Day 6 of the Hardcore Overlanding Trip

Today Anna and I are in Swakopmund, Namibia. Up until yesterday the majority of our trip has been driving, eating, sleeping, inhaling sand, setting up camp, sleeping, taking down camp, and putting up with our guides attempts to amuse himself by telling us falsehoods about Africa. Yesterday though we had an awesome day! We woke up at 4:30 to make it to Dune 45 before sunrise. Once we got there we weren't sure how much time we'd have, so Anna took all the stuff, I took the camera, and ran up the dune...it's pretty steep though so eventually (rather shortly) I had to slow to a quick walk. I made it up the 150m vertical height in 15 minutes and sat to enjoy the amazing sunrise. As the sun came up all the surrounding dunes appeared with awesome S shaped shadows and golden glittering red sand. After taking our time to enjoy the sight (and take copious amounts of photos) we took our shoes off for the hike down to get the full experience of the soft, fine, cool-but-warming desert sand. Once at the bottom our guides had made us a bacon and eggs breakfast to nourish us for the next adventure of the day. Anna and I climbed on top of the truck for the 15 km ride (on the worst tar road in the country) to Soususvlei where we took little safari-type vehicles deeper into the desert. We then walked the 1.1 km into deadvlei (dead-pan) which is a limestone bottomed riverbed that has been dried up for over 900 years. This was an amazing site. There are trees there that are over 1700 years old and have not decayed due to the intense heat of the desert. The contrast between the blue sky, red dunes, black trees, and white limestone is amazing! Although I am putting this all into words, and will eventually add pictures, neither will ever do this beautiful place justice. It is like nothing I have ever seen and there is still so much more to come!