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The overland trip is underway and it is great so far. The truck is huge and definitely well equipped for African overlanding. The people are amazing and we're having loads of fun both in the truck (very long drives) and at the campsites. There are 4 Americans including me, a couple Canadians, a couple Brits, a couple Kiwis, and the rest are all German and Dutch. Socially, the group tends to split between the English speaking portion and the German/Dutch portion, but we all get along for the most part.
We met on June 29 in Cape Town and the truck's battery died literally the first time we got on it. We had to all get out and push. But they sorted it out and there have been no problems since. Our first stop was a campsite a few hours north of Cape Town pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We had a guided walk from a local through the hills. Later that night, we watched the Euro Cup final and got to know everyone.
The next night, we camped at the Orange River on the South Africa side. After getting our tents up and getting settled, we illegally swam across the river into Namibia. The water was freezing. Actually, it's just a lot colder than expected in general. It's freezing during the nights. Instead of sleeping two to a tent, we've consolidated three to a tent for the body heat.
The next day we entered Namibia and woke up very early the next day to climb Dune 45 for sunset. We then went on a guided walk through the desert and saw Deadvlei, which are trees that have been dead and preserved by the scorching heat for 900 years. They filmed Flight of the Phoenix and The Cell there. The next day we camped in the smallest town in the country, fittingly called Solitaire. The population is 20 but they are having a desert festival so there was a lot of traffic going towards the town as we were driving out.
One thing that has turned into a hot commodity on the trip is Billtong. Billtong is similar to beef jerky but it's much better. You can get game Billtong or beef Billtong and it can be dry or wet. We've been eating a lot of ice cream as well (it's hot during the day despite being freezing at night).
Today we arrived in Swakopmund, which is really the only developed place we've been since Cape Town. It will be such a relief to sleep in a bed tonight. The hostel has an indoor pool and a sauna. A few nights ago, we celebrated Canada Day so today we're all going out drinking to celebrate July 4 tonight.
Tomorrow we're going quadbiking through the dunes just to the north. It's really cool because it's right along what they call skeleton coast, where there are tons of old shipwrecks right on the beaches. Some people are going skydiving and some are going sandboarding.
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Johnald
bob cobb
happy 4th
i hope you can blow something up tonight in honor of our fine country. :)