Day 2 started with a journey to another mall (this would become too familiar during the trip). We grabbed an Uber and headed to the Mall of the Emirates, where we would have the opportunity to ski/snowboard. We knew we had to do it when we learned about Ski Dubai from the internet and the traveling couple we follow on YouTube (Kara and Nate). Where else can you say you skied in a mall in the desert??

We were surprised by how decent the size of the slope and the ski lift were. Thankfully, many guests were riding the ski lift for enjoyment rather than getting off to use the slopes. I’m still not an expert in snowboarding, so the more space between people, the more comfortable I felt getting off the lift. And I managed to only fall once off the lift, on the first run! I’m still learning how to connect the heel and toe side, but by the end of the 2 hours, I felt the most comfortable on the board I’ve ever felt after a day of snowboarding. Grant was excited as he could ski rather than snowboard this time. He’s been snowboarding to help teach me, so between Covid and teaching, it had been over three years since he’d been on ski’s. We got about eight runs in by the time our 2 hours were up, and we were ready for food. It was amazing to have the slopes almost completely to ourselves.

Again, we ended up with another food court meal and decided to get a little taste of home with some Buffalo Wild Wings. We’d done almost no American restaurants yet through South America and Africa so we didn’t feel too guilty. The queso wasn’t the same as back home, but the wings were still great and had the same sauces we love. Our guilty pleasure is the Asian Zing sauce! Then it was again off to the Dubai Mall to get in line for our Burj Khalifa tickets.

We had read online that the best time to go up the Burj Khalifa is an hour before sunset, so we booked it for 5 pm. We paid a little extra to get lounge access and go up to the 154th floor. Thankfully with these tickets, we could bypass the massive line at the entrance and head straight in. They have quite the process to get in and go to the top. The opening starts in the Dubai mall, and you walk through a tunnel area lined with information about the building before heading to the elevators. Again with these lounge tickets and VIP stickers, we bypassed another long line for the elevators to take you to the 125th floor. The elevator goes so fast and high that your ears end up popping. We then got separated into two groups: VIP lounge and Sky VIP.

The lounge access allowed us to grab some champagne and snacks while exploring three floors. Each floor had different openings to get a view of the city from above, and the 152 floor had an observation deck you could go out to get better photos without window glare. It was a crazy feeling to lean over and look at the ground from that height! We hit golden hour on the observation deck and watched the sunset. There is so much haze in the sky that the sun seems to set twice: once before the horizon and another at the horizon. We appeared to outlast everyone as we continued to observe the city lights come on and a couple of fountain shows while new people cycled in and out.

Grant was excited to show me (and they had it playing in the waiting line to get to the top) a video that gives you a real sense of the height via BASE jumper point of view. The building is so high they actually have significant freefall time before pulling their parachutes:

After getting plenty of photos and videos, we decided to head back down, which was a process. We had to take an elevator back down to the 125th floor and then take the stairs down to the 124th floor. There was another observation deck to go out on, so we decided to look at it. This one had plexiglass from the bottom to the top of the railing, unlike the one up higher that had an opening. It was more crowded on this level than in the lounge area, and we were thankful we paid the extra fee to get a better view with less of a crowd. And the VIP sticker came in handy again, as the line for the elevator going down was massive. We shaved a good 30-45 minutes from standing in that line.

Walking out of the mall, we were able to catch another fountain show. They start the shows around 6 pm and have a show every 30ish minutes until 11 pm. Though it seems like during the 7 o’clock hour, they do a couple of short shows with one long one around 7:15ish. The long ones usually have the graphics on the Burj Khalifa and the fountains moving to music.

Then it was off to bed to rest before a day at the water park.

We packed our stuff on our last morning in Africa and headed to the truck to clean it out before grabbing breakfast from the lodge. Throughout our time in Africa, we realized that they really enjoy cornflakes for breakfast. It’s an option everywhere we’ve been, and usually they leave out yogurt to mix it in, rather than milk. We then headed into the city to gas the truck and drop it off at Africa on Wheels before our airport shuttle. The guy checking in our car was thankful for the extra food we gave away and a large bottle of shaving cream we also had leftover.

