Blogs from Swakopmund, Namibia, Africa - page 4

The Swakopmund Hotel is a grand old lady, formerly the train station, and we were delighted to be there for two nights, which gave us all an opportunity to regroup, do some laundry and see a little bit of the town. Up early in the morning (as usual) for a drive up the Skeleton Coast to Cape Cross to photograph the seal colony. Richard decided to spend his morning at the Crystal Museum, a place he visited 18 months ago when we were in Swakopmund. The East winds were blowing furiously and not only were they hot, but they created a terrific sandstorm. We could hardly see, and when we arrived at Cape Cross, we really didn't want to get out of the vehicle because of the sand blasting everything. However, brave it we did, with ... read more

Well hellooooo Swakopmund!!! Swakopmund is a german town on the west coast of Namibia. It is set between the vast Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean which provides a play ground for every kind of person. We were immediately thrown into this playground upon arrival as we went to book our activities for the next couple of days. The choices were plentiful, varying from dolphin watching, fishing and township tours to sandboarding, quad biking and sky diving. Megan and I chose dolphins, quad biking and township tour while the other girls were braver and chose sand boarding. Sadly though as I mentioned our dolphin tour did not go ahead, however, this gave us time to explore the little town and have a walk along the beach before we set off on our quad biking tour. After ... read more

We finally reached the Atlantic Ocean on February 21. An entire continent crossed with several means of transportation, but essentially "on the ground" since we had left Dar and the Indian Ocean by train about a month earlier (remember the Tazara?). That evening we saw our first "over the water" sunset from the perfectly west-facing jetty and it seemed a good omen of things to come. That afternoon the entire group had visited the "booking office", a not unusual feature of Southern African tourist centres that have many extreme activities to offer. They showed us a very badly edited video with particularly tacky music highlighting some of the adrenaline pumping possibilities: sky-diving, dune-boarding, and quad-biking over the dunes (a bit like playing chicken with an avalanche on a snowmobile in the Whistler back-country). None of them ... read more

Vor mir liegt der atlantische Ozean. Die Sonne geht langsam unter. Der Himmel und das Meer schimmern wieder einmal in tausend Rottönen. So viel Wasser und nichts als Wasser und doch kann man ewig Richtung Westen starren, die Wellen beobachten und die Gedanken schweifen lassen. Ich denke an die Fahrt hierher, Swakopmund in Namibia. Nachdem wir endlich die Grenze überquert hatten, ging die Straße mal wieder nur geradeaus, immer Richtung Westen der Küste entgegen. Ab und zu wurde die Fahrt von einer Polizeikontrolle unterbrochen aber sonst gab es kaum Hindernisse. Die ganze Strecke war eine Sandstraße aber eine gut befahrbare Sandstraße ohne Löcher und Pfützen. So kamen wir gut voran. Die meiste Zeit habe ich aus dem Fenster geschaut und beobachtet wie sich die Landschaft verändert. Zunächst war da Busch auf beiden Seiten. Mit jedem Kilometer ... read more

This weekend we took a four hour bus ride on the intercape mainliner to the coastal town of Swakopmund. Namibia used to be a German colony and Swakopmund reflects this heritage. We stayed at a place called Brigadoon B and B that was really nice and served delicious breakfasts with bacon and eggs in the garden. Our first night we had dinner at a place called Kucki's pub. I had a local fish called kingklip which was white and flaky and really delicious. Katie had a lovely surf and turf. We tried another local beer called Hansa which is really nice. Then we headed over to the pier to watch the sunset. Swakop is on the west coast of Namibia which makes it on the other side of the Atlantic from the US. It was spectacular ... read more