Dressing up for the desert
Ivana
My favorite dress code, which easily topples every single possible occasion I can put some sort of specific clothes on, is the one for the Arctic circle.
I enjoy wearing all these layers as I can feel on my skin how useful and incredibly functional they are, and I adjust the amount of them easily while hiking in some frozen environment. By wearing all of that I am reminded that I am in my absolute favorite places in the world; it almost has a religious tone. Think of grannies preparing for sunday service, blow drying the perm, pressing the shirts and skirts, putting the hat on… you get the picture.
Being someone born in the Balkans, used to abused by the summer heat and humidity, I immensely enjoy The Cold as it is the exact opposite of whatever I was raised in. I am so far and so long from home, that it does not even feel familiar or comfortable anymore in a certain way.
Not black
Researching, finding, and dressing up for the desert in summertime was… interesting. My default gear is technical and in dark colors. The desert is unforgiving for anyone wearing black, as you will absorb the Sun’s radiation at a higher rate, and absolutely nothing from the Arctic region drawer can be used for such trip. This means that I had to buy and actually wear white, beige and greige tones. Being someone who wears black 99% of the time I really felt like something was off, while walking in white or sand colored tones.
But seeing myself in Hardap region wearing white on this red sand and stone it does feel kinda better than I expected.
Umm… what? Yes to black?
Months after returning from Namibia I was ruminating upon an inconsistency regarding wearing light colored clothes in the desert. Why certain desert cultures, such as the Bedouin people, wear black (or at least not white) colored clothes in the desert? Despite this being seemingly counter-intuitive, there is a sense in this. Read more here + here to get a better picture.
Not linen
I always assumed that wearing linen is the go to solution when it comes to fabric choice in such conditions. But, linen, after absorbing insane amounts of sweat, is barely wearable. It becomes sticky and after the sweat dries, it almost scratches the skin.
The best choice were pieces made of poplin (shirts and wide white blouses) and a mixture of cotton and viscose (for wide & flowy trousers). I settled with my heat disliking mind upon a suitcase packed with wide, flowy, thin and breathable pieces in these strange tones. My plan was to walk as much as I could, the movement had to be non restricted in any possible way, and I had the luck to stumble upon a random sales event on which I bought literally all I needed. The clothes did not had any technical qualities, just random everyday stuff.
Unbowed, unbroken, unburnt
Whatever was not covered with the clothes ended up being mercilessly schmeared with SPF 50 sunblock made for babies. I am not a fan of anything thick and fatty on my skin and can barely endure it in general, but this had a function and very palpable result. At the end of every day removing the sunblock mixed with sand which blew to my face felt like having daily mechanical peeling sessions and the skin had to be properly nurtured afterwards. But – the sun related damage on my skin was non-existent. I came home still looking like a coffin residing anti-social vampire, which made me happy.
Hiking shoes
Due to high blister development probability I am forced to carefully decide which exact shoes will be used on my hiking trips. Staying immobilized because I am unable to walk due to bleeding heels or toes makes me anxious just by thinking of it, so there is no space for such mistakes. Besides blisters, there were venomous animals, flora, warm sand, the shoe’s ability to breathe etc to be thought about. There were several options, and it took some time to finally settle upon which ones should be brought with.
I bought hiking/mountaineering Ecco Biom 2.1 X Mountain W shoes not long before this trip, unrelated to it. I was worried that they would not be broken in enough. They worked excellently and proved themselves to be reliable. They are essentially made for way cooler environments, but they fit so good and give support that I decided not to think about the warmth and be happy with seeing the kilometers crossed daily in this beautiful desert scenery.
