Namibia by Air

Well Kristin insists that I must contribute writing to the blog. I feel I contribute greatly to the blog but she insists that writing must also be done. She even figured out how to make it happen. By asking me to write about something she did not participate in.

Kristin and I really enjoyed our visit to Namibia. Namibia is one of the least populated countries in the world and is mostly covered in desert and savannah and it’s beautiful! Thanks to the U.S. Army I was able to see a large percentage of it when I hired a small single engine plane in Swakopmund for a 3+ hour airborne tour. Originally I wanted to fly over the northern coastal regions because we would be driving south and would miss the region known as the Skeleton Coast. The guide convinced me that the southern tour is better and more importantly I would be the only person on a northern tour and would have to foot the bill for the whole flight. As my boss would say “Uncle Sugar is generous but not that generous.” Kristin decided to stay behind and spend the morning relaxing in our quite comfortable accommodations. Just after dawn I was picked up by the agency and met the 8 German tourists (everybody is German or speaks German in Swakopmund) who would be spliting the bill with me. I lucked out and got to sit in the co-pilot's seat which gave me a great view. Though the pilot was not amused when I joked that if I wanted a better look at something I would just grab the stick and turn. I also got to sit in front of the malfunctioning engine temperature guage which went into the red shortly after takeoff. There was a functioning digital one that the pilot monitored, but he neglected to mention either fact before takeoff...nice. We took of from a dirt runway and were on our way.

This is what it looks like near the coast just inland from Swakopmund, notice how the dunes cluster along the coast. The flat area this side of the dunes is chriss crossed with thousands of vehicle tracks mostly from thrill seekers and the German tourists that flock here.

Further south there we flew over a rocky river canyon which has seasonal floods. The river is there year around but most of it is below ground. It was kind of neat to see the green vegetation that followed the course of the underground river.

Near the river canyon (in south central Namibia) the vegitation is savanah. That is a herd of zebra on the left.

Not far to the West we entered the famous soususflay region with its giant red dunes.

We actually climbed one of these (Big mama) later in the trip (and could not get the sand out of our shoes for weeks) these are the largest sand dunes in the world. We'll detail the hiking portion in a future post.

This is a picture of an old mining camp out in the middle of the desert. Those German immigrants were ethier really tough or really stupid, probably both.

We then hit the ocean and turned back North, it was about this time that I started to notice foul vomit odors from behind me but it was not constant just brief whiffs. At least one of my four my fellow passengers apparently was not enjoying the trip as much as I. The above picture is of one of the coastal wrecks. It is so far inland because the sand ebbs and flows.

Here is an aerial view of the purple salt fields Kristin blogged about. We pretty much drove around this entire picure the day before.

Hey its a FAO ICT picture! This is a photo of Wavis Bay, the best open water port in Africa. As you can see (the original photo is much better) the ocean liners litterally sail up and park. no fuss, no muss, but there did appear to be a bit of a line. We tried to get a good look at it by vehicle the previous day but you cannot get close to it. We did find our way out to the tip of the penninsula though.

A cool picture showing our partner plane and some of the ships waiting to get into Wavis Bay.

Here we are back at Swakopmund our hotel is in the back midde of the town and the ocean front restaurant from a previous post is next to the pier that you can just barely see on the right.