Swakopmund - Namibia, Nov. 7/8

Swakopmund – Namibia , Nov. 7/8

We are in Swakopmund, on the Atlantic Coast, Namibia’s 3^rd largest town. It is situated at the end of the Trans-Kalahari-Highway, surrounded by the desert. In Swakopmund we have somewhat of a mini-vacation, as we are here for 2 ½ days. We need to clean up the RV, stock up on groceries, and we have already booked two excursions to completely fill one of our two days “off”! It is very cold here on the coast, with the wind off the Atlantic, we have to wear our fleece jackets. The ocean is wild and scary, this stretch of the coast is called the “Skelleton Coast” for a reason. Quite a change from inland and the desert earlier.

Swakopmund is the resort town for the rich people in Windhoek, we are told that in December, the town is overflowing with them. There are some really good restaurants here, and we go out two nights in a row. Even now, in early November, reservations are needed, or else you won’t get a table!  We are a bit tired of the bbq’d meats, so we eat a lot of fish.

The first of our excursions is a halfday boat tour out into Walvis Bay, to view the thousands and thousands of see lions, two types of dolphins, pelicans and even a little penguin. We are very lucky and have a pod of the larger dolphins, the bottlenose dolphins, swim along side our boat. They love to chase the boat, the captain said they could swim as fast as about 60km/per hour. We only go about 30km, they keep up no problem.

We also had a tame see lion jump up on board, we were allowed to pet him!

The second excursion was later on in the afternoon, called “Living Desert Tour”. This is when we drove into the desert to learn all about the “little 5” as opposed to the “big 5”. Our guide was American and totally amazing. He could read all the tracks, tiny little tracks, and find you the most amazing animals buried into the sand. We found 4 out of 5, as it was really one of the coldest days in months, and the heat loving sidewinding snake could not be found. I did not mind!

We are now getting ready for the next part of our trip, the Namib Desert. The RV rental place has sent us a mechanic all the way from Cape Town, to accompany us for the next week, as we are expecting to get many flats and other car related issues.

Warren hugging the sea lion. This one jumped up onto the boat, he is tame we are told!

Rosi too, made a mess of her jacket. It smelled a bit fishy afterward....

Between 60,000 - 100,000 sea lions live here along this little stretch of the coast. It smelled accordingly...

You see the bottle nose dolphins swimming behind the boat?

And again... (I love dolphins!)

Even this pelican came to check us out, he is very photogenic ...

This chameleon blended into the desert so well, without a guide we would not be able to find it...

A white lady spider ...

Some other creepy crawly thing....

And this beautiful creature ..... (you can tell I don't know much about desert animals, and I can't remember their names, sorry!)

Here we pose on top of a small dune, sand as far as the eye can see...

Sand, sand, sand.....