The trip
begins.... For those of you who only want to see animals, you'll have to
wait because we went first to the Namib Desert. We flew from Atlanta to
Johannesburg--much nicer than from New York or Miami. We went directly on
to Windhoek, Namibia, where we stayed at the Hilltop House. The German
influence in Namibia is still very strong even though they've been independent
for 80 years.
We had breakfast on the terrace by the pool overlooking the city.
The next day we flew to Sossusvlei Camp in the Pro-Namib, or pre desert area.
The landscape was other worldly with beautiful colors. We were
very lucky to see it with green from the heavy rains in February.
Ordinarily it's all brown. The pinks in the background are the beginning
of the huge dunes of the desert.
We got a lot of air
viewing because, although he didn't tell us till after we landed, our pilot was
having trouble with the landing gear. You can just make out the camp on
the front hillside. What a fabulous and different sort of terrain than we
had ever seen before.
Here's a closer shot
of a bungalow. They were stucco over block with thatched roofs and had full
baths overlooking the expanse of the grassland. They had AC, but we
didn't need it since it was fall. Meals were served in a central
lodge. The meals here, as everywhere on our trip, were huge and
delicious. (In spite of that, the manager put Tabasco on everything--even
his morning toast.)
Here is Ivan, our
guide, ranger, driver, who took us out very early to see the desert, late to see
the canyon, and really early for our hot air balloon ride. More on those
shortly.
He had a wonderful
sense of humor and often we didn't know whether to believe him or not. He
was very knowledgeable about all the flora and fauna of the region as were all
the guides we had on the whole trip.