Getting to the Windhoek airport, we checked in for our business class seats (ask Grant about some savvy tricks you can play with mileage upgrades – we only paid a few hundred dollars total for seats that would normally be a few thousand each)! We had heard Qatar Air business class was one of the best ways to fly so we were excited for the experience. At check-in the lady noted they had overbooked business class and asked “would you like to help the problem by downgrading one of you to economy and getting the difference in price back?” Grant just said “No I would not.” She was shocked when we adamantly refused and then she suggested we stay in Namibia for three more days so we could both fly business class the following Tuesday. It finally took Grant saying “so are we the last to check-in and you literally have no seats left?” before she backed down, as we were pretty early for the flight. Grant had booked these seats over 6 months prior so felt he was likely one of the first to book this flight. She finally gave up and continued on with the check-in process. She then asked us to verify we were headed to Frankfurt, and we had to remind her we were headed to Dubai. Thankfully our boarding passes and luggage tags had the right destination, so we proceeded through customs/security thinking chances were good everything and everyone were headed to the right place! As we had a couple of hours to kill, we grabbed a quick snack at one of the restaurants before boarding our flight.

Our business class seats were excellent for our 8-hour flight to Doha as we enjoyed a lovely 3-course meal and some snacks. It was by far the best airplane food either of us had ever had, and the flight attendants were amazing hosts and hostesses. Along with the meals, it was nice to lie down and sleep as we would get into Dubai early in the morning. Though the check-in process had its drama, the hype about flying Qatar business class was definitely true! Flying into the Qatar airport, we saw one of the stadiums used during the FIFA World Cup this past November. My nephew, Connor, was jealous we saw it (even if it was just from the air). As we landed in Doha, we met up with Tim (who was on same flight but different seats this leg) and headed to our next gate. Tim’s flight home to Seattle wasn’t until 8 am the following day, so he headed to the information desk to ask about his hotel while we exchanged some cash for UAE Durhams. However, Tim was told his layover was too short to allow for hotel accommodations, so we then tried to get him into the lounge to try and have a nice place to relax. Again that failed as the line was too long, and it seemed like you needed to prebook access as it was pretty busy. As the stressful traveler I am (still working on it…), I wanted to get to our gate, so we headed down the terminal and said our goodbyes to Tim as we parted ways.

Boarding our flight to Dubai was quite the process as we checked in at the gate and then took a 10-15 minute bus ride to a separate part of the airport. The plane wasn’t ready for us to board, so we waited another 5 minutes before they allowed passengers to board. The flight was quick, though they surprisingly offered a quick inflight snack and beverage before we descended into Dubai. Landing in Dubai, we were ushered through the terminal onto a train that took us to the customs area. The airport was super busy, even at 4 am! Grant was quickly approved through customs; however, when it was my turn to go, somehow, my contacts caused a problem when they scanned my eyes. Not sure if they thought my contacts had something in it, but they sent me off to the immigration office to get checked. They rescanned my eyes without issue and stamped my passport, so we were free to go! 

We quickly grabbed our bags and a taxi and headed to our Airbnb. Our taxi driver told us that there are over 200 different nationalities living in Dubai, and everyone lives peacefully together. He said that cameras are everywhere and that if anyone breaks the rules, they will get caught. As a result, he noted the city was incredibly safe to walk around at all hours, even if you are a female by yourself. Once in the Airbnb (around 5:15 am), Grant and I crashed for the next few hours. We finally awoke around 1:30 pm and needed to get up, so we didn’t flip our internal clocks again. Our Airbnb was about a 15 minute walk over to Dubai Mall and once we hit Burj Park, we got to watch a little bit of a Teqball tournament. Teqball is kind of like table tennis except with a soccer ball. Some of the teams were pretty talented. Made me miss my soccer playing days for a minute!

The architecture in this city is astounding. Every building is just massive! When you compare to any major city in the US, we’re likely to only have just a few of these tall skyscrapers amongst a sea of smaller buildings. Here in Dubai, almost every building in the city is a skyscraper. But nothing compares to the Burj Khalifa! Once we caught a glimpse of the building, we were a little nervous about being so high up as we had tickets to go to the 154th floor the next day.

