I'm in an internet cafe in Swakopmund, Namibia. The town is surrounded by rolling sand dunes on 3 sides and the other side meets the Atlantic ocean. Where have we been for the last few weeks?
Cape Town
We spent a week holidaying in Cape Town with my parents. We stayed in a rather swanky apartment - clearly my parents hadn't liked the accomodation me and Phil had suggested. It took us a while to slow down to their pace...there seemed to be a lot of cafe stops. We really liked Cape Town. It's on the Southern tip of the African continent and has a temperate climate but it was still really hot when we got there.
On the trip to Robben Island my parents got their first taste of Africa time. We were booked onto the 9am tour which didn't leave until 10:55am. C'est la vie. The island was shrouded with fog so the 'scenic boat ride' and the 'scenic tour of the island' were a waste of time. Robben Island was the prison used to house the political prisoners of apartheid. You do a tour of the jail lead by an ex-political prisioner. It's an interesting concept as a tourist attraction. I was amused by the people doing smiley family happy-snaps outside Nelson Mandelas prison cell.
The next day we drove out to the Stellenbosch wine region. The town of Stellenbosch was very posh and very white. Many of the buildings are the original Dutch colonial buildings. Apparently the thing to do is to go for a picnic at the Boschendal estate. I was a little bit dubious about the picnic thing but it is very good. The tables are spaced over the long lawn leading up to the manor house under the trees. Each table gets a large picnic hamper including french baguettes, pate, salmon tartlets, cold meats, salads, brownies, cheese and biscuits. It puts the side of the road sandwiches that had become mine and Phil's staple to shame. We also went to the wine cellar there. This was outside under a large oak tree - I think Mom would have been happy to sit there all afternoon.
The next day was clear and Table Mountain could be seen towering over the apartment. We'd been told if you can see Table Mountain get up there! Mom and Dad got the cable car up whereas me and Phil walked up. It was steep and the gorge got all of the morning sun. Even though we started at 8am we were soon sweating. The top of Table Mountain isn't quite as flat as it seems from a distance. We walked across to the summit looking over False Bay (not worth it) and then headed to the cable car station for a cold drink. The cable car station is where the sweaty walkers mix with the well turned out cable car riders. After a cold drink we continued our walk across the top of Table Mt behind Clifton Beach and down into Camps Bay. This part of the walk was really good but very very hot. On the way down you could feel the heat radiating off the rocks. The path we'd chosen came down to the suburb we were staying in. We got back to the apartment at 3pm and jumped straight into the pool.
We also did the day trip to Cape Point. From Camps Bay we drove down the West coast along Chapmans Peak Drive. Everything was covered in low cloud and the views were hazy which was a little disappointing. After we crossed the saddle to the Eastern Seaboard the cloud disappeared. We stopped at Boulders Beach which is famous for its penguins. There are 2 parts of this the protected colony where you see the penguins from viewing platforms. There were a lot of penguins including some babies. It was a hive of penguin activity as well as tourist-tastic. We then walked across the Boulders Beach you could bathe at. There were fewer penguins and fewer people here but there were no boardwalks so the penguins were walking down the paths with you and appearing out of the waves as you paddled. We continued down to the Cape for a swanky lunch at the restaurant there. Of course my Mom made us wait for a table at the front of the balcony to become available - sigh! We then went up to the lighthouse on top of Cape Point. It's covered in fog so often they had to build another lighthouse lower down. Luckily the day we were then it was glorious blue skies. The whole of the Cape Point area is a national park but we saw one large antelope at a distance and a pack of baboons. As the weather had cleared we also drove back along Chapmans Peak Drive and watched the sun set (beautiful) - it was Valentines day and there were lots of couples with picnics, blankets and champagne unfortunately Dad and Phil are not that organised!
After Cape Town
For the rest of our time in Africa we're travelling around on a Dragoman overland truck. It's a converted army truck that's painted bright orange. There are 12 people on our tour and 1 tour guide/driver. Most of the trip is camping and it's very hands on: we pitch our tents; shop; cook. It's a good group of people - which is good because we'll be with most of them for the next 8 weeks.
Namibia
From Cape Town we headed North into Namibia. Namibia is a bleak landscape, but beautifully bleak. They've actually had rain in some parts of the desert which means there was grass and grazing animals were there wouldn't usually be. On the way up we stopped at Orange River for a lazy day kayaking. We also called into Fish River Canyon though its too big to walk in. It's 27km long and 50m deep and during the summer its closed for walkers due to the heat/lack of shade/lack of water. We washed the sunset from the viewpoints. Despite the lightening; rolling thunder and rain clearly visible further up the canyon we decided to cook dinner at the view point; this was followed by an improtu disco miles and miles from civilisation.
The highlight of the trip so far have been the rolling sand dunes of the Namib desert. We based ourselves at Sesriem from where we would be getting up at early o'clock to drive 45km into the desert and climb a dune for sunrise. The drive was brought to a brief halt as the river crossing actually had water in it and the rangers car in front of us was flooded, stuck in the middle. We pulled them out; our guide Jason walked across to confirm the road was still there; the flow was ok; it wasn't too high and we were good to go. The river flash floods depending on the rain in the mountains so there was a risk that we'd be stuck in the desert for a day if the river rose any further but we had food and our stuff on the truck so we were all happy to risk it. After the shennanigans we got to the dune with about 2minutes to spare. Walking up dunes is blinking hard work but it was magnificent (put Ayers rock to shame). A dry gravel flood plain splits the dunes. The dunes run perpendicular to the plain - over 60 dunes in all. The one we climbed was 150m high. The mature dunes reach 300m in height. We then did a guided tour through the desert. The plains flood - at least every 10years so there are few bushes and trees. However if the moving dunes stop the water the plants die and with no moisutre they don't decompose - there are tree trunks that died 600 years ago. It was very evocative: white plain; dead trees; bright red dunes; beautiful blue sky - even Phil should have managed to get some good photos.
We're now in Swakopmund. Yesterday we did sand boarding - very good fun despite how bad we were AND having to walk up a 90m dune between each run. We also tried 'toboganning' down a couple of the dunes Phil reached speed of 71kpmh; I managed 64kmph. Phil fell of his board after the board jumped and took a face full of sand - no harm done. Our shower; our room and all of our clothes are completely covered in sand. This afternoon we're going quad biking over the dunes.
Got to go! Yesterday we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and we're heading north so I'm expecting more rain; more rain means moe grass and more grass means more animals....
