiful way possible, but the fact of the matter is that the Quiver Tree Forest at sunrise is already as beautiful as it’s going to get. So you might as well play hop-scotch with the boulders instead.