ONE DAY IN NAMIBIA

WEATHER: Hot Hot Hot 36C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: New country to add to the ‘travelled’ list

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of anything – this has to be good?

BUYS OF THE DAY: My Namibia sim card for 1AUD

WORD OF THE DAY:

CAMP SITE RANKING: Awesome, great bar, green carpet, flushing toilets, cold shower but that’s okay oh and did I mention the great bar? 6 out of 5 stars

We have 470km to travel and a border to cross today which means another early start. Wake up 5.45am, breakfast at 6.30am and on the road at 7am.  I guess we have had early starts than that but once again you don’t come and safari in Africa for sleep in’s and leisurely days, no siree. 

It only took 45 minutes to get to the Botswana border and less than that to finish the formalities to get us through no-man’s land to the Namibia border.  This also didn’t take long and we had all been processed and on the road again within 40 minutes at 8.25am.  There doesn’t seem to be much traffic passing through these border controls and is totally different from the crossings in Uganda and Rwanda where there are literally hundreds of trucks, sellers, bikes, people and animals all milling around.  Not here, we were the only vehicle in and when we left there was still no-one.  I’m not complaining in makes nice a change from the 2.5 hours we waited at the Mozambique border.

It really is just a travel day today to haul arse across Namibia as our final destination is tomorrow to get us to the Okavango Delta for 2 nights in Botswana.  We could drive all the way through Botswana, without having to go into Namibia, but it adds on an additional 6 hours and 500km, so it is worth what seems like a lot of fluffing around and 2 border crossings, especially when they are as quite as they are, to get to where we need to.  We stopped at a shopping Centre for an hour after arriving into Namibia, for Simon to restock the larder and fridge.  There wasn’t too much to get done here, as we had stopped a few days ago for supplies, but it gave me a chance to buy my Namibia sim card for 1AUD, and this number I will be keeping for at least the next 14 days which will be awesome after all the number changes I have had the last few weeks.  I know people are texting me and I’m not getting them.

Lunch was at 12 noon, stopped by the side of the road under a massive shady tree.  It is so hot today and there is a wind, but it is also a hot wind, so it isn’t doing too much to cool us down.  We were saying this has to be one of the hottest days we have had on tour, now that’s warm, cause we though Stone Town was hot the day we were there.  It has been awhile since we have done the lunch by the roadside, but after fresh ham and salad rolls, we had all eaten, washed, packed and on the road again at 1pm.  It is strange there isn’t much traffic on the roads here either; we only saw 2 cars in the hour we had stopped for lunch.  It’s like we are in a bit of a time warp sometimes when there is only us!!

So back on the road again.  When it is a travel day it really is a travel day.  So 4 more hours found us at our beautiful camp site for the night called Rainbow Camp.  It was located right on the Okavango River, like literally the embankment was 3m away from where we set up our tents.  It was great to get in at 4pm; it gives you some free time before dinner. So after such a hot day, Lisa went for a swim in the new pool that they had just built, it looked good, but a little too green for my liking, so I set up with a beer in their bar that extended over the river and was in prime position to see another magnificent sunset over the water.  The have recently added Wi-Fi, so it was 4AUD for 30 minutes, which seems expensive, but I had 3 blogs to load, so it was worth for me to pay it.  Well because they are new at the Wi-Fi game, the 30 minutes turned into a few hours, with the laptop getting passed around after I had finished with it for people to touch base back home.  So the 4 bucks was actually quite a deal at the end of the day.  It was great to get onto FB and see our new friends had sent messages already, I love getting FB messages.  We still miss you guys, the trip has changed without you all here, but we haven’t forgotten you and you all get a mention everyday on the truck for one thing or another.

So the beers started to flow and come dinner time at 6.45pm, Lisa, Dave and I were on our way to achieving a pissy night.  Dinner was Simon’s usual awesomeness and I told him I was going to blog about  probably the most delicious thing he cooks and it is his crunchy potatoes, they are cooked whole and are exactly like baked ones back home, but better, as he doesn’t have an oven he deep fries them (which is why they taste so good) and they are just a delicious taste of awesome.  He topped that off with pork chops, BBQ to an inch of their life and it was a shame that I had been drinking, as they tasted so good I probably didn’t give the whole meal its due, but on a drinking night potatoes were probably a good option for us to line the stomach.  So after chores were completed , we hooked into some vodka’s and sat around and chatted for a few  hours, before deciding we should let our tenters get some sleep, so a handful of us choofed off to the bar for one last drink before heading to bed.  At this point we really didn’t need another, but hell we are on holidays after all.  We lost Dave before the last order was made and then Lisa, Ben, Simon and I stayed up, chatted about love and life and we were all tucked up in bed by 11.30pm.  What a great night and I think a few things were sorted out tonight and I know I went to bed with a smile on my face!