I’m I had thought I might ride my bike down to Swakopmund, but at the rate I am going (nowhere) I thought it best to take a shuttle so when my bike finally is ready, I can just head north. Swakopmund is east, at the ocean.
It took forever to get there. Initially I went to the Salty Jackal backpackers, but when I learned the bathroom was very inconvenient to the dorm location, I went and found something else. Then, that guy was such a jerk, the next day I moved to a nice hotel with a "partial sea view." See for yourself what to make of that view! I decided it became affordable because in the US, this view would be way out of my budget. Not here and it helped that the lady was super nice.
I spent one day walking around Swakopmund which has a very German feel to it. I even walked out to the sand dunes just to see them. The big thing I wanted to do was to kayak with the seals, but you have to go to Walvis Bay to do that. It's about 30km away. In the end, I decided I should just go spend a couple of days down there and I'm glad I did. Rumor has it there are flamingos in the lagoon also. I was not disappointed. The last time I went looking for flamingos in Mexico, I got stung by a sting ray. Thankfully, all I had to do was walk a couple of blocks and I could see them. No wading in the water required. I'm in flamingo heaven!
The owner of the B&B where I'm staying offers private tours in which I would see the seals on land, but so much more as well. I ended up going with his tour and it was a wise choice indeed! It was part E-ticket ride at Disneyland! Who knew we'd be driving up and down the dunes?! I may have screamed a little in jest, "Omg, we're going to die," as he sped up the first one. Only I would be concerned about "what if a car is coming up the other side."
I did get a little car sick from all the bumps along the way. We drove on the beach right along the ocean. The dunes extend right down to the sea. It was exceptionally windy which creates sharp edges at the top of the dunes. This makes driving up and over them dangerous as you are more likely to get stuck and/or end up rolling down the hill -- not on your tires! We did go up in the dunes to get a fantastic view overlooking Sandwich harbor. However, because of the winds, we had to go back the same way we came in as the danger of getting stuck in the dunes was real. We found out in the morning that another tour group had gotten stuck for hours!
Warning: excessive photos below. It's so hard to choose!
Kim JohnsonTo Donna carrha ha ha. The toes actually didn't look too bad because I had a pedicure in the brief time I was in the USA. Had to look good for my arrival in Africa. Ha ha Reply to this comment 2 years ago
