Overlanding

Hey y'all, whats up? Been off the radar for a while now, since I started my overland tour. An overland tour is done in a big truck, with a bunch of other people, going around places and camping. The truck looks something like the one in the pic. There are 23 people in my tour, from all places and ages and basically every day we all have different duties to help with around camp.

Anyway, day 1 took us to the Cederberg area, a few hours north of Cape Town, this is part of the wine country, so we camped next to the vineyards, jumped into the pool and then had some wine tasting. The next day we pickep up camp and drove all the way to the South Africa-Namibia border, at the orange river. Here we could swim in the river and relax at the awesome bar they have in there. Some people would go canoing for a while, while most just relaxed and got to know each other. I have to say this group of people is amazing, so much fun, nice and easy to talk to, which is always great, specially when you are a solo traveler.

So after a night of beers and night swimming we crossed the border into Namibia. Namibia is one of the most sparselly populated countries in the world with around 2.5 people per square kilometer, Namibia actrually means Land of open spaces. And it shows. When driving through it, theres really nothing but a big barren land, pretty desertic, yet beautiful. Is a funny feeling when you drive across the country, and instead of seeing cows or sheep, you run across springboks, gemsboks, baboons and even giraffes and cheetas. Unbelievable, love this place.

So our fist stop in Namibia is the Fish River Canyon, this is the second largest Canyon in the world, so we had to check it out and do a little walk next to it to finally see the sunset from a vantage point by the canyon. Of course it called for individual and group photos and a few beers with such a nice landscape. The next day we drove quite a bit to get into Sesriem, in the Namib Desert. Here we had a nice pool and just chilled for the rest of the day. Is worth noting that up to here, the campsites have been amazing, hot showers, bars, pools, clean bathrooms, really amazing. We expect them to get worse starting now when we venture into the more remote areas of the country.

Well, Sesriem is in the Namib Desert and is the perfect place to explore it, with the highest dunes in the world and the Sossusvlei. We started the day early by going up Dune 45, which is 120 meters high to watch the sunrise, very exhausting to get up, but worth it, in the way back we took a 2 hour walk to go into the Vlei, this is an area where water once stood, so trees grew up but later died. THis once dried up 69,000 years ago, but the dead trees remain, is one of the weirdest things I,ve seen in my life, but one of the most amazing as you can see in the pics.

Hectic, isnt it?

Afterwards we drove to Solitaire, our camp for the night. Here we got engaged in a pretty international footy game with some locals, all was going awesome until tragedy struck, while chasing a ball I hit a glass bottle and completely destroyed my right foot, big toe finger nail, took some healing to it, pains a bit, but in the end is all right, just been limping a bit for a couple of days, which hasnt prevented me of having fun as you'll find out.

Son on Friday night we re-spotted civilization as we arrived into Swakopmund, nessted betwwen the Atlantic Ocean and the Namib desert, so you have sand dunes dying into the sea. Swakopmund is an adventure town, lots of outdoor stuff to do, specially the "Big 3": Skydiving, Quadbiking and Sandboarding. And so it happens that I, being the adrenaline junkie I am, decided to do all three.

Friday was Skydiving day, 3,300 meters jump (thats 10,000 feet) over the Namib desert from a teeny tiny plane. It has got to be the best thing I've ever done, cant describe the feeling of falling at 220km/hr, turning around, a must do for anyone. Also had the best adrenaline rush afterwards, literaly not ebing able to walk, but had to run and jump around everywhere. Saturday was Quadbikinbg for a couple of hours in the desert. Pretty fun stuff, going up and down dunes, doing rollercoasters and even a couple of jumps. Unfortunately one of our mates fell over and broke his collarbone. He'll be allright, a bit bummed though. And finally today I did sanboarding, basically snowboarding on sand. Tried a couplke of jumps, couldnt land them but pretty fun, specially when we did it lying down on a board and going downhill. I reached 67 km/hr and a mouthfull and trouserfull of sand.

An added thing to Namibia is the food. I've had a bunch of game, thats just delicious. I tried a Springbok to die for, some ostrich, kudu and am aiming for crocodile. Anyway, it might be a long time until you hear from me again, since the next 2 weeks will be spent in the absolute wilderness of Northern Namibia and Botswana, going to places like Etosha Park (the 3rd largest national park in the world), the Okavango Delta ( The largest inland delta of the world) and Chobe Park (The highest concentration of elephants in the world). Will try to keep an updete but will be tough, but will definitely love it.

And now with the random stat of the day I say goodbye to y'all. Skynny dip count for the trip: 5