We left Cape Town heading for Namibia without much idea about what to find in Namibia. We took two stops in South Africa, Beaverlac National Reserve and Springbok, before entering into Namibia. Beaverlac was a beautiful camping place, only reachable via a steep and rough 4WD-track. Off course we arrived too late, hence the first real 4WD-track had to be negotiated in the dark, as well as putting up our tents. Springbok was a necessity given the distance; we stayed in a small but nice hotel, enabling us to recharge all our battery-powered things and to have an early start the next day.

Our first stop in Namibia was Fish River Canyon, only second in size to the Grand Canyon in the USA. On our way we crossed our first desert; the nothingness and outstretched, dry landscape really impressed us. Glad to have 30 liter of water on board! We stayed at a luxury (swimming pool and hot springs!!) camping place at one end of the canyon. Most people arrive here after a 5-day hike through the canyon, but we just enjoyed the hot springs, swimming pool, the good weather and an occasional gin-tonic.

On our way to the next stop, an extinguished volcano near Berseba, we stopped at Keetmanshoop just in time to do some shopping. Peter managed to talk himself into the local supermarket that had actually closed doors already, while Claudia experienced a less nice moment inside the car, with a beggar banging on the window ‘asking' for some money. Again we arrived too late at the camping site on the slopes of the volcano. Nobody there, the place was really deserted. We opened the gate ourselves, it was too late to turn around and look for another place to spend the night. We spent an arousing night, bothered by a stormy wind and fantastic thoughts playing through our minds, all four sleeping together in one tent. Glad that the night was over, we packed our stuff and drove on, heading for our next stop: Duwisib Castle.

Duwisib castle was nice. It was built by German Baron von Wolf in 1909 during the period that Namibia was a German colony. Really strange to see a German-style castle in the middle of the Namibian desert. The camping site turned out to be nothing short of an oasis. We really enjoyed our stay there. Clean washrooms and toilets and every morning the boilers were heated with wood so we could take a warm shower. The owner was a second-generation German-decent Namibian, who was really nice to us: he did some shopping for us (nearest town with shops 120 km away) and Lasse and Sil were allowed to feed the ostriches.

Our next stop after Duwisib was Sossusvlei. We found a nice camping in Sesriem, close to Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, the famous orange dessert dunes of Namibia. We did not have reservations, but we were lucky and secured a camping spot for one night (more than enough in this hectic and touristic place). The same day we climbed ‘Dune 45' (just one of a thousand dunes that happens to be located at km-sign 45) and watched the sun setting; a magnificent sight. The next morning we got up at 5 o'clock, brushed our teeth and had breakfast in the car. The drive from Sesriem to Sossusvlei is 65 km, which we drove in the dark to be able to see the sunset over Deadvlei. Again a magnificent sight, these orange dunes slowly coming to life in the setting morning sun.

Our next destination was Swakopmund, the German-style town at the seashore. We got as far as Walvisbaai, 30 km before Swakopmund and took a hotel for the night, tired of all the driving. The next day we drove to Swakopmund, found a nice lodge annex camping site, did grocery shopping for a week, as we intend to stay here for 4 -5 days. Enjoying civilization and wondering about the ‘absolute nothingness' called south Namibia we crossed in order to get here. Time to update our weblog and get two new tires for our Disco. As the rear tires would not survive our trip around southern Africa, we thought it better to change them now, so we can benefit from them fully. Also, we need some days without travelling to keep on schedule with teaching Lasse and Sil.

Most of south Namibia is dessert. Nearly all roads we drove on were un-tarred gravel roads. Sometimes very bumpy, even too bumpy for our Land Rover Disco. We had actually bought two maps, however, both not 100% correct (as we found out along our way). We missed our exit a couple of times, simply because they were not on the map, while other roads were shown on our map, but we could not find them in the real world. This can all become very confusing. The towns that we went through are merely some houses scattered around either a church or petrol station. There appears to be no social cohesion or a real town-centre, making it difficult to connect and to find your way. We were glad to arrive at a small town called Helmeringhausen, where we found our first signs of civilization after we entered into Namibia! Often, what we perceived as civilized is found in ‘mixed' towns, with white and black people living together. It's still a little bit difficult for us to connect, or feel at ease, in 100% black areas. We wonder if that is still to come.