:: Carnet de Voyage ::David

// Nikon D7200

Time to get back in the desert. I have to plan and drive more carefully since we don’t have the same fuel economy on gravel roads with our toyota corolla. Refuel at Luderitz, then refuel 100kms later in Aus, before the long gravel road to Sossusvlei.

This road gets pretty bad from time to time, and it not easy to drive a small car there, but we managed to keep it at 90kph for most of the road. As usual in Namibia, the landscapes changes every 50kms, from a sandy desert, to a luxuriant valley, to table mountains via a serie of canyons. We never know what to expect behind the next ridge !

Once in Sossusvlei, you have to pay the park (permit for 24hours) and camp ground + a fee for the car, about 28usd per person + 1usd for the car. This gives us the opportunity to drive in the park from 5am, instead of 6.
We just have time to enjoy a typical african sunset, and we made our first fire for diner, a very nice moment 🙂 (food cooked on fire always tastes better !)

Next morning, we woke up before 5am, and went on the road. The thing is, the speed limit in the park is 60kph, and we have to drive about 50kms to make it to the dune. That doesn’t give enough time to climb the dune and see sunrise….. so fuck it, I floored the corolla and went as fast as we could to the parking lot. Anyway, no one cares about the speed limit :p
And we are still far from the dunes !! The road ends here, and you need a 4wd to drive the last 3kms. Obviously, it’s part of the business with 4wd here :p We decided to walk all the way, and it was obviously too late for sunrise, but still fresh enough to climb, which was not so easy ! The view on top of the biggest dune is breathtaking, we are simply sitting here on top of the namib desert, with a 360 view of sand dunes. It could not be more impressive than this. Perfect spot for breakfast, if only I had my coffee machine…..

A good time there, chilling out, then it was time to run down 😀 A lot of fun and a single minute to get down ! Once down, you are now in Deadvlei, a salt pan with black dead trees all over the place, with orange sand dunes in the background, probably the most iconic place of Namibia. We could stay hours taking pictures there, but the sun keeps rising, and the temperature as well ! Since I lose one shoe on the way down the dune, I had to hurry, every 5 minutes, the sand was getting hotter, to the point where it was nearly impossible to walk (and it’s only 8am !) Mike gave me his socks so I could have something insulate my foot from the ground. At last we made it back, with all our water bottles empty. I have to say we really didn’t plan this properly, and you always have to bring tons of water with you when crossing the desert !!!

Once back at the campground, Farah was looking for a ride to Windhoek, but she didn’t find anyone (really hard to hitch a ride in Namibia), and she came back with us for the final leg to Walvis Bay.

  // Nikon D7200 | -26.63438 : 15.09162 | alt. 1m We didn’t wake up early since the ghost town of Luderitz doesn’t open before 10:30 today. That gives us time for a good breakfast in Luderitz, figure out the plan for today, and do the traditional wifi checkup. A little word about the ghost town….

  // Nikon D7200 | -26.63438 : 15.09162 | alt. 1m Once in Keetmanshoop, there is not much to see, and one of the very few things to do is visiting the Quiver tree forest and giants playground. They both are located within the same park, and the biggest surprise was at the reception : a…

  // Nikon D7200 | -27.61945: 17.71424 | alt. 693m Mike was welcomed by a massive thunderstorm for his first day in Namibia 🙂 Something we hope won’t happen many times, the volume of water falling down is really impressive and it floods many roads in no time. As long as we don’t have the van, it’s…

  // Nikon D7200 | -22.55395 : 17.09322 | alt. 1650m Yesterday was pretty tough. I walked to the other side of the city (1 hour walk under the sun) to meet my agent. She’s gonna deal with all the paperwork on the Namibian side to clear my vehicle. On the way, I met a homeless…

  // Nikon D7200 | -22.98041 : 14.48698 | alt. 14m We start this flight with a mistake from Emirates, saying I should claim my bag in Joburg, and go through immigration. That’s a surprise, as long as you make internationnal connections, you should never go to customs. (but happened once in Germany ). So went…