Namibia

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Hello bloggers

We have now made it to Namibia and it is totally gorgeous. We arrived in Windhoek and had the exciting realisation that this was a break from our camping and were spending the night in a proper bed, in fact the apartments were quite lush and were mini suites with private bathrooms – whoop whoop!
Windhoek, the capital with 250k people meant it was a good opportunity for a night out. Elbie, our guide suggested a place called Joe’s Beer House which was fab. It had loads of game on the menu, i had Oryx and Danny had a kebab with all kinds of meat: zebra, giraffe, crocodile, ostrich. As per usual we both drank a little too much – i had a bottle of bubbly to myself (it was only 9 quid a bottle so even danny didn’t complain about my spending habits!) and danny was on mega mugs of beer. The night ended back in our hotel bar, where me and the girls thought it was a good idea to go swimming, needless to say danny stepped in and actually picked our friend Toni up and escorted her out the bar....probably a good thing cos she spent most of the night hugging the toilet!

The next day we had a lie in.......this meant we were up just before 8, but at least it was light! We spent the morning shopping – i was relatively restrained – at one point i decided i wanted to buy a zebra skin – when we found out that it would be over £1k and required a permit, we rethought, instead i have purchased a fleece bedspreed with a zebra print on....look and me learning to compromise!

We then had a long day travelling to Waterberg. It was a nice camp site, we spent about an hour trying to locate the swimming pool and then had a chill out evening round the fire. I have discovered a love of burnt marshmallows cooked in the fire and a few of us stayed up late, again drinking too much and telling ghost stories and generally freaking each other out. To top the night off, just as we were going to bed we saw an amazing meteorite burning up in the earth’s atmosphere (well thats what we concluded – seemed more plausible than it being a UFO). Pretty spooky after all our chats!
Then we headed Etosha National Park for a 2 day game drive. We stayed in two separate camp sites. To be honest the safari here was not as good as in Tanzania and day one we didn’t see nearly as much – not sure if it was because we were not in the 4 x 4’s just our normal bus, or whether we had just been spoilt before. But by our second day in total we had done ok - we saw loads of giraffe, an elephant, a pride of lions with their kills (this was ace) and some cheetahs (but quite far away) check out the pics! Both camp sites had a watering hole which we did check out late at night but only saw zebra…..really the only animal that we have not seen close up is the rhino (which I can live with!!!)
We then started heading south towards Swakopmund. First we had one night in the desert where we did an organized walk to see the ancient rock carvings which were quite cool, could hardly understand the African guide who kept referring to Reano (rhino) and Graff (for giraffe) but it was nice to stretch our legs and was good training for the Inca Trail – note to self, Danny and I are gonna have to get in some serious training before Peru as at the moment all we do is eat all day and sit on a bus – not ideal!!

Anyway that night there was another African choir (quite gospelish) which was cool, we all had a bit of a sing song round the camp fire.

We then headed to the activity town of Swakomund. This has definitely got to be my most favourite place so far. The Lonely Planet says that this place is more German than Germany but Danny reckons that this was rubbish as he said there was a lack of mullets, lederhosen and no evidence of anyone planning an invasion of Belgium. We had 2 nights in a mini house ( 6 in a house) we shared a 4 man room with Nora and Dave which was cool – not sure they loved Danny’s snoring tho!
We had a great meal (Springbok Sirloins are amazing) out night one, as it was Karoline’s 20th birthday – did you know that in Norway you can buy wine and beer when you are 18 in a pub but not liqueur until you are 20! You can imagine how the night ended – shots galore – Danny went home early – but I stayed out with the girls and was drinking Springbok shots with Springboks (Saffers not lion food)!
The next day was action packed and was absolutely fab. We spent the morning Sandboarding/sledging which was ace/ a bit scary! Danny was a pro and was the only one who did the jump – even I was impressed, however must admit it was funny when he totally wiped out at the bottom as he was showing off how fast he could go!
I, not being a snow boarder, opted to sand sledge – thinking that was the easier option – uuuuummmm well – it involved going face first down some really steep sand dunes on chip board – yes it was actually waxed chip board – hilarious. Most people opted to sandboard so it meant that my group was only 6 - all the british girls from the bus which was brill.
Not that I am competitive (yeah right) but when we were measured with a speed gun – I beat all the girls with a spead of 59km/hour. But the best part about the day was the last dune, when we got to go down a really steep dune and everyone, even the sandboarders got a go against the speed gun. The fastest ever recorded was 83km/hour and I got the joint best of the day (I did have 3 goes on the same run!) with a speed of 77km/hour. Danny not to be outdone did have a couple of cracks but got one of the slowest times (not that I like to rub it in…ps he was slower than Becky who is a mother of 4 and 57 years old from Canada) with a speed of just 70km – ha ha!! (***Danny edit – my helmet slipped down over my eyes so I was actually doing 70kph blind so I have a valid excuse for being beaten by Carrie and Becky!)
By the end of the morning we were totally knackered as there are no chair lifts on the dunes and you kept having to walk back up for another go!

However, we soon forgot about our fatigue as our afternoon was also adrenaline filled – we went on a 2 hour quad bike ride in the dunes – I was really worried as my go-karting stills are atrocious – i actually stalled in Spain cos i went so slowly – but i am pleased to report this was more like my driving – no not reversing into stationary vehicles, but i was actually a bit of a speeder and I absolutely loved it. There were 4 of us in the fast group – this included Elbie our gap guide, Danny, Irish Dave and me. Elbie and Danny went totally crazy and were doing enormous rollercoasters up the sides of the dunes, I did pretty high ones – but seriously danny was driving practically vertically up a few – mental!!! Thankfully we ALL survived! JUST!
At the start we were taught some basic hand signals...slow down, danger, full gas - you had to copy the person in front so the people at the back knew what was going on. Unfortunately at one point as Elbie started to descend a very steep drop she waved at danny with excitement; Danny mistook this sign as full gas, so Danny, Dave and myself therefore went full throttle off a dune and literally flew, luckily landed safely – but must admit I was bricking it and screaming like a mad woman!
Then we headed south again to the red sand dunes in the Namib desert and Danny and I prepared a pub quiz for everyone in the group – it was brill – loads of questions about Africa, the lion king and questions about everyone in the group – it was a lot of fun.

We had a relatively early night as we were all up at 4.15 this morning so that we could head to the red dunes of Namibia for sunrise! Anyone who knows me well, knows how much of a cow I can be in the morning – and then when we got to the infamous Dune 45, we had to climb up it! Not a happy camper (quite literally) despite my protestations, it was totally fab – check out some of the pics – please excuse our bags under our eyes – but it was early!!!!
We then spent the morning at the world’s 4th largest canyon where we had a little swim, attempted to cliff climb as usual Danny started cliff jumping to my horror! We even tried our hand at climbing – i was rubbish!
We then headed South, not far from the SA border to Fish River Canyon. Now this is a proper canyon. Got some great pics and spent sunset sipping champagne with the group nibbling on cheese and crackers – sweet!!!
Next stop South Africa........

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Comments

[Gemma]

Looks amazing guys, great pics. Carrie, you're so brown!! Lots of love, Gemma x