On our first full day in Swakopmund, we started with a 3-mile run on their strand, exploring more of the city in the daylight. We found some more restaurants to look into and headed back to shower and enjoy breakfast. We ran into a couple from Colorado on our way back who was making a similar trip through Namibia just in the opposite direction. They started in Etosha National Park to do a safari and tribal walks and then ended in Sossusvlei/Deadvlei. We told them it was worth visiting, but only two nights were necessary.

Unfortunately, we misheard the receptionist when checking in and missed their buffet breakfast. We had met up with Tim in the breakfast area, and when we sat down, the ladies working gave us all a quizzical look. One of them finally asked if we were there for breakfast and told us that it had ended at 9 am. We looked up a cafe nearby and decided to head there before we went on to do our activities for the day. We got a delicious breakfast with eggs, fruit salad, crepe pancakes, and bacon – some taste of home that was great to have. Although we did learn that Namibia was in the middle of a pork shortage and so they were charging more for bacon (it’s always worth it for the bacon).

The night before, we decided that our first activities would be quad biking and camel riding on the dunes here. It was a short drive from the cafe to Desert Explorers Adventure Center to sign up for our quad biking and camel rides. The quad biking would start in an hour, while the camel ride was booked for later in the afternoon as a large group booked the camels for the morning. I decided we should only do a 60-minute quad bike, though Tim and Grant would have preferred the 90-minute session. Although I had never driven ATVs through the desert sand, I have driven my parent’s ATVs and know how quickly my thumb can cramp up with my small hands.

When it was finally our turn to ride, we met with our guide and got geared up with our helmets and bike. He gave us the safety briefing, and before we knew it, we were off! I was behind the guide, so I felt I had to keep up with him to avoid Grant and Tim having a boring slow ride. It turned out to be a pretty fun time, even though I was so thankful for that five-minute break at the top of the dune for pictures (and to give my hand a break from driving). They know how to do tourism at this location because, after our break, he took Grant’s phone and took a video of us driving. It ended up being about an 8-10 minute video and saved us $30-40 on purchasing one that a tour company would have taken anywhere else in the world. We were quite impressed with his ability to drive and somehow keep us mostly in frame with his other hand holding a phone.

We finished the last 30 minutes of our ride by making a couple of loops up and down the dunes and even riding off the top of one. The guide stopped to fix my helmet as it was too big and kept sliding back. But we were all a little sad when the ride was over (though my hand wasn’t as it was screaming from a thumb cramp by that point). We hopped off the bikes and grabbed a quick drink while waiting for our camel ride. Since we still had another two hours to wait for the ride, we decided to return the following day to do the activity instead.

We stopped by the local skydiving place near the Swakopmund airport, per my recommendation, to get a sense of pricing and what Grant needed to do in order to jump alone instead of tandem since he didn’t have all his gear/documentation with him. Grant had just assumed nobody would want to skydive and was shocked when I suggested it! We scheduled some jumps for the next day then left. We headed back into the city and stopped by the local brewery, Brewer and Butcher, to grab some drinks and a quick bite. We ordered some chicken wings and they also brought out warm water with lime sprinkled into it for dipping your fingers into after eating a wing… it worked amazingly well to clean your fingers, somehow none of us had ever seen this. The wings and fries ended up being really good.

After lunch, we initially had thought of driving up the coast to see the shipwrecks and seals but decided that it would be best to check in to the Airbnb and enjoy some rest since it was already late in the afternoon. Tim figured out the washer/dryer situation, while Grant wanted some time playing the piano and guitar in the loft. After a quick nap, we headed towards the water again to find someplace to eat dinner. With little to no service outside our Airbnb, it took a lot of work to look up any menus of the local restaurants (old school walk up and ask to see a menu style!). We stopped at the Lighthouse Restaurant and decided the food sounded decent enough to try. Again, the food in Namibia was disappointing, considering all the excellent food we had previously had in other African countries. Even our dessert was subpar and was served with very tiny forks! And we noticed how often the waiters and waitresses came up to ask, “How is everything?” though none of us were honest about how we felt about the food. One of Tim’s pet peeves, we learned, is staff asking you “how is everything” in the middle of a meal.

After dinner we walked back to the AirBnb so we could get some sleep for yet another adventure the next day!