Day Nine - Spitzkoppe
Trip Start
May 13, 2009
1
10
22
Trip End
Jun 04, 2009
Spitzkoppe,
Erongo,
Namibia
Friday, May 22, 2009
We stop quickly at a bottle store in Swakopmund to stock up on alcohol and drinks and buy so much we have to get another large esky to hold it all! On the way, we stop at Cape Cross seal colony. The number of seals is amazing, just when you think you've seen all the seals in the world, you turn the corner and there are hundreds more! The baby seals are especially cute.
The rest of the drive to Spitzkoppe is long, on roads which aren't too great. We have some river crossings, which are completely dry (in fact, we haven't seen any rivers or lakes since leaving Orange River) and so hard for the truck because of the soft sand. Sure enough, we get stuck in one and all have to get out and dig the wheels free of the loose sand and then push (read - girls take photos and boys do all the work!). With the help of the sand ladders we have on the truck and a few friendly locals, we manage to get over the river in about 20 minutes. The landscape here is amazing: flat plains covered in grasses with the odd green bush but otherwise nothing, except some large rock formations seeminly in the middle of nowhere. With the amount of driving we have done, it's hard to appreciate how vast this country is, even though no matter how far we go, we can always see just scrubland to the horizon. We eventually arrive at our campsite at 3pm. It's a similar set up to the bush camp we had a few nights ago, although this isn't classed as bsuh camping as it's an offifcial camp sire (although there are no showers and the toilet is a hole we have dug in the ground, which Hilary makes more homely by leaving her Cosmo magazine there!). Spitzkoppe is another rock formation in the middle of the Namibian desert and it's really beautiful. When we arrive we're told there is a rock concert tonight ("Rock on Rock") so we all decide to give it a go, except for Julie, and buy tickets.
We find our camp site and set up our tents. Hilary sets out digging the toilet hole for everyone. By the time we've sorted ourselves out, we are ready for dinner (spaghetti). Just after dinner, HIlary comes up behind the group and throws a plastic snake into the middle of the group. It doesn't quite get the reaction that she had hoped for (only because most of us didn't realise what it was!). It turns out Dan had bought it yesterday after his sky diving was cancelled and he was at a loose end, and had planted it in mine and HIlary's tent as a joke. i had been in and out of the tent at least twice and missed it (thank goodness, or I would have freaked out!). Luckily Hilary is tougher than me, and while it gave her a bit of a scare, she didn't freak out. I can see this snake joke going on for a while, I'll now be checking my tent carefully before going to bed.
It's after dark when we set off to the rock concert, and luckily Luca points out some handy waypoints for us to find our way back to the campsite later on. We arrive and find a big marquee set up as a bar / bbq area and we walk through and head up the steep rock to the top where they have set up the band area, speakers and lights. We find a semi-comfy bit of rock to sit on and sit down and crack open the beers we've brought with us. There is a female singer with a keyboard who starts singing and she is joined by a guy on a guitar. It's not rock music, it's covers of Bee Gee songs, etc.but it's nice to listen to. The power cuts out a couple of times,bringing silence and darkness, which can only be expected really when we're in the middle of the desert, and things are qick to be resolved so it's only out for a couple of minutes each time.
The second group was a rock group, which was awful, and blatently the whole audience (all 50 of us!) thought the same as there was a mass migration to the bar as well as no responses from us when the singer was trying to do some audience participation. We hung on to see if the folowing group was any better, and our patience paid off, as the third group was awesome. Mainly Green Day covers but they were really good and we all had a really good time. HIlary, Lisa and I headed off around 11:30 after a power cut seemed to take a long time to sort out (we took it as a sign) and the others followed around 30 minutes later so we were still awake when they came back. Kieran was slightly worse for wear at this point and thought it would be funny to stick his head in our tent (with a helpful push from Russell!) and then he thought it would be a great idea to remove our tent poles, meaning our tent collapsed and Hilary and I ended up trying to hold up our tent from the inside! After a telling off from Evie the boys put our tent back together. The boys all slept outside and after some debate, us girls almost joined them, but we decided being in our tent with the windows open would be nice enough (plus we would more protected from the plastic snake!) and eventually we all went to sleep.
