From Cape Town to Swapkomund

It's me again :)
Well, I am in Africa for 6 days now and have seen quite a lot already. We went to the Cape of good Hope first. This is the most South Western point of the African continent, bit like Land's end in the UK. Amazing views. I climbed down all the way and tested the water - the waves are really powerful and I got totally wet. But it was definitely worth it.

From there we went to a place called Trawal, still in South Africa. We camped in the middle of nowhere on a vineyard. Had a wine tasting and a Brai (South African BBQ) and a good chat to Sparky, the owner. The wine was very nice indeed... and helped with the bonding of the group, hehe.
First night in the tent was good. They got new tents, they are quite heavy but easy to put up and "Baboon - save" apparently.
From Trawal we went to cross the boarder to Namibia and stayed one night at a camp site called Felix Unite at the Orange River. We explored the River the next day whilst Kayaking. It's real good to get a work out after all the sitting on the truck.
Getting up at 6am gets second nature by now, we drive up to a place called Hobas in the Namib Naukluft park and are going to see the sunset over the Fish River canyon. However, the sky looked a bit like a typical Irish sky and it actually started to rain while we were having our dinner back in the camp. Donno, but it seems the weather follows me around. but even though a sunset would have been nice, it was preety amazing. This is the second biggest Canyon in the world and it is just unbelievably big. Also, I would have never believed that the sky does actually look bigger over here.

Next day is a long day on the truck. We reach Sesriem at 6pm, have dinner and prepare for an early start the next day. Till now we still have really good campsites (much better than some I have experienced in the South of France) with running, warm water and proper toilets. Surprisingly one can drink tab water in Namibia. It tastes much better than treated water from containes in the truck and noone in the group had had any kind of stomach problems yet.

Today we get up at 4am and head of to the Soususvlei, a place in the Namib dessert that has a huge amount of (non-moving) sand dunes. We climb Dune number 45 (yes, the place has been numbered by the Germans, who else would give dunes numbers???) and see an amazing sundawn. It is so beautiful how the colous change. The sand has a deep orange colour due to a high content of iron. We go up barefood and it is pretty cold.

After breakfast we get on a jeep - a bit like cattle - and drive further into the Soususvlei. We meet a local Bushman guide who has an amazing knowledge of the dessert. He catches lizzards, show us spider holes and tells us many stories of how he grew up  in the dessert. Really very amazing. Also, I would think I am wuite fit, but the pace he has got, is unbelievable. We climb a further couple of dunes, go into the Deadvlei and roll as well as jump down dunes. Very good fun indeed. Even though I had a shower back at the campsite, there was a little heap of orange coloured sand in my tent this night.

We leave the dessert to make our journey up North and camp in the dessert, in the middle of nowhere. First "bush camp" so far. Which means a drop toilet, no running water but an amazing view and we are all on our own. it is very windy and freezing cold over night. When I wake up in the morning, thick fog settled and it must be close to 100% humidity.

Today we are off to Swakopmund - a very much German influenced town at the sea side.

More in a week or so.