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Published: February 8th 2010
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Into Namibia
Tuesday 2th February
Today we are going to cross the border into
Namibia. The border between South Africa and Namibia is supposed to be one of the more difficult ones to cross and there are concerns that our tour leader, Ruth, and the crew may have difficulties with their work permits.
In the morning a couple of the group go canoeing along the
Orange Riverwhile the rest of us go for a swim. We head off to the border at about midday, Ruth having instructed us to dress conservatively for the border crossing. As it turns out everything goes smoothly and we are through the border within an hour.
Fish River Canyon
The first part of Namibia we drive through is very dry and very hot. Even when we open the windows of the truck to let some air circulate it is hot, dry air from the outside that we get blasted with.
We reach the campsite of
Canon Roadhouse near
Fish River Canyon in time to pitch our tents and head off to the canyon.
Fish River Canyon claims to be the second largest canyon in the
world after the Grand Canyon {
although, surprise surprise, Ethiopia claims to have the largest canyon in Africa!}. The canyon is 161 km long and 27 km wide in places. The truck drops us at one of the viewpoints and we have time to walk for about 30 minutes along the edge of the canyon to the next viewpoint we sit with some cold beers and wait to watch the sunset.
Scorpions
We are reminded that we are in the desert when our evening group meeting is disrupted on two occasions by scorpions running through our area. Later on, as I am sat on a chair against a wall, a scorpion runs up the wall, jumps onto me and runs down my arm. We spent the rest of the evening sat in a circle so we could watch each other for scorpions and I make a mental note not to sit too close to a wall!
Wednesday 3rd February
Wednesday was a long day’s drive. We set off at 7 a.m. for the next campsite. The landscape is not quite as arid as that we saw yesterday. There is some vegetation and we
manage to spot some wildlife - baboons, springbok, ostriches and a zebra.
In some of the trees we see bird’s nests - I’ve never seen a bird’s nest that large before. It belongs to the Weaver Bird. We stop for lunch under one of these trees.
We arrive at our campsite in the mid-afternoon. Again the camping facilities are much better than I expected. The campsite at
Sesriem seems to be in the middle of nowhere and yet we still have flushing toilets, hot showers, electricity and even a small swimming pool.
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