We headed to the Dubai Mall to check it out and see where things were. However, once there, we realized our desired Ski Dubai activity for another day was in a different mall. They like their malls here in Dubai – sounds like the summer gets incredibly hot so many things need to stay indoors and are connected to malls! And we were shocked at how many American restaurants and fast food brands there were here. Throughout our week in Dubai, we saw the following: 

• Cold Stone Creamery, Tim Horton’s Coffee, Cinnabon, KFC, Pizza Hut, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, Texas de Brazil, Hardee’s, Texas Roadhouse, California Pizza Kitchen, Baskin Robbins, Wendy’s, Burger King, Rainforest Cafe, Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt, McDonald’s, Caribou Coffee, Peet’s coffee, Eately, Charley’s Philly steaks, Five Guys, Krisp Kreme, Dunkin’ Donuts, Yogurtland, Subway, and Tony Roma’s

There were also plenty of high-end stores within the mall. It’s no wonder they call it one of the most expensive shopping malls in the world! We also realized here in Dubai, they like to have “The Most ___” regarding certain things. They try to do it bigger and better here! We grabbed a quick meal in the food court, headed outside, and were confronted with a large crowd to push through. We finally realized when we heard music that a fountain show was going on with images and lights flashing on the Burj Khalifa. These shows became one of my favorite parts of the evenings here! It was impressive to watch, and every show was different! 

We stopped by the market next door to our Airbnb to grab some food for the apartment and figure out our plans for the upcoming few days. 

A portion north of Swakopmund is called The Skeleton Coast, stretching for several hundred kilometers up to the Angolan border. It is noted as one of the most hostile stretches in Namibia, and the waters are known for their dense fogs, treacherous sand banks, and strong currents that have caused the sinking of over a thousand ships. The only shipwreck we saw was just about 50 km north of Swakopmund. When we pulled off the highway to look at it, we were immediately bombarded by locals trying to sell us shells and supposed items from the wreck. The wreck, called Zeila, was a fishing trawler that got stranded in August 2008 after coming loose from its towing line while on its way to India. We stopped by to grab a couple of photographs and returned to the car to continue our journey up the coastline.

The highway we took, B2, used to be a salt road, and we saw several salt mines as we continued north. They had several small tables of salt crystals that people could take (with a small donation). I didn’t realize how pink some of the crystals would be, but seeing them was pretty cool. We stopped by one section to donate the Namibian coins we had acquired throughout the week (we decided a donation was fine without lugging a hunk of salt around the world with us).

When we finally made it to Cape Cross, we stopped by the visitors center to pay our entrance fees and get a map of the seal reserve. We weren’t sure what we expected to see while driving along the road to the seal reserve. However, we were hit with the smell first of a thousand plus seals and could see hundreds of seals by the pedestrian walkway. There were even a few by the entrance gates to the walkway, so I was nervous about going close to the gate. There are plenty of signs and comments to avoid getting too close to them as they could attack and bite. We’ve done pretty well to prevent any injury, and I wanted to keep it that way. Grant was able to hop onto the walkway from the side and shoo the seals away from the gate so I could get in.

Tim and I joined him on the walkway and were shocked by some of the sounds the seals were making. It sounded like a mix of seals, goats, velociraptors, and dogs, all in one spot by the ocean. There were so many seals everywhere, from the parking lot to the sea, and even some swimming in the waters. We tried to walk further along the pathway but were unfortunately stopped when we saw three seals lying on the wood path. Grant tried to see if we could walk around, but the one closest to us hissed and almost started to charge. So we just enjoyed snapping photos and videos from our current location.

