No more dust, Please.

It’s June 24th and Will and I are still on the road, currently in Luderitz enjoying lot's of seafood and a lovely little self-catering apartment surrounded by our unbelievably dusty luggage and belongings. I think we may be getting a bit tired of being on the road as we are completely taken with this little place and how amazing it is (running water, refrigerator, stove, toilet just right there, nice beds and a table!). One thing for sure is that after living in a car, we're pretty easy to please.

The sights and experiences have been amazing but Namibia is mostly gravel roads and we often end up completely covered in a fine dust, down to our powdered wig looking hair. When we open the back of the car for camping a cloud of dust rises up, when we open the door the same, etc. Once you take a shower, you feel clean until you have to touch anything in the car. We are looking forward to hitting paved roads again, if nothing else so I don’t end up with permanent dread locks.

Namibia has been amazing. After Etosha we headed back to Caprivi to go to the border post in Botswana for new tourist visas and check out if the Okavango Delta flooding had subsided. Last time we passed through there many lodges were closed or only doing boat transfers due to the high Okanvango river. We also did a bit of tiger fishing and caught three small ones. The way the tiger fish fight, I’d hate to catch a big one! The lodges were opening again in Botswana and we got to take a mokoro canoe trip to some islands in the Delta. It’s a real water world and it was interesting to see the same animals we’ve been seeing wandering around in the desert completely surrounded by water.

After Caprivi, we headed to Sossusvlei and the NamibRand nature preserve. The scenery is so dramatic and beautiful that any you can just randomly point your camera and push a button can take amazing pictures. We did the obligatory climb the massive 300-meter dune for the sunrise and I think I swallowed lots of sand by people passing me by as I sat to catch my breath. Will made it all the way to the tippy top eventually but it was a hell of a climb. Did I say it was all in sand? Dead Vlei was a special treat and is as beautiful and otherworldly as the famous photographs of the area. I guess that’s not surprising but often a place isn’t as nice as you see in photographs – Namibia is actually just like the photographs.

We've been watching television here in Luderitz and getting the dirt off of our cuts and bruises, trying to look somewhat respectable again. We've been watching a bit of the world cup in preparation for SA and I'm amazed that the US is doing so well. The news states that most foreign ticket holders are Americans, which is surprising. The one frustrating thing is that the news tends to focus on England so we have to read the scrolling print news to see how USA is doing.

I’m also happy to report that Will has been eating his fill of oysters with no allergic reactions. He apparently developed an allergy to this favorite food when he was younger and decided to try it again while here in Namibia but only when we were in towns staying inside with hospital facilities nearby. Yesterday he did start feeling a bit itchy after about 13 oysters so we’ll take a break until Cape Town but they are really delicious here, especially in Luderitz where they have an oyster farming operation.

Next on our trip itinerary is Fish River Canyon then we finally head out of Namibia after more than a month of bumming around here. We're planning on crossing the border into SA through the Richtersveld transfrontier park then head to a little winery recommended by Scott - an American living in Namibia. There we hope to sort out lodging options in Cape Town, which may be scarce due to the world cup madness.

I have to say that we're a bit nervous about SA, mainly because we're worried that it's going to be crowded and expensive just when the weather is the worst possible for camping. We've bought thermal underwear in preparation but it's still really hard to get out of the tent when it's bitterly cold. We're looking forward to Mozambique and I'm really hoping it's going to be warm - even Africa hot would be welcome with a nice ocean to swim in nearby.

It’s been great to run into David Megill here in Namibia and keep in touch with the Sudan crew – two of whom are back in Sudan now! Although we’re very sporadic with email we do love getting news from friends so please keep writing.

Will added more photos to the flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos_by_will/sets/72157624346262464/