Namibia

When we were setting up this trip, mainly for Madagascar and the lemurs, Steve suggested we add a safari in Namibia “since we’re basically already there”. If you don’t have your African geography down, Namibia is actually over across the southern end of the continent on the west coast (while Madagascar is off the east coast). Our first evening we stayed at a lodge with typical housing style…

… that seemed to mirror the Sociable Weaver nests -

We had landed in Windhoek, the capital, and collected our rental truck for a 3 week driving safari. We headed south and then west, and we saw a whole lot of this…

… with rare hills and their passes thrown in -

As we neared the SE coast, we started seeing sand creeping up the rock escarpments -

We drove many, many miles on gravel roads…

… and were always quite happy to reach our lodgings each afternoon. One evening we opted for the “sundowner” activity, which at this location included a nice private set-up…

… and even had a drinking buddy - a Dassie Rat (related to a Rock Hyrax) -

(it looks like a gerbil to me)

The setting was very grand…

… and the sunset had a serene glow -

The Milky Way that night was spectacular -

(You might need to zoom in, depending upon your monitor settings.)

Our early morning wake-up call was aided by these Helmeted Guineafowl -

(as you may have guessed, this picture was taken the afternoon before)

We were heading out on an all day excursion to the sand dunes of Sossusvlai. I’ll share more in the next post -