Swakopmund

Our first stop in Namibia was the "resort" town of Swakopmund, where the Atlantic Ocean meets Namib desert sand dunes.  Both days we spent there were incredible and action-packed, involving quad biking through the dunes, kayaking with cape fur seals, and sand boarding.  (Sand boarding is like snowboarding, except it's slower, you have to wax your board before each run, and -- most significantly -- there aren't any lifts.)  The driver who took us to/from the airport and our various activites seemed to have a real taste for the macabre, so we were also educated about various grisly deaths occurring in the area during the past few years.  Throughout our various drives, we heard of at least a dozen, including (but not limited to): the son of the wealthy Greek resort builder who drove so fast his liver burst and he crashed his car and died, though there was never a bruise found on him; a man who jumped off the end of the old jetty only to rise to the surface with a broken neck, to the shock and horror of tourists dining at the restaurant there; a child who got stuck in one of the slides at the water park and drowned; and the child of a local milk lady who died in a freak accident somehow involving a signpost (I missed the details).

In other trips I've taken to the desert, I've been surprised at how much vegetation can actually be found in the desert. Not so here. This desert includes areas satisfying my Platonic ideal of a desert: sand dunes as far as the eye can see and no vegetation or animal life in sight.  It surprised me -- although it probably shouldn't have -- that the desert was so windy and a little cold.  Somehow I'd always thought of the desert as being not only desolate but also still (and, of course, hot).  But these dunes are constantly moving and shifting, such that the footprints we left hiking to the top of the big dune to sandboard were largely smoothed out by the wind two hours later when we boarded back down to the car.  (Photo credit: Vijayp.)

Our kayaking trip was also fantastic.  Not only did we get to play with the seals, but we also saw a plethora of flamingos in the Walvis Bay lagoon and a small jackal by the side of the road.  The lagoon was fogged in during the morning, leading to several excellent views of flamingos in the mist (a phrase which somehow lacks the gravitas generally associated with misty mornings).  The kayaking itself didn't involve an extensive amount of exertion, which is probably a good thing given how much hiking up sand dunes we would do later the same day.

The town of Swakopmund itself is... well, I'm sure there's fun stuff going on in town somewhere, or at some time.  But it seemed pretty deserted during our stay.  A huge percentage of tourists who visit are from Germany (apparently, some of them call Namibia "little Germany"), and it seems to be the end of their tourist season, so that seems a likely explanation.  "Swakop" is the name of the river, and "mund" means mouth, as in mouth of the river.  But -- according to our driver -- "Swakop" means "diarrhea" in one of the local languages, and the river was so named because, well, it picks up a lot of mud.

I realized when I planned the trip that I was adopting a breadth first, rather than depth first, approach -- I had three months and I wanted to do as much as posssible.  Although I'm super psyched about the diversity of places I'm going to see, now that I'm here I really wish I had more time.  I've decided to treat it as a sampling -- a way of deciding which places I should come back to for a more extended stay.  Without a doubt, Namibia is going to be on that list.

More photos once they finish uploading.

PS: Hi parents, I'm safe at Desert Homestead in Sosussvlei.  My cold has returned in the form of a chest cough, but I generally feel fine.