Sossusvlei

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We left at 6:00am this morning but spent the first few hours trying to find a hospital which had X-Ray facilities for Ali, one of the girls on the trip. Turns out that when she took a dive off of her quad bike yesterday she actually broke her thumb! She is now all strapped up so it can start to heal. Looks like someone has finally taken over my spot as the person who gets everything wrong with them!

More good news on the foot front. The nurses said last night that I could leave my foot uncovered for the night as we were in a clean environment. It was nice not to have the dressing on for a while although it has shown me the now large stupid white patch on my foot where the dressing has been. The rest of my foot being quite tanned now! Ha ha.

Today we drove through the Namib-Naukluft National Park for the majority of the day. It was pretty spectacular scenery, Namibia is a stunning country. At about 2:00pm we arrived at our campsite and had a uick lunch before heading to Sossusvlei, home to the highest sand dunes in Namibia, for a desert bush walk with a bushman. The desert walk was great. He told us about the desert itself, why there is vegetation there, how the dunes are formed and how they change. He also told us about how many of the dunes are numbered as this is the only way of providing landmarks / directions etc in the desert. He talked all about survival in the desert and how to catch and eat lizards and beetles. It really was fascinating and we walked right into the dunes. It was still very very hot despite it now being later in the day and the sand was far too hot to walk on in bare feet, yet our guide was! It was good to learn more about the desert so I could get a greater appreciation for what I had been looking at for days on end now.

We then drove to Dune 45 for sunset. Dune 45 is about 170 meters high which is a baby compared to some in the area which reach 300 meters. You are allowed to walk up Dune 45 and that's exactly what we did. I didn't make it to the top as it started getting reall steep on one side of the Dune and my fear of heights kicked in so I just sat where I was. The views were still pretty spectacular, although the sunset was a little disapointing. Mainly because it was a totally clear blue sky and I have discovered that this makes for a boring sunset. You definitely need some cloud up there! All in all, a great afternoon in the desert though!

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