Namibia part 2!

Another hour’s flight took us to the coastal town of Swakopmund, so interesting to see from the air, as it’s surrounded by desert on all sides. If you look to the west, the next stop is South America! The town was colonised by Germany in the late 1800s and then taken over by South Africa, gaining its independence in 1990. German architecture is subsequently to the fore here. It’s a very relaxed town, great food with a good variety of restaurants. Worth pointing out that food and drink is very inexpensive in Namibia and the food is great, with a variety of fish and game. Plenty to see and do here, we had an amazing morning on a boat trip out to the peninsula of Pelican Point, where we saw thousands of seals, dolphins and pelicans accompanied our boat the whole way. Followed by a hilarious afternoon being driven on the sand dunes in 4WD – in Sandwich Bay these dunes literally come down to the sea.

Last stop on the trip was into desert and the area of Sossusvlei, staying at the aptly named Le Mirage hotel, surrounded by the raw, but beautiful landscape. Sunsets here are truly magical. Namibia is home to the largest sand dunes in the world, namely Big Daddy at around 350 metres and we set off early in the morning to the Namib-Naukluft park to climb him. The ascent took just under an hour – for every step you take, you slide back part of it! The descent is a lot quicker, but steeper – a steady run down takes you into the Deadvlei (a white clay pan), where trees died around years ago, but astonishingly haven’t decomposed because of the dry landscape. On the last morning, before we started the journey home, we took to the skies again, this time in a hot air balloon to see the sun rise over the dunes – another tick on the bucket list.

Namibia is full of so many experiences, I only scratched the surface, and, like everywhere else I’ve visited in Africa, is full of heart and soul.