Let us continue

Seeing as we are on our way to our 6th port, and I have yet to finish writing about destination number 3, I guess I will have to summarize a little more. I also noticed a common theme throughout my blogs that I will classify as empty promises. Lots of “will update more tomorrow” or “will have free internet to upload all kinds of super stuff” and very very little follow through on said claims. For this I apologize, and ask that you do not abandon me and my blog effort just quite yet.

Days two and three in Namibia only increased in fun but decreased in health: I somehow completely lost my voice along the way and Dana was fighting a pretty bad cold which I also inevitably caught. But it’s a lot to be said that even this could not damper our spirits, and later on day two even when we were all so burnt our skin was hotter than the sun, we were STILL having an excellent time.
Note: spf55 doesn’t mean squat in the desert.
So day two was our Sea and Sand dunes trip, which started early in the harbor on a boat tour, which I had a feeling was going to be a good time as soon as our boat pushed off from the dock and a seal flung itself out of the ocean onto the boat to ride along. My feelings were further confirmed when our guide, Claus, stopped the boat before we really got going to get out some “Namibian coffee” to help us with our “sea legs”, and rapidly produced a bottle of sherry and 12 shot glasses. This was approximately 9:30am. And to those who were opposed to the shots, there was an unlimited supply of champagne, which goes down easy any time of the day, and coca colas in the classic glass bottles, as Claus was so proud to point out. And now I’ve wasted too much time detailing our drinks. Moving on. So we had a really neat tour of the harbor, lots of seals who frequent the boats, but only for food we were informed, they don’t care about us, and also we saw some dolphins and were bombarded by giant pelicans who also stopped in for some fish. So we spent the morning riding around in the harbor and were enjoying ourselves so much we begged Claus not to drop us off for the sand dunes portion of the day, but luckily he refused. So we all loaded up in Land Rover 4x4s for about an hour drive along the beach to Sandwich Harbor, which is where the dunes meet the ocean. Our guide Nico turned out to be just as good spirited as Claus, and although he did not seem thrilled about having the car of all girls at first, I think we broke him in pretty fast. (quick fast forward: when he dropped us off at the end of the day we invited him to come meet us out later and he asked where so our friend Nel replied “Namibia!” at which point he decided we were hopeless and abandoned the invitation.) Along the drive we stopped a few times to check out the scenery and at one point to look at the garnet in the sand which was really pretty, and then there was the ultimate stop when we came across the beached humpback whale. You could see it, and smell it, a hundred yards away it was truly impressive. Nico said they had tried to get it back in the water earlier in the week when it was still alive, but it would not go.
Note: whales are the only animals (aside from humans) to commit suicide
So although it was sad, we were lucky to be able to get so close to an animal like that- for those who could stand the smell. It had barnacles all over and its tongue was swollen almost bigger than its head because of the built up gasses after it died. Nico said in order to get rid of it they will have to blow it up. Gross. Once we reached Sandwich harbor the guides set up lunch for us on the beach and we had some time to hang out and swim. Then it was back in the 4X4s for offroading in the dunes, which was, according to our friend Molly, to much fun to handle. Then to top off our wonderful day we had a delicious dinner, appetizers then pizzas and the best lasagne ive ever tasted then ice cream sundaes and other lovely desert treats- the whole meal was 4 hours for six of us yet only cost us 15bucks a person. And as we were walking out, our waiter stopped me and gave me a rose because he “liked my eyes”. I felt bad because due to my lack of voice all I could do was grunt a little. Unfortunately the mean guard at the ship deck confiscated my rose because it could be carrying infectious diseases or something I don’t know. But it’s a nice memory.

Ok I’m clearly failing at summarizing so day 3: we went kayaking it the morning, saw lots of seals and dolphins up close and personal and decided we want kayaks. Did some souvenir shopping, Dana almost got pick pocketed but was a savvy traveler and caught the guy before he could get anything. Then back to the ship for a day of napping before South Africa!