After kayaking down the Orange River which straddles South Africa and Namibia, my overland tour and I crossed over the river and the border, entering Namibia. The border crossing was easy, and most of us didn’t require visas, which is always nice. Some of the countries in Africa are very expensive to enter!

We had a big driving day ahead of us, as the distances are vast in Namibia, and the people few. It was mostly dry, desert landscape, making for cold nights (thanks to Alysson for bringing me a good sleeping bag!), and hot days (I have never seen soaking wet jeans dry in an hour and people thought I had blow dried my hair it was dry so fast). The starkness was gorgeous, and provided for beautiful African sunsets, and starry nights without lights to compromise their effect. The lack of vegetation also allowed for some intense winds, and my tent-mate and I spent one sleepless night wondering if we were going to be carried away in a typhoon as the tent caved in around us.

We spent about 10 days in Namibia, exploring ancient cave drawings, camel riding in the Swakopmund dunes, drinking wine at sunset at the second largest canyon in the world (Fish Canyon), game driving in Etosha National Park, and testing pool temperatures in various campsites throughout the country. The highlight was definitely seeing huge sand dunes like nothing I have ever seen in Sossusvlei national park (and finally getting some exercise by climbing up them, after sitting on the truck for days on end). It was a truly fantastic, otherworldly place.

Camel riding was hilarious. It was cheap, and I had never done it, so I signed up with one of the group members. Our other friend passed, as she had done 4 days of it in Morocco, which she claimed was a bit too long. On our tour we had a family, who didn’t seem to enjoy it all that much but were hilarious. When I told the mom that my friend had done it for 4 days and thought it was a mistake, she looked incredulously at me and exclaimed “the biggest mistake!”. It was a bit uncomfortable to say the least. Luckily our tour was quite short, as they marched us out of town to the beginnings of the dunes, took about 50 photos and returned us back to town. Good to know before I go to Morocco one day!

As you might imagine, the roads in Namibia are not always great, and few of them are paved. With our huge truck, we managed pretty well and kept up decent speeds, but at one point, about 30 km from our camp, I found myself thrown sideways into the passengers in the row next to me and my phone flying across the truck. Luckily, me and the phone were ok, as was everyone else. The truck, alas, was in need of repair. Turns out we had hit a rock and it punctured the tire as we sped along at about 80km/hour. Luckily, we drifted over to the sand, which eventually pulled us to a halt. It could have been much worse. 

We had lunch on the side of the road, while our tour leader Leah hitchhiked to find us a bus for the rest of the way to our camp. The boys eventually managed to change the tire, allowing the truck to get to a garage to get fixed the next day while we explored the dunes. Luckily, everyone in our group was super calm about the whole situation!

We ended our time in Namibia in Windhoek, the (small) capital city of the country, where we had a farewell dinner with so many of our tour mates, and said hi to five more joining us to Vic falls, including three Canadians.