We spent about an hour observing them and agreed it was the coolest spot any of us had seen seals before. There were just so many all in one place and very active in both the shore and the water. After leaving the seals we headed to the nearby lodge to grab a quick snack before our journey back to Swakopmund. We returned to town around 6:30 pm and threw our “seal-smelling coats” into the wash before heading to Brewer and Butcher for dinner. Since we had enjoyed their wings there, we hoped we would have a better dining experience than the previous night at a different restaurant. Tim and Grant enjoyed their food and beer boots, while my veggie burger was meh. However, the best part of the night was the serenading by the local Swakopmund acapella group. We ended up supporting them by purchasing their CD (but unfortunately, our truck didn’t support CDs, and we couldn’t enjoy it on our journey back to Windhoek – hopefully when we get back to the US we can play it).

We packed our things on our last morning in Swakopmund and ensured nothing left to do for the Airbnb besides leaving the keys. We grabbed breakfast from the Village Cafe we had previously visited and learned that the cafe was a historical building that had been there for several decades. The owner told us that they couldn’t do anything to the outside of the building, but they could decorate how they wanted within the inside. We noticed in Swakopmund that they were all about appearance, keeping the grass watered and groomed and ensuring no trash along the streets.

After breakfast, it was off to finish the last of the music video that Tim and Grant had been making all week. They created a parody of Miley Cyrus’s new song, Flowers. Let me tell you, it was quite an adventure seeing them create this. Once they filmed all of their clips, it was off to Windhoek for our last night in Africa before we headed to the Middle East.

The road to Windhoek was busier this time as we could use the main highways back into the city instead of the gravel side roads. Grant had booked a lodge outside of the city closer to the airport because he thought we would have been able to drop off the truck on Friday and have the lodge take us to the airport. However, we didn’t clarify with Africa and Wheels before returning to Windhoek, and they previously told us to drop it off Saturday morning while they shuttle us to the airport.

The lodge, River Crossing Lodge, ended up being located on top of a hill with a beautiful city view. The book in the room said guests could sometimes see horses, oryxes, giraffes, and the occasional leopard down in the valley or along the hillside. We grabbed some drinks by the pool while we waited for dinner. Dinner was some of the best food we had in Namibia. It was another three-course meal with several options: grilled aubergine and asparagus to kudu steak and a Nutella/banana waffle or pudding for dessert. The sunset was beautiful to watch as the spectrum of colors changed as the night went on. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the cabin and prep for the travel day ahead.

Our last day in Swakopmund started with a coffee at the local coffee roastery, Two Beards Coffeehouse. They had some exciting flavors of coffee to try, including honey latte (can’t find menu to know exact flavor)… After breakfast and coffee, we headed next door to an Indian furniture shop that had some pretty neat stuff. Some of their main pieces seemed to be old-fashioned doors with intricate detailing. We asked about them; some doors were painted to make them feel old, while some were actually historical pieces.

Leaving the cafe, we headed back to Desert Explorers to try and get a camel ride in for Tim. His one request in Namibia was to ride a camel in the desert. I wasn’t thrilled about riding one again, but thankfully it was a better experience than the first one. Tim wanted to get into the experience and rented a shemagh to wear on his head during the ride. We waited a few minutes for our guide to return from his recent outing, and then it was our turn to load up. This time, the camels were wearing more of a saddle than what we experienced in the Lewa Conservancy in Kenya, making sitting atop the camel much easier. Even when the camel stood up, we felt less rocking movement and didn’t feel like we would come flying off their backs. Our camels’ names were Alaska, Moses, and Abraham.

The camel ride was a 30-minute ride, but honestly, that is plenty of time on a camel. After the first 15 minutes, we quickly stopped to pose for some pictures. Again this tour company knows how to save tourists money. The guide took Grant’s phone to photograph the three of us as a group and individually. He also told us that sometimes when he unties them from each other, one tends to run off. Thankfully, our camels stayed still (although that would have been entertaining). On our way back to the center, Tim’s camel took the lead and walked without guidance. Seeing how calm these animals were and how well they knew the path was impressive. When Abraham started veering off the trail, the guide quickly ran up to pull him in the right direction and finished the ride. The guide could even yell at the camel from behind and many of the times would be able to obey a command without needing to have the guide run up.

