I'm back from Swakopkund and have about 8 kilograms of sand in my pants and shirt (sorry, I am forced to use the metric system here). Anyway, by my email, I can tell you I am not dead.
First off, I went to Swakopmund which is a beach community on the west and only coast of Namibia. We have to drive through the Namib desert to get there, but eventually after driving on dirt roads we made it!
Friday we went and saw some cave paintings and that was a ball of excitement. We did however get to the coast and went to Cape Cross which is known for the huge sea lion colonies. It smelled pretty bad! But it was so cool to see the atlantic ocean and all the sea lions.There were also Jackals running around and so that was quite amusing to see those tiny little dogs. They're like african coyotes.
We went down to check in to our A-frame bungalows. Those were awesome, I could live in an A-frame house. Preferably at a ski resort. Anyway, Brandon and I had an early wake up call for paragliding off sand dunes. Here's the thing, I thought it was tandem. Nope, T.I.A. (This is Africa) we basically got a flying lesson, he gave us our glider and we hiked to the top of the sand dune and ran off it.
Keep in mind, the sand dunes are the tallest in the world. We went off one that was 20 stories tall. My first landing was a disaster. Basically, I was giving myself a running head start and I didn't time it right and fell flat on my face and basically ate a lot of Namibian sand.
The next few runs went a lot smoother. We flew about 150 feet up, not too high. By my last run, I caught a thermal just right and it picked me up and I had to fly parallel to the dune and navigate my way down. Just because I could end up in the ocean or on the "highway". It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life. I want to keep doing paragliding.
Afterwards, we met up with some of the group (5 Namibian students, 3 Fins, 2 guides and the 7 of us) and we went to ride camels. They dressed us up in the Saharan hat garb things. Camels are incredibly irritable. It was still fun despite how bitter of an animal they can be.
To top off the day a couple of us went quading over the sand dunes. We saw a dead sand winder snake. That was surprising, they are only 12-18 inches long, tiny little snakes. They look so big on National Geographic. Anyway, we had the option of riding up a steep sand dune and stuff. Yeah, I did it twice! I was trying to push my luck that day hehe.
We saw the sunset off the ocean from the top of the sand dunes. Today (Sunday) we drove back and we went to the world's largest sand dune called Dune 7. I finally made it to the top, but that took a lot of effort. Such shifty sand. Tehri, Andrisia and me held hands and decided to run down the sand dune. Which was way up there. We made it about five meters and I lost it and took them with me. It was great to see a yankee, a fin and a namib rolling down a sand dune at full speed.
I have so much sand down my shirt. That's okay, I told myself "carpe diem" and jumped in to the atlantic afterwards. Sure, there was a rip tide, but hey, I live to tell the tale! Once it sucked me out there, I was like, ok keep close. Anyway, Chad had never been in the ocean and so Mike, Brandon, Kweyo and me joined him. Good times!
On a more tame note, we saw a ton of flamingoes and on the way back we went to see some Bushmen. They showed us how they do things i.e. make fires, hunt and live. That was pretty cool, but we were all tired by then. It was pretty awesome to see them use their click language. I should have brought a coke bottle and really messed with them **movie reference
All in all, it was seriously one of the best weekends ever. For the record, yes, I did see where Brad and Angelina had their baby. It's this little resort between Swakop and Walvis Bay. The whole area is very sparse and not much around. In fact, if you drove through the southwest and you thought there was nothing out there, this was worse. I was amazed at how desolate that whole desert is.
I better get to bed, I am incredibly tired. I have some evidence that I really was there. Since the internet is so annoyingly slow, pics will have to wait.
Hope this emLog was somewhat entertaining. If not, hopefully the thought of me being dragged face first through the sand would be amusing too.
Cheers. Em
No comments:
Post a Comment