The road to Sossusvleii starts desolate with sand dunes everywhere you look, with absolutely no kind of life. Further down the road grasses appear and you start to encounter birds. Trees are then added to the grass, and ostriches (which have a brain smaller than their eyeball) appear, soon to be followed by Zebra, Oryx, Springbok, and Baboons.
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| Dunes everywhere you look |
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| Soon there are no dunes, but nothing grows, and there are no animals |
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| Soon grasses appear |
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| You start to see life-Ostriches (bird brains) |
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| Zebras run around |
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| Rest stop |
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| We did drive through a pretty canyon area |
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| Soon there are pretty colors of hillsides |
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| We passed the Tropic of Capricorn |
The drive took 4 1/2 hours to reach the Sossusvleii area. We decided to drive into the park in our Jeep. It was 60 Kilometers along beautiful red sand dunes to reach the end of the road, where we then four-wheeled in deep sand for 5 Kilometers. Scott was like a kid in a candy store with a smile on his face. We hiked up one of the dunes and jumped around.
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| Dunes start to appear in the distance |
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| Driving down the deep sandy road. Don't stop or you will get stuck. Scott thought this part was fun! |
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| Barb climbs a sand dune |
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| Beautiful colors and love the knife edges |
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| You could get very lost out here |
Sesriem Canyon is also in the area. It is a slot canyon that we hiked down. It isn't very long, similar to Antelope Canyon at Lake Powell, but not nearly as pretty of rock.
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| Scott |
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| Barb |
We drove in to our camp which is our home for the next 2 nights. It is called Little Kulala Desert Camp and they have adobe type huts.
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| Back deck of main lodge area |
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| View of our desert camp from the hot air balloon |
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| Adobe type huts |
We opted for a hot air balloon ride the following morning. We had to climb into the basket sideways on the ground, which eventually turned itself upright as air was blown into the balloon. We sailed over grassland along the dunes. There are circles on the ground where nothing will grow, and no one can figure out why. They call them fairy circles. A champagne breakfast was served at landing. The amazing part of the landing was that the pilot, with the help of guys hanging on the basket, landed directly on the trailer. How's that for precise?
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| Flying next to the dunes |
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| The shadow of our balloon |
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| Sun and Shade |
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| A beautiful ride |
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| Fairy Circles |
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| Ready to ride |
The afternoon was a quad ride through the riverbed and then up on the mountain. Call it Pride Rock. Beautiful warm smooth granite boulders that you want to feel with your hands and climb up and hold Simba above your head, and claim to the world that you are happy to be alive. We had a toast on top and played around on the rocks. The view over wheat colored grass with purple mountains in the distance on one side, and red sand dunes on the other side was a sight. We had a great time.
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| Barb with guide |
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| Nice Helmet |
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| Scott |
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| A Sundowner Toast |
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| Happy to be Alive! |
The drive to GocheGanas, which is our last stop in Namibia, is 5 hours away on dirt roads. It was a pretty drive, and reminded us again of Utah down by Huntington. After finding the turnoff to our lodge and spa, we passed a Rhino with a baby.
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| That is a Rhino with her baby. Don't get too close Scott! |
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| Room at Gocheganas |
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| GocheGanas dining area |
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| Pool and Spa area |
We don't like to rest long, so upon arrival, so we took a 45 minute mountain bike ride (on really heavy bikes) and saw some baboons. We had to hurry back for our 30 minute back and neck massage. We sat by the pool for another 1/2 hour and then rather than going out on another game drive we opted to get back on the bikes and do our own bicycle safari. We saw more baboons, zebra, oryx, heartebeast , warthog, and we were tracking giraffe.
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| Barb out getting a little one on one time with the animals |
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| We saw baboons, Kudu, Zebra, Oryx, etc. |
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| Watch out for animals! |
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| Giraffe footprint we were tracking |
We did have a map, but it was pretty worthless, and of course we took a wrong turn. As the sun was about to set, we thought it best to retrace our route back to camp. Luckily we had our headlamps, as who knows what you could encounter on your own self guided bike safari in the dark. We did make it back in one piece.
The Windhoek airport is 1 1/2 hours away and we have an 8:15 flight, so we will leave our lodge at 5:00am.
By the time we turn in our car, we will have driven 2800 Kilometers, mostly gravel and dirt roads. (1868 miles!!!)
It has been an adventure, and something that we would definitely do again. We are off to Botswana.
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