Once we completed the ride, we hopped off and headed back to town for lunch. Grant had been dying for some German food (Namibia has a lot of German influence), and we had previously asked the owner of Village Cafe for the best German food in the area. We found one nearby, and Grant was able to get his bratwurst and sauerkraut fix in. This mini lunch ended up being tasty! This was also when I found out in my email that my PA license in California was complete, so now I was an officially licensed PA!

As we had previously booked a slot for tandem skydiving for that day, we tried to contact the place to let them know that we would be canceling (Tim and I slept on it and decided we weren’t as excited now that it was getting closer to being real). It was hard to know the correct contact number, so we tried multiple different ones through WhatsApp and hoped the message would get through to them. One of the skydivers returned our message and said it was not the best weather for a good skydiving jump, so we weren’t missing out on much anyways.

We grabbed some things from the Airbnb and threw some laundry in the wash before heading out for our drive up the coastline to see some shipwrecks and the seal colony.

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!

On our last morning in the desert, we woke up around 5 am as we had to pack up the truck again and head into the park to climb Dune 45 for sunrise. Our campsite was special in that it was the only campsite technically within the National Park limits so we got to enter the park 1-hour before anyone else that slept outside. They had a secondary gate, though, that didn’t open until 5:45 for us. We were about the 3rd or 4th car that headed into the park once the gates had opened and made it to the foot of the dune. Tim had decided to stay in the truck while Grant and I made our way up the dune. Unlike the previous day, we knew we should take our shoes off and climb barefoot. A lot easier to walk in. And I didn’t mentally struggle with the edges of the dune since I knew falling would be a little softer in the sand rather than down the side of a mountain – though the overall height to climb was incredible.

We ran into our South African neighbors mentioned in previous post so we walked up with some of them. We parted ways as they stopped at the first ledge while we continued the hike towards the peak (or whatever you call the top of a dune). The walk was definitely challenging as you kept sliding back for every 1-2 steps forward, but at least we didn’t have the wind whipping us again during the climb. The hike was worth it once we reached the top to rest and enjoy the sunrise.

After enjoying the sunrise, we could hear several cars driving in below as the main gate to the park opened around 6:45 am. The number of cars that drove in was pretty impressive. Most would stop for a quick second to look at the dune and then head on to make it to Sossusvlei/Deadvlei before the heat starts to climb. We headed back down the dune (much easier than the ascent) and passed a couple of groups on their way up. Most would stop at the first ledge and then head back down. Since we had done the drive through the park the night before, we headed back to our campsite to grab a quick breakfast and pack up to head to Swakopmund for some cooler beach weather.

Our drive to Swakopmund was about 4.5 hours through mostly desert areas. There was little to observe, especially once we reached 100km from the city. We saw a car with another flat tire on our drive and made a quick stop. The family was from Botswana and told us they had someone coming in from Swakopmund with help since their rental didn’t come with a spare tire. We felt bad leaving them there alone but felt a little reassurance once we saw a car speeding past us in their direction. We’d like to think they received the help they needed!

Arriving in Swakopmund, we were all hungry and decided to find a restaurant to grab some food. It took a lot of work to know where the restaurants were as the signs pointed in different directions. Tim took us down to the water and found two restaurants by the jetty. We decided to do the one on the jetty, and when we got inside, they told us they were fully booked (though no one was at any tables) and could only seat us outside. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that, so I may have made a small scene, but they were able to sit us down at a table inside. We noticed this a few times in restaurants – we’re not sure if feigning full reservations is somehow a way to drive demand or make the customer feel special once you “figure out how to get the customer in.” It’s always a bit comical though because every time we were told a restaurant was fully booked, it was literally completely empty minus one or two tables with people. Anyways, the food was good, although Grant struck out again on a steak in Namibia.

Since we arrived a day early, our Airbnb had already booked the night with someone else, so we asked our waitress for the best hotel. She gave us a couple of listings, one of which was the hotel we passed on the walk down. Since it was closer, we checked into that hotel and grabbed our room keys. We grabbed some things we needed for the rest of the week and moved our car into the hotel garage. With both tents on the top, it’s hard to tell if we’ll make the clearance, but it always worked out. We dropped our stuff off in the rooms and enjoyed our bottle of MCC (champagne) from South Africa while we figured out the activities we wanted to do during our time in Swakopmund.

