Strand Swakopmund

... much information about our surroundings. We enjoyed it anyway and got some good exercise.

That afternoon, we crossed the Namibian border, which was uneventful. South African rand are accepted everywhere in Namibian, so we didn't even have to change money.

So far, our 3 guides have been terrific so far. The trip leader is Clive, a Zambian guy of 26 who has been leading these trips for 7 years, so he knows every point of interest and rest stop along ...

... aircarft .....the wind is blowing a gale out there ...and you have to move your ass over the edge of the plane into nothingness.............the noise of the plane and the wind deafen you as you hear your instructor screaming "Let GO!"..........you let go ........and everything goes... WEIRD!!!!!!!!!
A Couple of tumbles later and we arrive at a steady freefall position ...........the camera is on the instructors wrist pointing towards me ...

... hanging from the ceiling, so low that we had to duck and make our way around and through them. The witch doctor was in the back and people were taking pictures with him. He was in some sort of traditional garb, but peeking out of it I spotted a cell phone and couldn’t help but smile. When we came out we were accosted by the vendors who had greeted us before we walked in. They remembered our names and gallantly took our arms and led us to their tables ...

... screaming the whole way down. (Though I didn't have and O-face like one of the boys, haha!) I got to 'drive' the parachute for a bit too which was awesome. It take alot of effort to move directions but so great. We now call our little initiated group The A Team - "get some nuts!". The photos and video are really great but I'd recommened it to everyone.
Today I'll be quadbiking around the dunes and then tomorrow it's off north towards Etosha - animals yey!

... and 1 British. A good mix and everyone is between 20 and 35 years old. The 3 crew are a cook, a driver and a guide. They are all from Kenya and have a lot of experience doing these tours.

our first day was spent mostly driving, we covered over 400km! Our tour guide Hes (short for Hesbon) went over everything we would need to know as we drove along. Everybody has to help out with the day to day running of things so we were all split up into groups of 3 or 4. The duties ...

... es kalt. Wir wussten zwar das es kalt wird, aber nicht soooo kalt! Erste Aktivität tagsdarauf: Wolldecke kaufen.
Jetzt konnte es richtig los gehen und wir starteten Richtung Südwest in die Namib-Wüste. Unterwegs überquerten wir den Namibpass, kreuzten Paviane (Affen) und bewunderten die karge und trockene Landschaft. Unser heutiges Ziel war das Tsondbad Valley. Eine Farm, welche nur noch touristisch genutzt wird, und ...

... The last dune was the highest and Leon went down it 5 times. He was like a kid going to a candy store!!! The fastest Leon went down was 67kms and my first was 61km. I seem to go down very fast!! Actually on the three dune I went down the fastest. We had a brilliant day. That night we went out for tea with people from our truck and then headed to the night club at our backpackers ...

... where we done a sky dive over the namib desert. 10,000ft, free falling for 30 seconds. we both nearly cried going up and laughed all the way down. brilliant. Drives through namibia were really cool. totally different to what we'd seen for most of the trip. hopefully some of the pics will do it justice. The end is nearly in sight, sadly.

... 4 wheels are off the ground! I went a bit off course at times which was not a good ideas as rather than a smooth ride up the side of the dune you hit a lip and go flying. It was funny especially as the guys behind me followed my tracks instead of the instructors!! Yesterday a few of the guys went fishing and managed to catch enough fish for us all to have a BBQ at one of the bungalows. It was ...

... first day day was pretty quiet. We had a relatively short drive to the winelands and actually camped overlooking a vineyard. Pretty cool actually. We had a wine tasting and got to know eachother a little better.


The night sky was beautiful as expected and I learned how to pitch a tent in 5 minutes flat (yes that's right Angie and Nat, 5 minutes!!) with my bunkmate Nikki. She is the girl I met and chatted with at the hostel but more about her later.

The ...