Ok, so the cycling part of the holiday is over and we are not even in South Africa anymore, but this is my blog so I am including a gratuitous post about our add-on trip to Namibia.
Tuesday morning we leave Cape Town very early to head to the airport and take a flight (on a tiny plane, not thinking about the return trip) to Windhoek in Namibia.
It takes us a while to get out of the airport, first we have a hearty omelette breakfast, then I insist on getting some Namibian money. Stuart insists that it's fine to use South African rand. I flounce off to the cashpoint and withdraw some money, which turns out to be South African rand. I stuff it away quickly in my purse and move on!
Off to the car hire place where we are handed the keys to a very large 4x4.
Apparently we are supposed to watch a 15 minute safety briefing on how to drive on Namibian roads, but they don't bother with that and off we head onto the open road
The very empty open roads. We drive for miles and miles and don't see anyone. We have about 80km on a tarmac road and then the remaining 300km is along dirt / gravel tracks.
At no point do we see anywhere to buy lunch or even a coke. We survive on left over energy bars!
When we finally arrive at Desert Homestead Outpost Lodge we are not disappointed!
The bungalow is lovely with sun deck and private terrace and out door shower.
We end the day having a beer watching the sunset over the Namibia desert.
Wednesday morning it's another 4am start, we are off on the morning Sossusvlei tour.
There is a really long queue to get into the park.
But eventually we are in and making our way round the sand dunes.
In the early light the dunes look amazing.
We also see some wildlife, Oryx and a dancing white lady spider. Not a lot survive in this desert. There has been no rain since 2011.
We stop at Dune 45 which is the dune most people climb, but our guide suggests that it is better to climb The Big Daddy.
When we get to the Big Daddy Dune I am quite anxious as it is now really hot (although not as hot as last year when temperatures reached 55 deg!)
However, we slowly steadily climb the dune and as we get to the top of the ridge we see the Deadvlei.
We then get to run (our guide), walk (Stuart) or shuffle (me) down the dune all the way into the deadvlei.
I am blown away by this landscape, it is everything that is promised in the tourist pics
Today was truly an epic day and it was great to be able to return to our luxury lodge and just chill in the air con.
We manage to rouse ourselves and head for dinner at 7pm and afterwards we (perhaps a little foolishly) decide to climb to the moon terrace and do some star gazing. Given our intake of beer and my back locking up, this is not one of our finest decisions, but we survive!
The next day we leave our luxury lodge and although we enjoyed it, we are not sad to leave. We have used up our quota of doing nothing and would be bored very shortly, we also find the the clientele are a bit stuck up (quite frankly w**kers) which reminds us how great the exodus peeps always are!
In the morning we are making tracks to Swakopmund and the lodge manager redeems himself from being an arsehole, by giving us some very wise advice about the journey! This is not something to be undertaken lightly and we must adjust our tyre pressures and carry 2x5 litre bottled of water.
These activities all need to be carried out at the next town of Solitare, which we manage to sail past before I point out that I think we have missed it, so we double back and find out that Solitaire does in fact consist of just one petrol station and one bakery.
From the map, Solitaire looks so much more..
After Solitaire the roads are quite rough and challenging, but there are a couple of passes to break the monotony and add interest.
After the second pass the landscape changed quite dramatically to absolutely nothing.
I mean really nothing, not a shrub, not a rock, not a stick, not a sign, not a tree! Nothing!
There is 100 km of absolutely nothing. I have never experienced anything quite like this. It is endless, it is frightening, but quite weird, and quite exciting too.
When we finally make it to Swakupmond Stuart and I are quite buzzed by the journey and we head to a bar for a drink. We end up in the Captain's bar, which is part of a restaurant that has been built in a converted tug. It has a lot of charm, but also has the bonus of selling its wine, not by the usual small, medium or large glasses, but by the bucket!!
We then make our way to a restaurant called The Jetty, which serves a lovely seafood meal and more wine by the bucket!
Finally, we return to the Captain's bar where I decide that I am going to live dangerously. Sod paragliding from the top of table mountain or shark diving off the coast. I am going to have ice in my Amarula!!
Our last day in Namibia is spent completing the long drive back to Windhoek airport. Although we take the highway, it takes a surprisingly long time.
We only had a couple of stops at the local services (not many amenities at these ones!)
But we find that we have no spare time to stop in Windhoek and have a look around, or even lunch, thank goodness for left over energy bars!
On the final road into the airport we see a pretty large troop of baboons.
If you ever call Namibia and get interference on the line, you'll know what the issue is!
So our trip to Namibia was essentially three long driving days to see the dunes and deadvlei!
Was it worth it? Absolutely! I would do this trip again in a heartbeat!
