day 6: coast to the naukluft mountains (namibia)

After the seal colony, Jim and I spent a pleasant afternoon drinking beer at the German-style beer house in Swakopmund. The coastal town sort of hams up its colonial roots, but it was fun to wander the little European-inspired town center. And what a respite from the heat! After nearly 100-degree days, it was barely 70 next to the water in Swakopmund.

The next day, we had a nice cafe breakfast and then set off back into the desert. Most of the day was spent in the car, but the views were beautiful. We were lucky to go into this part of Namibia during the rainy season: we watched storm clouds skirt across the horizon, dropping rain in huge grey columns onto the dusty earth. We saw a big lightning storm the next day, which made us both grateful to be car camping.

One of the beach towns as seen from the salt road along the coast. All of the buildings have containers to hold water. Water is definitely always a concern in Namibia.

After a pretty dull hour or so through flat, empty sand, we started to head south toward the Naukluft Mountains, and the landscape started to get a little more interesting. The clouds studding the sky made for beautiful shadows.

One of maybe ten cars we saw in our six hours of driving that day.

These are Quiver Trees. The early inhabitants of Namibia, the San "bushmen", used the hollow branches of these trees as quivers to hold their arrows.

A rest stop on a plateau overlooking the plain we had just driven across.

We headed down into a pass that led through a canyon and up the other side, exiting into another broad, hilly plain spotted with grasses and low plants.

We started to see rain clouds on the horizon here.

We noticed that the clouds started to look a bit pink around this point - and then we realized why: we were at the edge of some orange sand dunes.

We came upon a giant herd of swallows near the Naukluft Mountains, and stopped the car to figure out what they were eating.

A termite hatch! Thank goodness we had a science teacher along; I would have never known.

This is the view from our campsite that night. We stayed on a farm that had been turned into a lodge, with these remote campsites spread across their land. It was beautiful!

The Naukluft Mountains, where we were headed to hike for the next two days.