Dunes, dunes and more dunes - Day 8 - 10

Day 8 (Acacia day 5) – Solataire

Today we got up early… really early to go to Dune 45 to watch the sunrise. We got up and out and raced other tour trucks and cars to the gates so that we were the first in line. We got out to Dune 45 and saw the peak we had to limb. It rises 300 meters and is very soft loose sand. So we set about climbing. It was tough. And just when we thought we were near the top, the ridge continued on into the mist… It took a long time and was definitely very tiring. We did get to the top but the mist / fog obscured the sunrise. But we managed to lug a bottle of sparkling white to the top!! Nothing like a celebratory sip of champers at 7 am. We did run into a lot of people complaining about the hike and what not. But our group was cool, guess some people aren’t sure what to expect when they are told they will climb a 300m dune for sunrise…

After that we went on a desert hike with a local and he explained the flora / fauna to us. We hiked around the Sossusvlei area. It was really cool and informative. Afterwards we went to our new campsite just an hour or so down the road at Solitaire.

We had plenty of time to relax and chill. We even played soccer against the locals for about an hour and a half. The final was 6 – 6. But I haven’t been that sore in a LONG time!

Day 9 (Acacia day 6) – Swakopmund
Today was a big drive (4hrs) up to the second biggest town in Namibia – Swakopmund. On the way to Swakop, we passed through the Moon landscape – it’s all rocky and barren and we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.

We got into Swakopmund and found our hostel. We had some time to explore and then sign up for any activities we wanted. This included quad bikes in the desert, hand-gliding, skydiving, sandboarding, fishing and loads more… Swakopmund was also the first time since we left Cape Town that we had access to internet – so sorry if people were wondering where I was.

Several of us signed up for quad bike rides through the desert for this afternoon as well as sandboarding tomorrow morning. The quad bikes were cool, I got a semi-auto as I thought it would be similar to the farm bikes but not as hard as with a manual shift. Riding on the sand was waaay harder though. I was constantly feeling like I was fishtailing or going to topple over, might have to do with me going too fast… naw.

That night was a big one. We had a nice meal in an actual restaurant and then over to a bar/club for a long while. But tried to be a little sensable as sandboarding was early in the morning. We were staying at a hostel so that made a few things easier too, i.e. no tents to setup or cooking to be done, plus for a about 7 dollars they did your laundry for you!

Day 10 (Acacia day 7) – Swakopmund – sandboarding
This morning a few of us went out to the dunes for the sandboarding. There are two kinds, standup and lay down. We all did the standup. After getting things sorted, bindings fitted, we set out to climb another dune! We got to get a few runs in and then they let us try the lay down boarding – just for the speed! They had a speed gun and I managed to hit 64 kph. The dune record is 82 and the high for the day was 71. The standup boarding was really cool, but absolutely wears you out, especially after climbing the other dunes, soccer and the hikes. The other good thing is that the sand is nice and soft and it doesn’t hurt when you fall, no matter how many times you fall!! They did let us go off the jump once… and I definitely stacked it! By stacked it I mean wrecked, wiped out, crashed, bit it or anything else that can be used to describe when you wipe out so dramatically that I did a bit of a cartwheel / headstand on my way down the dune.

Remember that group of American exchange students I was complaining about a bit earlier… little did I know that we ran into them at every campsite and attraction up until today. Their tour is over and they are heading home. They weren’t that bad… in small doses.