On the Way to a Deserted Diamond Mining Town

Trip Start Oct 17, 2007
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Trip End Dec 19, 2007


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Flag of Namibia  ,
Thursday, November 22, 2007

After a difficult drive on dirt roads to Sessreim, we decided to take the long "paved" route to Luderitz.  This brought us to Keetmanshoop for the night.  It is the largest city in the south of Namibia, which is about the size of Altoona, WI.  We found a camp site just outside town that had two private parks associated with it.  The first was Quivertree Forest and the second was Giant's Playground.  The Quivertree Forest was right next to our camp spot and we got to hike around in them as the sun was setting.  A quivertree is really a very large aloe plant that looks like a tree and the San Bushmen used to use the hollowed out bows of the "tree" as quivers on thier bows.  It was very cool to see, because this is the only place that they grow.

We were up early the next day, by the way Beth is waking up with the sun now, to visit Giant's Playground.  This is an area with gigantic granite pilars and boulders naturally stacked on top of one another, like children's blocks.  It was a fun place to hike around for a couple hours in the morning, then off to finish our drive to Luderitz and the diamond fields.
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