Footprints Across Africa: Vacation Part 4

Everywhere I go on this continent I am always amazed at the beauty I see, both in its physical landscape and in its people. It's no wonder that foreigners come to Africa, fall in love with its beauty and stay for years.

Namibia was amazing. In Swakopmound, Namibia on the coast of the country was the first time I saw sand dunes and I was absolutely blown away . The desert is the most amazing landscape I have ever seen, the rolling sand dunes seemed to go on for miles...and probably do! When the Intercape bus dropped me off in Swakopmund on a Saturday afternoon, I was taken aback by the lack of people and the general deserted feeling of the town. Swakopmound is a small German town with a population of only 42,000 and on the weekends the town basically shuts down so it wasn't until Monday that I actually got a feel of the city but on Sunday I had enough adrenaline filled activities to keep me busy...let me recap!

Sunday August 21

My day started early as I woke up ready to hit the slopes...I mean dunes! The previous day I had booked myself on an expedition to go sandboarding, an activity that kinda scared me considering I have only snowboarded twice in my life and that was many years ago! Of course it turned out to be an awesome activity and I had a really great instructor that was encouraging me to try bigger dunes as I got more comfortable directing myself on the board down the dunes. The only thing about boarding down bigger dunes is that you have to walk up the dunes to do it all over again which is not an easy task; its too bad they don't have chair lifts in the desert! Nonetheless, I think this experience may have sparked my interest to take up snowboarding when I get back to Canada in December!

Waxing my board...getting ready to go fast!

Almost time for the first run...secretly scared at this moment

But it wasn't so bad at all!

Sandboarding lasted about 2.5 hrs after which time my guide took me to the beach and prepared a small lunch of cold cut sandwiches. After this I went back to my hostel and wasted no time jumping in the hot shower a) to warm up again [who ever claimed the desert is hot is lying!] and b) to wash off the sand that was literally everywhere!

After this I waited around the hostel for about an hour to be picked up in the Desert Explorers van to start my quad biking adventure which was such an amazing adventure! When I got there there were so many people and I wasn't sure if we'd all be going out together which would seriously hinder my chances of going fast! Fortunately, one of the guides said that as soon as we get out into the dunes they will split us up depending on who wants to go fast, medium, slow or very slow (thank god!). At first I think I accidentily went into the medium speed group but this turned out for the better. My guide ended up stopping us after about 15 minutes because there were people that were lagging behind in our group. He quickly took them out of our group to join the slow group and the remaining 3 of us went full throttle through the desert; up, down and around sand dunes...it was such an adrenaline rush, I didn't want it to end. At one stopping point my guide said to me "I love you on that quad bike!" My response: "me too!!"

Me and my Green Machine

Beautiful desert view

The full pack of bikers

Monday August 22

The previous day I decided I didn't get enough of the desert and on Monday I traveled out to Walvis Bay area which is close to Dune 7, the highest dune in the the coastal region at 130m. Naturally, I felt so inclined to climb to the top of Dune 7 which didn't take as long as I had anticipated when I was standing at the bottom looking up! Dune 7 was so steep that I was literally crawling up it with both legs and both arms in action. The hardest part about climbing up sand is that for every step you take the sand drags you down again so you are exerting more energy then usual. The view from the top was well worth it though.

Wednesday August 23

Since I hadn't spend much time in the town of Swakopmound, I planned to that that on Wednesday. However, at breakfast on Wednesday morning I met an American guy who was going quad biking and I was raving to him about how awesome it is. Somehow, he twisted my rubber arm and convinced me to go again. It really wasn't that hard to convince me since all day on Tuesday I was wishing I could relive my amazing day of sandboarding and quad biking that I experienced on Monday! It turned out that the second time around I had the same guide and he took us on a different route which including going to the very tip of some sand dunes and driving straight down them! What a great guide he was! And apparently, the same guide that took Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie out on their adventure when they were last in Namibia...pretty cool!

Thursday August 24

I headed back to Windhoek the morning of August 24 because my bus was scheduled to leave Windhoek to Johannesburg on Friday afternoon. I had been told to go to a place called Joe's Beerhouse in Windhoek because they have amazing game meet. I pictured it some what like "Carnivore" in Nairobi but Carnivore is still much more impressive. However, at Joe's I did have some amazing lamb shanks which was wayyyy too much food but so delicious!