Arrive!

cape town and namibia!!, 11.01.2014

First update from South Africa and Namibia

OK it has been about 2 weeks since we arrived in Johannesburg in South Africa. Flight ( with stop over in London) was great, plenty of leg space in our seats for my extremely tall boyfriend :-) and good movies and some cold champagne to start.

The welcoming at Joburg was probably the best one to be desired. A good (taxi) friend of Alannah named Christo was waiting at the airport for us, including the sign with my name on it :-)
After a short stop at the headquarters of the company we are renting the car (Bushlore) we arrived safely at Alannah place. For the people who don’t know her, she is a great friend of mine from my school time in Ireland. It was great catching up, meeting her 2 sons, husband and dogs :-) and after one hour it felt like we had never been apart… SOOO good meeting up with old friends.
After a fun night with great dinner, enough wine and even better company it was time for us the next day to leave to Cape Town.

(DVO and Alannah see you in 2 months again :-) or in Mallorca…)

OK cape town.. Well he! would not mind living there for a few years, what an amazing city!! Table mountain, Old biscuit Mill, Woodstock, amazing dinner at Beluga (Steph/Ir we are for sure returning here!)
lunch at paradiso, Boulders bay to meet the penguins and some great wine in Franschoek ;-)! This is the short update. We got the car on our last day in Cape town and slept in Fransschoek, after that the real

thing started.
First camping night was in Clanwilliam at Rodenberg Campsite. Quite luxurious with our own toilets and showers. It was soo green there, it seemed we were in the north of Germany.
After that we were in our way to crossing the border to Namibia (via Sprinbok) at Noordoever.

Our first stop in Namibia was Ai- ais, I have to say that was a pretty amazing place! (thanks Lindsay and Maike for the tip! ) Great camping, a hot spring swimming pool, visiting the fish river canyon and home made crepes of my boyfriend for breakfast!! After that we went further into the Namibian inlands via Canyon roadhouse and on to a place called Duniswib Castle. A funny german castle built in 1800 in the middle of nowhere….
The landscape changes everyday and we are both amazed by the size and variety of this country. Up until today we have made more than 3800KM!
At the castle we met some guys who are crossing Namibia by motorbike (2 out of 5 were Dutch) and on our way to Swakopmund we met two Dutch guys (from Friesland !!) who are cycling through namibia for 4 monhts! These Dutch are everywhere and do funny things… The guys on the bicycles we recognized because of the Friesland flag so we stopped and treated them to some cold drinks and sugar…
Toni and me have found out that there is a funny hierarchy in the overland traveling world…. The tourists in the big safari buses think that we are cool and brave with our own car and a tent on top, we found that the motor guys were amazing on these crazy roads, and then the motor guys obviously think the bikers are out of their minds….in turn they said they meet a crazy guy walking….There is always bigger, craziers, stranger etc… Yet we stick to our plan and are pretty proud of our surviving skills up until now.

Sossuvlei was amazing with the dunes, never seen anything like it and at the camping we were staying (Sesriem camping) we have a visitor at nights, in the shape of and Oryx below our tent… Whhaa!!! After some sometimes scary moments in my tent at night (yes I will be honest :-() , do not like thunderstorms while I am in my tent) I have to say that the idea of camping and traveling completely on my own in Africa does not appeal a lot… So guys who wants to join me for 2 weeks in December!!?? in Malawi and mozambique!? the guide of the motorbikes was really nice and said to have a friend down in Malawi so they are spreading the word too :-)

Five days ago we arrived in Swakopmund,… well it is a coastal city with in the summer quite a lot of German tourism. It was a nice change of scenery but I don’t think it does right to the amazing landscapes and places we have furthermore seen in Namibia.. Good to stock up our fridge and sleep in a nice bed (we took a pension) and have a great dinner (a present from Toni :-)) at a high end restaurant including Springbok stake with a great south africa wine… At least these Namibians know what they are good at and left the wine to the neighbours. At Swakopmund they did the first attempt to break into our car but luckily Toni saw them soon enough and the tourist office was close … They tried to use what is a called an „ inhibitor” to block the waves of the automatic keys and takeover…

After that things got better again, we got to see a huge Seal reserve in Cape Cross, the biggest one in south africa! The smell was pretty bad but these animals so cool! After that we the a drive through the national park of Spitzkoppe, also called the Matterhorn of Namibia with one of the most amazing campsites.

The last 4 days we have spent in Etosha National park... Wauw! We have seen giraffes, llions, elephants, zebra'a, rhino;s, wild pigs, loads of birds, springboks, etc.. walking next to your car, crossing the road or doing a nap under a tree. Amazing!!

After Etosha we have been travelling towards Grootfontein and Rundu. The scenery is changing yet again, after a lot of desert and having had the feeling we were in no-mans land, we had Etosha and now towards the caprivi strip there are more little local settlements, the ground and surroundings are green and fertile and it is becoming a lot more tropical and jungle like.

At the camping Roy's Place (close to grootfontein) we have meet two lovely couples ( both Dutch... So Toni's is getting lessons for free) Ryan and Vicky and Marlous and Chris. All of us have have rented a Toyota (with camping on top) and have more or less been doing the same route. We have had two great nights with BBQ and wine and beer and good company. Have been brainstorming about new business plans for when we are all back in Amsterdam and been comparing the gadgets of each others cars :-) obviously we all want the one from the neighbour. Ryan and Vicky are travelling Namibia and Botswana for 4 weeks and Marlous and Chris have been travelling around the world for 1 year and are coming close to the end in Tanzania at the end of December. So funny because they will probably be staying in Kenia for Xmas and will be staying at Lindsay Kennaways place in Diani.. Linzi.. soo funny the world is a tiny place!


We are having the time of our lives! Today we are close to Rundu (in Ngepi camp) (north of Namibia) and will be crossing into Botzwana tomorrow. Our days fly by and the rhythm is very different out here, We wake up around 5.45-06.00 (today we got up at 07.15 and half the camping was already empty :-)) and we go to bed around 20.30-21.00

Miss you guys and also the sometimes being in touch but being so far away and having little distraction also is very refreshing!!

Well everyone…. internet is not great here so uploading pictures will be a challenge lets see.!!! If not the pictures will follow soon...

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