WINTER 2012

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After 24 hours of flying time, and 36 hours of travel, we arrived in Capetown, South Africa. on January 15. Mark found an amazing hotel on the internet- The Adderly- which was located right downtown. The location was superb for walking the town, which we did- even tho the temperatures hovered around 37C.

We had two full days to explore the town, before meeting up with our tour group for dinner on the second evening.

Our tour is run with G Adventures- there are 10 of us, the guide and the bus driver. We have a very comfortable bus to travel on, which is a good thing as we expect to do approximately 5, 500 km in 20 days, through 4 countries. South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia.



First stop on the tour was Lamberts Bay- which is on the Atlantic Ocean. The temperature here dropped to a respectable 25C. The ocean however, is freezing??? Which seems weird when you are in Africa! Only one of the “young-uns” on the bus dared to take a very quick dip! The rest of us just enjoyed looking and feeling the cooler air temperature.







Next stop was the Orange River. Check out the size of the cockroach! One of the girls woke up with a beetle in her hair- needless to say- she didn't sleep much that night! The rooms were pretty hot, with an air conditioner that only pumped air out of one corner. I snagged the bed under that draft!

The Orange River itself starts 120 miles from the Indian Ocean, and goes westwards 1350 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, forming the border between Namibia and South Africa.



Day 3- Fish River Canyon- which is the second largest canyon in the world. And there are no fences to stop you from falling over..... Jacques, our tour guide was a little nervous with how close Mark wanted to get to the edge to take his pictures! The canyon is not quite as nice as the Grand Canyon, but it still makes for a stunning landscape!



Next stop: The Namib Desert -which is approximately 15 km wide and 400 km long and is adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. Check out the amazing RED colour of the sand!

It was an early morning start- 5am- to drive to the sand dunes, and hike up them before the sun came up. This was for two reasons- 1)- to see the sunrise, and 2) to walk on the sand before it was too hot to put your feet on!

If you have a chance, look up Sossusvlei on Google earth. You too can be an armchair traveler!

After hiking up the dune, we continued on to Dead Valley. It's a pretty spectacular landscape!



Next stop: Solitaire, Namibia. We stayed on an amazing guest farm- with a spectacular southern african setting.. Complete with a pet Springbok- who enjoys the taste of sweaty, salty limbs! The guest house includes a nature reserve for Cheetah rehabilitation. We took a tour out to see the cheetahs. The first cheetah we came across, the guide , Matt, invited us to get out of the vehicle. As we walked closer to him, he charged towards Matt. All of us jumped a mile- but just as Matt had explained, Cheetahs are basically cowards and will not come close enough to attack. They would rather run. Once this particular animal had let us know he was “tough”, he gave up the act and returned to his shady tree to lie down and ignore us. We were able to be about 10 m. away from him, and took some amazing photos. They are truly beautiful animals.



Next stop: Swakopmund, Namibia. Once again, we enjoyed the cooler temperatures close to the Atlantic Ocean. A nice respite! We had a full day off from travel here to enjoy the sights and scenes of a lovely German town, surrounded by the desert on 3 sides and the ocean.

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