civilization!!

puffy eyes part I!!
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Before all else, for better pictures of the scenery and car etc- go to Sylvia and Casper’s website: www.CruisingAfrica.nl

I haven’t seen it but I think it should be good.

I am so excited to be in an actual town!! We arrived here last night, after 7 hours in the car, and I had the best shower I have ever had in my life, and I think that is really true. So I have been on a road trip, camping along the way. I will try to fill you in on everything since I can afford this computer and I have time.

how beautiful is this??
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Since I last wrote we headed up to the main reason I am on this continent: to see the sand dunes of the Namib desert. We left that awful town and camped in another tiny town, where, when we were doing our shopping, we found that there is no where in the town to buy fresh vegetables. There were some tomatoes, onions and potatoes, but that was it. Eating with the Dutch is funny- Casper eats only red vegetables and he likes catsup on everything, including his spaghetti. Everything comes from a can and they like it that way. Daniel and I are food snobs, but since we are along for the ride we just go with the flow. Last night we cooked a fresh pasta sauce and it was amazing but the rest of the time it is all from the can, including hot dogs! We then drove to Sesreim, from where you access the dunes. When we arrived at 2 in the afternoon the wind was howling and didn’t stop. It was unbearable, almost. We were in the desert, so the sand in the air was awful, it wasn’t officially a sand storm but it was bad enough for me. And somehow, that day I managed to lose my sunglasses. Don’t ask me how- could be that all of my stuff is spread all over the place in the car but even when we cleaned everything out I didn’t find them. So I spent that day in the tiny campground bar, the only place besides the car where there was shelter. Casper, Sylvia, and Daniel stayed in the car but I already spend enough time there and needed some space. It was a long pretty boring day but I just read and caught up on journaling and tried not to be too lonely. We couldn’t cook that night cause the gas stove wouldn’t work in the wind so we all got in the car and ate cold canned vegetables and hot dogs with catsup. It was actually pretty fun.

puff part II (it was all of the sand, i swear!!)
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That night was rough. We went to bed early cause it gets dark here around 6 p.m. So when camping, there’s not much to do after dark and by 7 or 8 I am usually ready for bed, there’s just nothing else to do in the dark. I have been staying with Daniel in his tent- I only have my sleeping bag ( thank god for that!!), and the Dutch give me the pad that is on the bench in the back of the car to sleep on. I am not prepared to camp at all but this actually works for now. So the wind continued all night and inside the tent was so loud sleeping was near impossible, also cause I thought we might fly away. 2 times during the night the tent came untethered and fell in on me and Daniel fixed it. It was so sandy that we were covered with a layer of dust, it was all in my eyes and all over everything. I think I may have slept an hour or two, but I couldn’t wait until 5 when we were getting up to watch the sunrise over the dunes. And I couldn’t wait to get in the car, out of the wind. It was really pretty atrocious, but character building, I guess.

dunes
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In the morning we drove to the dunes and climbed up and watched the sunrise. Beautiful. Then we drove down to Soussvlei, where there are even more dunes. We walked around and took pictures and it was gorgeous. I have to say, though, after not sleeping and no breakfast I was feeling a bit out of sorts. The scenery was amazing, though, it really was and I am just so happy I got to go there- if it weren’t for the Dutch I would have had to take a formal tour & it would have cost way too much.