Sam's Giardino Hotel Swakopmund

... Mountain area. Our local guide, a descendant of Bushmen named Skokie, knew just where to look to pull beetles and scorpions out from under rocks to show us. And few things that he was worried might be harder to find, he had right in jars in his backpack, including mopane worms (which are actually enormous caterpillars) and a little snake. He was really, really disappointed when he couldn't find a tortoise for us, and spent quite a lot of time trying. He also ...

... dont worry parents every 150 km there is a service station!!
So i will be back online in 10-14 days with some more stories and hopefully some great pictures of vast nothingness!!

BTW, yesterday i did a skydive , Jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet!
rather then rewrite the whole episode again .....here is an extract from a mail that i set Ollie ...summing up the experience (excuse the swearing and use of local lingo)



"it ...

... At one point I was really surprised when, after taking a picture of some kids and showing them, a young guy called out and asked if I’d take a picture of him. I said sure and another guy leaned in, a woman in the back stepped forward shyly and a little toddler looked at me uncertainly. My group had moved on so I used two hands to show them the picture in case they actually wanted to grab my camera, but when I showed it to them the woman ...

... dune climbing, I was paying for it with my hip again. Just before we headed back everyone got to run down a dune again and we got some great photos of leaping peopls (including a great one of "Springbok 'A'." We got back to the truck (now called the Fat Albino Penguin courtisy of 'O' during a conversation in our Nightcap Night...) and drove to our camp. A Bush Camp... in caves! (our Flintstones Camp).
We arrived in Swakopmund yesterday and a group of ...

We were up at 7am on Sunday morning to begin our 56 day overland safari up to Kenya, the first of many very early starts unfortunately. We met up with our bus and hung around for an hour or two as people arrived in dribs and drabs, apparently not everyone had been given the correct time of departure. We finally set off around 10am and quickly left Cape Town behind. We did get to stop for a few more photos of Table Mountain when we were a few kilometers outside the city, its as ...

Nach langer Vorbereitung und diversen Abschiedesparties sind wir nun endlich am Reisen. Über München, Johannesburg sind wir nach Windhoek geflogen. Unser Gepäck fand leider nicht den gleichen Weg wie wir und blieb irgendwo liegen (wir waren nicht die einzigen und erfuhren später, dass Johannesburg bekannt dafür ist). Die erste Nacht verbrachten wir also ohne neue Kleider und mit einer gewissen Nervosität in Windhoek. Am n ...

Today we headed to the small coastal town of Swakopmund. On the way we stopped at the Cape Cross seal colony. I swear there were 100,000 seals on the beach. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. It was amazing but the stench was unbearable. Leon didn't get to experience this awesome seen as he started drinking on the truck at 8 in the morning and by the time we
Swakopmund, Erongo, Namibia leonnatmckenna

... Stay tuned for now, and enjoy some pictures here . *This whole topic reminds me a little of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in which the author talks about the difference between driving a car and riding a bike. I feel that my way of driving a car sits in the middle: not as cool and one with everything around you as riding a bike, but as bleak and sealed as driving a modern, air-conditioned car. Classic book by the way.

... no more. A few of us ended up in a bar, dancing on tables etc. It was a really fun night! I had a 9.30am pick up......thankfully one of the guys came to get me otherwise I would have slept through and missed the sand boarding. It was excellent, I reached speeds of 68 kph just on a piece of board sliding down the dunes. There is a bit of a technique. I managed to do a full 360 turn and not fall off ...

Hello Again!
I've just finished my Namibia tour and it was just so fantastic!
It may have only been a week but so much has happened that I can't write everything
so I'll just give you the low down. I travelled north by truck (a really big comfy truck) to the winelands, Fish River Canyon, Orange River Sossusvlei (pronounced sos-ooov-lay) and finally here, my last stop, Swakopmund.
I went with Top Deck tours or African Travel, their sister company.
More people ...