Fish River Canyon, Namibia to Seiriem, Namibia

Today, is a pretty much just a travel day, mostly on gravel roads, although not as corrugated as yesterday. When we did come across a paved portion of highway applause broke out!

Just after we started out early this morning we spotted 3 ostriches, a couple of Kuda, and several springboks. Not much further along, someone spotted a more rare Mountain Zebra. They are smaller, with thinner stripes and the light portion of the stripe is slightly golden rather than pure white. There were two of them just standing looking at us. Not great pics because I didn’t yet have my long zoom lens on my camera.

We stopped in a town called Bethanie for gas, and a bum break. This town was founded by the German Lutherans and has more churches per person than any other town in Namibia. The people here are San Bushmen and their descendants. They are very distinctive looking with high cheek bones, and a much lighter, and more yellow colour skin. Their ancestors were generally smaller than other tribes and that carries through to today. Here is a picture of a springbok which I took while we stopped for lunch. These guys are all over everywhere (much like our deer but with nicer colouring), springing along. It’s not great, but I thought it was ironic because it’s behind a fence, but it’s us that are in the enclosure and it was in the open field.

Namibia was a German colony from 1884 when it was called Germany South West Africa. One of the things that the Germans brought to this region was some of their food and we experienced it first hand at our stop in Bethanie. We had the most amazing Apple Cake/Crumble as an augment to our picnic lunch!

The landscape constantly changed as we travelled along through the Namib Desert, one of the world’s oldest deserts. I am sometimes reminded of Utah, and the SW USA. After a long and dusty day we arrived at our destination, a “guest house” near Sesriem, called Hammerstein Lodge. This was to be our home for two nights. It was quite a large compound with blocks of rooms. The facilities were great, with a large patio for enjoying sundowners, or a quick dip although the pool wasn’t heated. Because we know it’s going to cook right down at night, I haven’t felt the need to partake of the pool yet even though the days are hot in the afternoons. Nanci is being challenged to go swimming at every opportunity to one of our English travelling companions but so far she has resisted.

After a beautiful buffet dinner, of kudu and zebra (yes, once again, sorry vegetarians) it was time for an early night because we had a wake-up time of 4 am tomorrow morning! Big day tomorrow……climbing Dune 45. Named as such because it is 45 km from the park entrance.