Sand, Mmmmm Delicious Sand

Hello all!

Well I made it back safely to the states. No bombs actually exploded anywhere near
me and I was a country or two away from the war in the Congo. Hopefully things have
calmed down over there, but I have no way to know, the US media is now in 24
hour/day Monica coverage. Oh well, should be over in a year or two. We survived
OJ, we'll survive this.

Actually I arrived several weeks ago, I have just been neglecting my trip update
responsibilities, for some time. I'll send out reports as I get them finished. I'm on my
way back to school in Oregon on Tuesday. Look forward to hearing from you.

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The road got a little exciting for a bit, check out that curve!

My last update was from Fish River canyon in Namibia. After the canyon, we
drove north and east towards the coast. We drove on a nice paved road through
the vast barren landscape. The land on both sides of the road was diamond mining
land, trespassers shot on sight. We camped on a Shark island, a rock island on the
coast. I found nice rock to sit on, sipped a beer, and watched the sun set over the
ocean. Home was about a zillion miles that-a-way.

Going, going, gone.

After finishing a typical breakfast of cereal and toast, I was feeling quite energetic.
Too much sitting on a big yellow truck I guess. So since we were on a rock island, I
figured there must be a boulder problem to work on somewhere. Turned out to be a
nice over-hanging problem right in front of the truck. It took about half-an-hour and I
scratched my hands to hell, but I sorted out the sequence; step, step, reach, grab,
swing, heel hook, mantel, awwww made it! I was allowed to revel for about two
seconds, then a sea gull shat in my hair.

German church in the town.

We drove just outside of town to Kollmunshap, an abandoned diamond mining town.
The town sprung up during a big diamond rush. At its height, you could walk into the
pub and pay for your drink with raw diamonds. It was said you could go out at night
and collect diamonds by picking up anything that shimmered in the moonlight.

Peering through a hole in the wall.

The town as been reclaimed by nature. Sand dunes have replaced the streets, sand
invades through the broken windows, covering the floors with their wind swept ripples.
The place was excellent Windows on the World material, I wandered through building
after building, looking for the ultimate photo.

Part way through my exploration, I spied our truck driver Richard and courier Tina
sneaking about with super soakers. I headed off in the opposite direction, not really
fancy a wet confrontation. I ran into another of the passengers, Karen. "Hey, there is
a really neat photo over there. See that entryway, the photo is right there can't miss it!"
Yeah, either a neat photo or a super soaker ambush, mohahaha. Hey it isn't really my
fault Karen skinned her knee while trying to evade Richard and Tina!

We drove back inland, stopping at a campsite in Aus for the night. I wasn't on cook
duty that evening, so I had time to climb up a nearby rock hill for sunset. There was
some great rock scrambling to be had, but a fall would mean a trip to an African
hospital, don't fancy that, better stick to the easy terrain. I returned to camp, our
sausage stir-fry was still cooking, so Neil and I enjoyed a nice sherry from our extensive
South African wine cellar.

I woke in the middle night with a strange sense of something being near me. I sat upright
in my sleeping bag. There in the moonlight I saw at my feet a group of dark shapes
(without my contacts, I have about 20/20000 vision). Wild horses, my movement startled
them and they trotted off into the night. Hmmmm, I'm pretty low profile in my bivy sack,
maybe I should sleep right next to this tree.

A whole lot of barren land, vast.

We had a free morning before we had to hit the road. Neil, Sara and I headed out into
the dry landscape, following the white painted footprints that denoted the "trail". We
reached the top of a ridge, from here we could see for miles, a huge plain stretched out
between the mountain ranges. A thorough binocular check revealed no big game roaming
about unfortunately.

A castle in the middle of the desert, very strange.

We drove north in the afternoon, stopping for the night at a campsite at Duswig
castle. Some german has settled here and had shipped in materials to build a little
castle. Completely random, a castle in the middle of the desert.

In the morning it was off to the famous Namibian sand dunes. We drove our
truck from our campsite in Sesrium towards the dunes. The road was about
45 kilometers long, the last 5 km were 4x4 only sand track. Our truck had to
stop short and we had to hike in. It was blazing hot, the sun was baking down.
The scenery was incredible though, huge red sand dunes rising up in all directions.
This was classic Africa.

Cracked mud lake bed.  Neil spotted this shot, the heat was effecting my photo-savy.

At the end of the road was a big dried lake and a tall sand dune. The dune had
a long sharp knife edge leading up it. We climbed up, taking turns dropping back
to take photos of each other walking up the ridge. We reached the top, not much
time to admire the view, we had to get back to the truck so we could exit the
park before the gate closed at dark.

We could have walked back down the ridge, but we couldn't pass up the
opportunity to run down the steep portion of the sand dune. Wow, we flew down,
eating up the distance in gigantic leaps. It was a long, tedious hike back to the truck
on the sand road. We drove back towards camp, stopping at another famous sand
dune to take in the sunset. We climbed up part of the dune, the wind was whipping,
sand blasting our faces.

Neil and Sara heading up the big dune.

I was bushed by time we got back to camp. Unfortunately, I was on cook duty. If
I could have ordered in pizza, I would have. As it was, I had to prepare wiener
schnitzel for 13 people. I was pounding meat with my beer bottle until I thought my
arm would fall off. After the main course, it was time for fried apples and caramel.
I managed to make it through the ordeal, I only cut myself once, and resisted the
temptation to stab anyone else.

A bird, an onyx, and a really big pile of sand.

If you don't like sand and dust, you would not have enjoyed camping that night.
A wind storm blew up, filling the air with blowing sand. I hadn't put the poles in my
bivy sack, so the best I could do was draw the bag around my face. I would wake
up periodically and sort of spit out the sand I had eaten. We even had a few very loud
claps of thunder during the night, a thunderstorm in the desert, neat!

A rocky hill at dusk.

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