Swakopomund

Our second weekend excursion in Namibia was to the coastal community of Swakopomund. The town is located in the middle of the Namib Desert's sand dunes on the Atlantic Ocean. The weekend was probably my favorite part of the trip!

We started off by visiting Cape Cross, the spot where Portuguese explorer Diego Cao first landed in present-day Namibia in the 1400's. The area has somehow attracted the location for a colony of seals, which you can smell for kilos away as you are driving up to the place. Nevertheless, it was very cool to be at the spot where Diego Cao landed, and to watch the seals, which were cute, but some were gross and dead.

We finished off the first night by climbing what we were told was the highest sand dune in the world, even though we later found out it's actually like the second or something. Ah, I still say its the 1st!! The sand dunes are beautiful, and the drive was fun. I had to laugh when Bob, our driver, randomly yelled out "Look at the Sand Dunes" after we had been driving past them for about 20 minutes. Yup, thanks Bob, I see them. We went out to eat the first night at a restaurant called The Lighthouse, which was right on the coast (who knew?). The meal was good, and there was also a fun park we played in after dinner.

On Saturday, I spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the town of Swakopmund. Being a typical tourist, I went into many of the tourist shops, some African art shops, and taking a wonderful walk on the beach of the African coastline. For the latter part of the day, I went quad biking (4-wheeling) on the sand dunes!! It was super fun, and admittedly a bit scary. I got put in the slow group, haha. Unfortunately we didn't get back in time for me to take a swim in the ocean, but quad biking was worth it. We finished off the evening by eating at Cape de Cairo, and I had ostrich. Yum.

Sunday morning I woke up really early and couldn't sleep, so I went out to the beach at about 6am and jogged around with my ipod taking in the serenity of the African coast. I then sat down and just looked out at the water for over an hour, and just thought, about all kinds of things, such as where my life was leading me, trying to realize that I WAS IN AFRICA! On the way back from the beach, I ran into Chris and Troy and joined them for a church service in town. Part of it was in Afrikaans, so it was more of a cultural experience than a spiritual one, but I was glad to have gone! When we returned back to our hotel, it was time to pack up the vans and head out for our 3 hr. drive back to Windhoek. What an amazing weekend!