Dysentery fun in Africa

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Day 10 (Thursday 30-Apr-09, JRJ)

Woke up by howling jackals at 5am which is a unique alarm call if not a bit unnerving. On the bus at 5:20 to get to Dune 45 for sunrise. The barrier blocking the exit from the camp was chained up and the guard was nowhere to be seen - apparently he had overslept (it was supposed to open at 5). After a 10 minute wait, Will, the driver decided there was only one option - Bolt Cutters!

As soon as the barrier was lifted, all the vehicles made a mad dash towards Dune 45 at breakneck speed. We got to the base of the Dune around 30 mins later and everyone piled out of the truck and began to race up the dune to get to the top before the sun rose from behind the mountains to the East. I got around half way up (I thought my lungs were going to collapse). However in my haste, I neglected Natalie (who was a way behind and too far to catch up) for the 'Romantic' sunrise. Needless to say I was in the bad books for a few hours after that.

The Sunrise was spectacular and the colours of the sky and of the dunes were amazing. After reaching the top, and marvelling at the view for a while, we 'pronked' (that's the springbok jump) down the steep side of the dune.

We then drove to Sossuvlei where 26 of us crammed into the back of a 4x4 and drove about 15 mins where we went on a guided walk with a local bushman called Frans. Again, like the last bushman tour, he told us about hunting and all the natural remedies etc. The cool thing about Frans was that he used those really loud clicks and he kept doing a funny little dance - Awesome!

We went to Sossuvlei and Ostrichvlei and also saw the dead landscape Deadvlei - all beautiful. Took loads of photos and then got back on the truck to go back to the campsite for lunch after which we had a much needed shower and some free time. At 2:30 Alex gave a talk on landscape photography which was a bit boring, but we felt we had to go not to make him feel unwanted.

At 4:30 we went to Sesriem Canyon and walked down into it. Then we went to Elim Dune for Sunset, which was amazing. Probably the most amazing sunset we've ever seen. But we are hoping there's better to come.

Got back to camp after dark and had lasagne as our evening meal. Natalie, Josh and I were on washing up duty. During washing up Nat started feeling a bit sick, and not long after I started feeling queasy. We we went to bed a 8:30 feeling rather dodgy. At 10pm after a short disturbed sleep, Natalie spewed like a demon into a plastic bag (which we thankfully had lying around the tent)! We then both rushed to the toilets, keeping a close eye for prowling jackals, where we spent the next 2 hours sitting in adjacent cubicles vomiting and pissing through our bums, and at the same time supporting each other through this difficult time. It turns out our tour leader Alex was also in the toilets being ill. We thought we were bad but Alex was probably 10 times worse than us. He even took his sleeping bag into the toilet cubicle, where he spent the night. At around midnight we had evacuated all that we had in us and returned to our tents for an uncomfortable night. But luckily we didn't 'go' again until morning.

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