First week of the adventure
Trip Start
Apr 23, 2009
1
5
Trip End
Jun 13, 2009
Swakopmund, Namibia
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Anyway, I'll start right from the start...I finished my exam schedule with a brutal 3 finals in the last 26 hours, and then raced home to pack in the 2 hours I had before leaving for the airport. Definitely not ideal, but in the end it worked out, and the only thing I forgot to pack was my PADI scuba certification - not a big deal though since all that information is online if I want to dive somewhere anyway. Flights were pretty standard, and we made it to Cape Town pretty much on time. We were pretty jetlagged so just had a snooze and then wandered the neighbourhood by our hostel for a bit. It was a rainy day though so we didn't venture far, and we'll have a few days there in June.
Had our pre-departure meeting for the overland trip at a hotel nearby, where we met our South African driver, Will, and our British guide Alex, as well as the whole group. It's 13 of us, so there's a bit of extra space on the truck which holds 16. Pretty interesting group of people - a Kiwi couple, Welsh couple, American mother/daughter, and a few solos from Switzerland, Florida, and Britain.
Anyway, we set out pretty early the next morning up the west side of South Africa, and made it out of Cape Town's crappy weather pretty quickly. Set up camp at a really nice campground on a citrus farm, and had a guided walk with a very interesting local in some of the hills behind the campground. We actually learned a ton from this guy... he found scorpions, millipedes, aardvark dens, and showed us some old rock paintings and lots of plants and other stuff.
The next day we crossed into Namibia and stayed along the banks of the Orange River, which we had a nice canoe trip on the following morning. It was a lot more of a float than I was expecting, so quite a bit more work than I was ready for, but still a nice way to get out and see some of the landscape. Had a nice refreshing swim through one of the rapids as well. We packed up and headed for the Fish River Canyon, which is the world's 2nd largest canyon. Made it there about 5 minutes before sunset, and got some pretty nice pictures before setting up camp for the night. We did our canyon rim walk the next morning, and then had a long driving day to get deep into the desert in Sesreim. Somewhat surprisingly, it was a stunningly beautiful drive - there's just something about the desolation of the desert, mountains, and a straight gravel road as far as you can see. Hardly any traffic on the road..you pass a car going in the other direction maybe every 10 or 15 minutes.
Next morning was one of the highlights of the trip, and it was incredible. We were up by 5 and on the truck right away to head to the famous sand dunes. I think they're the world's tallest, but I could be wrong... anyway we planned to make it to one of the readily accessible dunes to climb up for sunrise...problem was that the gate to our campground was supposed to open at 5:15 and nobody was there to do it. There were a couple of other overland trucks waiting, as well as a bunch of other tourists, so Will grabbed a couple of wrenches and broke the lock open and it was a high-speed rally race across the desert to make it to the dune in time. We got there just in time for some absolutely stunning pictures, and saw a beautiful sunrise about 1/3 of the way up the dune. This particular dune is about 150 meters high, which might not sound like much, but I can tell you that it was a good workout getting up. Definitely worth it for the incredible views and the run down the other side was a ton of fun as well.
Later that afternoon we went to Sossusvlei, which is a bit deeper within the dunes. We had a guided walk with a very interesting and hilarious bushman guide, and saw the famous petrified forest, which is between two large dunes. They are acacia trees that died 600-900 years ago, but they don't rot because there is no water in the area at all. It only rains about every decade in that area, so as the dunes grow together, little valleys form between the rows of dunes, creating little areas of petrified forest. Pretty cool place to take some pictures!
Next morning we had a pretty decent drive up to Swakopmund, which is right along the Atlantic coast. It's a nice little German town, still among the dunes. I think it's pretty unique to have a complete desert right next to the ocean...all the other major ones I can think of like the Sahara, Gobi, and the desert in the western States are all quite far inland. There must be something that just makes all the moisture from the ocean dry up right away.
Since Swakopmund is world-renowned as an adrenaline capital, we decided to go sandboarding this morning. It was actually lots of fun, really similar to snowboarding, just a lot slower. You have to wax your board before every run, and you can feel it slowing down as you get towards the bottom of the dune. The walking up is a great workout too...so we only got a few runs in. They also had a little wooden jump set up, so we had a bit of fun going off that for awhile too. One of the guys found us a sidewinder snake, and also a small gecko. The sidewinder is unique in that it moves sideways as it slithers, to keep its body off the hot sand. It's amazing how much can survive in the dunes.
Tomorrow morning we push north up coast a bit more, check out a seal colony at Cape Cross, then head inland, making our way towards Botswana. I've been so impressed with Namibia...it has a lot to offer for a country that is off the beaten path. I really expected the desert to be a bit boring, but it's been amazing, and now I'm getting excited for the game parks and the Okavango Delta that are coming up. We're probably going to be out of contact for quite awhile now...maybe until Victoria Falls in 2 weeks. It's been nice having a bed here in Swakopmund, but now it's camping for the rest of May until we get to Zanzibar, which I'm actually excited about - I think that camping is the way to do Africa for sure! Talk soon, hope all is well at home!!!
