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.

Settling in

hey guys, I have finally arrived in Cape Town after a long over night fly, short break in Dubai. It is colder than expected, about 17C and the taxi driver was saying something about rain.
I go straight to my hostel for the initial "meetin" with my group. There is 14 of us, German, Swiss, Canadian, American, English and Dutch. 4 couples and the fun people - hehe
We have to share rooms/tents and the English girl and Dutch girl are rotating - so everybody has some privacy as well as some company. Works well so far.
People are real nice but need to warm up a bit. after 4 days we start having good fun at the bush-dinners and afterwards at the fireplace.
The truck we are driving with starts to be our second home already, as MJ our leader suggested in the beginning. As we wanna see lots, there is quite some distance to cover. But we have our private library on the bus and time passes quickly. Also, there are the occasional animals to be spotted. So far I saw some Springboks, an Oryx, couple of Ostriches and obviously lots of smaller birds. Also saw some Dassies (see picture). There closest relation is an elephant - believe it or not. Though they are more or less the size of an oversized rabbit. I am trying to convince the cook to make dassie, as it looks quite tasty, but he has not agreed yet...
Btw, food is great. Cooked breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and real good dinner. Everyboy has shifts: sweeping the truck (lots of dessert sand in it by now), washing pots, helping with the cooking and organising the chairs and stuff. It's a bit like going camping with school, but real good fun so far.
The tents are quite comfortable and by now putting them up and taking them down next day becomes second nature. Nights are quite cold, a secoind jacket/Fleece would have come in handy. Who would have thought...
Overall, I am really enjoying myself, especially now the group is getting to know each other. Our guide is cool - so what else could I ask for :)

Preperations

Most of the preps are done. I got all my vaccinations, bought my Malaria tablets, a mosquito net and even some pepper spray - ready available on Amazon. Who would have thought that. My granddad did insist and I don't want him to have sleepless nights :) 

I will need visa for Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya. All should be ready available at point of entry. However, it was recommended to get the Tanzanian visa up front. So have sent off my passport and now anxiously hoping it will be sent back in time. After all, I have entry stamps and visa from Russia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates in it. Might  look like some kind of East German spy to them...

Not looking forward to going to the bank to exchange money. Seems I need Dollar bills that were printed after 2003. Bank clerks will really be delighted with such a request.

All part of the experience, I guess. In a funny way all this makes me realize, how handy it is to live in the EU. It's just dead handy to have the same currency and to travel around the place freely.

Route

Starting point is Cape Town in South Africa. From there I will go to see Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tansania, Zanzibar and Kenya. So basically I am going through the whole of Southern Africa. I will meet a group of backpackers in Cape Town and a couple of local guides. Together we'll tour to the Victoria Falls (Zambian side). The group will change there for the second part. There are a couple of nights, we will stay in hotels, but mainly we will be in campsites. This should not only provide an interesting and real experience, but might be challenging at time. But well, I do enjoy the occassional challenge as you might know :) So let's see how it goes. I am very excited about it already.