The longest driving day yet. We woke up to traffic noise early in the morning. In a country that is so vast, why did we choose to camp beside its busiest highway?
To try and make up lost time and distance from yesterday's 'scenic route', we picked the most direct route to get up to Sessriem Campsite at Sossusvlei. I obviously got up on the right side of the tent because we didn't get lost once.
Little lanky towns dot Namibia's arid land. A town on Namibia's map is actually a couple of wooden structures, a hollowed out tractor or truck and if you're lucky, one pump offering diesel.
We passed some awesome canyons, dry moonlike landscapes and huge boulder-fields where it looks like some big giant just scooped them up and placed them there.
Namibia's famous for their quiver trees, stumpy looking trunks with wiry branches that are twisted in every possible fashion. See pic.
When we got closer to the Namib desert, the scenery was just incredible. Grassy hills and white-washed fields were as far as the eye could see. Once in a while, you could spot red-coloured dunes on top of certain hills, which made you realize you were getting closer to the desert and that all this isn't just a dream.
We passed herds of cows, sheep, springbok, ostrich and kudu on our way, looking very healthy and free.
We arrived at Sessrium campsite exhausted. After paying our hefty camping fee of 770 Namibian dollars (!!!), we sped towards the dunes to catch the last glimpse of the setting sun. However, we didn't realize that climbing one dune meant that there was a higher one to climb after that, and a higher one after that, and... yeah, it was like chasing the end of a rainbow. Uphill.
Fortunately we thought ahead and we each brought a can of Coke (me) and Amstel (Matt) for our sunset reward. It was stunning. And to think it happens every day.
That night we had a shower (bliss) and cooked up dinner using our small camping stove. I must say we are getting super slick at cooking using only one pot. First you boil the water, add the frozen fish and frozen veggies, wait till it boils, add some noodles, drain and add curry sauce and heat until ready. I'm loving the ease and simplicity of it all, and the minimal washing up afterwards.
While I've become so-called designated "chef", Matt has won the title of "human washing machine". We bought this big yellow plastic tub at a sailing shop in Cape Town before we left and it has got to be one of the best investments so far. Every night we place our dirty clothes in this yellow bucket, add a bit of water and OMO washing detergent, let it slosh around in Foxy during our day's bumpy drive and at the end of the day, rinse out the clothes and let it hang to dry. It's only Day 4 and Matt's done 2 washes already!
We think we may need to buy a new jerry can though since when we're not using it as a washing machine, we are siphoning diesel into it to pour into the main gas tank. It isn't so pretty when your underwear smells like Omo and diesel.
Super tired after a hot day's driving on gravel, we climbed into our cozy tent at 20:00. Matt was snoring within 10 seconds of his head hitting the pillow (I am not exaggerating). I managed to read a bit of my book before turning off my headtorch.
Start: Grunau, NAM. 8:27
End: Sossusvlei, NAM. 17:00
Distance Travelled: 604 km
Road Conditions: hard gravel, some corrugation
Temperature: hot, in a dry kind of way
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