IS THAT REALLY A STOP LIGHT?????

Well, it appears that I have arrived back in civilization at last...gone are the drop toilets and red mud campsights. Welcome to clean, warm showers and nice grass to pitch the tents on. Actually there is still quite a bit of dust around and the random camp site with loads of ants that must be avoided (they bite). We spent five blissful days lazing around the town of Swakopmund (Swakop to those in the know) eating the most lovely game you could imagine. Had Kudu, Zebra, Springbock and my personal favorite, Oryx in a wine peppercorn sauce. It wasn't cheap by Namibian standards but by US standards we were getting a bloody good deal at around $10 for an appetizer and a huge piece of meat for the main. Swakopmund was just like being in a German seaside village - loads of good brown bread, sausages and weissbeer, which Jules and I managed to find and then consume loads of. On Thanksgiving, the two of us innocently stumbled upon the Brauhouse and thought, "gee, let's have a drink while we catch up in our journals". Four hours, four big HUGE weissbeers and a rump steak (each) later, we decided to consider ordering some apple strudel for dessert - that was until we saw the price of the beers and realized that they were $26 Nambian$ each (our rump steaks were the special of the day at $28 each). All we could do is laugh, comment on how fantastic the beer was (much better than the local stuff) and put it back into USD to realize the entire thing cost about $20USD each - not bad for a fab meal, four hours and great beer. Good way to celebrate Thanksgiving I think.

So after Swakop, we wandered on up to Etosha National Park (a little backwards in terms of travel as we are now heading back down). It is known for its fantastic night viewing at the wateringholes. We had one good watering hole night with two lionesses wandering around and drinking from the pool while the jackals ran around behind them and made whooping cries to warn the other animals. Nothing else came round that night, which really isn't all that suprising. The other two nights were fairly quiet with loads of springbock, frogs and a few wildebeest. The game drives were, again, fantastic. The scenery in the park is amazing with white salt pans in some areas and grassy plains in others (it is the beginning of the rainy season so a bit more green around than usual too). It was so beautiful to look at the zebra with the deep blue sky and white ground behing them. Loads of giraffe as well (always my fave). We saw another kill, a zebra this time, with about 9 lions eating off of it. Incredible as it was right on the side of the road. After that we stopped at a large watering hole and watched just about every animal you could imagine play in the water and roam the grasslands - we had lions, elephants, kudu, springbock, black faced impala, oryx and giraffe all in one go!
One baby elephant was having the time of his life playing with his trunk. It was like he had just discovered this thing hanging off of his face and was waving it around in the water and splashing everyone and running about with it flopping all of the place. I tried to capture the scene but well, couldn't quite get the camera to really get what I wanted...oh well.

Now we are off to Sesriem to do a bit more camping and climb up a massive dune for sunrise. Can't believe I only have two weeks left on the truck and then Jules and I are down the garden route for bit. Should be fun to see what mischief we can get up to.