Our first full day in Sesriem started early. That 4:15 am alarm was rough, especially when we only got 2-3 hours of sleep that night. We quickly got ready and packed our tents to head out of the park. The tricky thing about having tents on top of the truck was that you had to pack up every day before you left anywhere – it took us about 45 minutes this first day. We headed out to the main gate entrance, where we were stopped by the guard, who kept asking for a paper receipt showing we were scheduled for the hot air balloon ride. Thankfully Tim had enough service on his phone to show the guard his reservation, as we didn’t have a paper ticket to show him.

Once through the gate, it was about a 20-minute drive to the entrance of the Namib Sky Balloon Safari headquarters. When we arrived, the gate was locked, and we had a South African family in the car behind us who was also scheduled for the sunrise ride. I thought I had very little patience, but the couple kept getting out of their vehicle to check the gate to see if it would open or if they could yell out to anyone to open it. No one had phone service and it got to be about 10-15 minutes after everyone was told to show up so they in particular started to panic. Our guide finally approached the gate and unlocked it for us to follow him down to the reception area. He had been sitting at the front office saying to himself, “wow it’s weird that two separate groups are so late” before he realized he’d forgotten to unlock the front gate down the road. We grabbed some water and a pit stop at the bathroom before we hopped in the safari vehicle for another 20-minute drive to the balloon. Once they got most of the basket set up with the propane tanks, we could get closer and watch them finish the setup. It was fascinating to watch, as neither Grant nor I had seen one in person. We didn’t realize they used a giant fan to help blow up the balloon portion with just regular air. Grant and I, along with two South African family members, were told to get in the basket to help right it before the others hopped on. It was a crazy feeling to lay down in the basket and have it turn right side up when he lit up the balloon. To get it right side up they fired the propane flame sideways into the partially filled balloon to get the balloon to rise and pull on the basket to help them with the flip-up maneuver I described.

Once everyone hopped aboard, we got the safety briefing and floated in the air for the next hour. We learned that there is technically no steering on the balloon and that the wind primarily guides where it takes you. The guide is good at figuring out which direction the wind goes at different altitudes and uses wind direction at various heights to get him where he wants to go. The guide also uses the ropes to turn the basket, allowing everyone to experience the same views. We got some beautiful shots of the sunrise, and seeing the number of dunes in the area was pretty impressive. As only a couple of dunes are available to walk on, most of the land is untouched by humans. The shadows the sun cast on the ground were so long that it was also really easy to spot groups of Oryx’s on the ground. We could also hear a group of “Ruppell’s Korhaan” birds that sound like frogs from hundreds of feet up. At one point he lowered the balloon almost to the ground so we could spot them and other views of the dried up river bed below.

After our hot air balloon ride landed, it was time for our Champagne Breakfast. We learned from our guide that when the hot air balloon first began in France, people (mostly farmers) were frightened by the large colorful vessels that sometimes landed in their fields. He told us there was one incident where they flew farm animals (I think he said goats), and when they landed in an area, the farmer got scared of the animals and shot them, thinking they were some sort of alien creatures. The King of France then told the pilots to carry a bottle of champagne with his seal on it and share it with the farmers when they landed in their fields, saying they flew “with orders from the King.” So, he said, the tradition after a successful balloon flight is to crack open a bottle of champagne – he also used a large knife to just cut the top of the bottle off instead of popping a cork!

We got to try some local Namibian cheeses, zebra meat, and springbok salami. Both tasted very gamey but weren’t bad – we went back for seconds. Once finished, we headed back to the lodge and got to take a tour of the local school the company had started to give back to the community. Their school was called “Little Bugs Primary School” and was completely free to kids in the surrounding areas. Our guide told us that the bus takes about two hours to pick kids up and drop them off for school, but it allows them the opportunity to get an education when they may not have due to financial status. Many of the children at the school are kids of the employees that work at the tour company, and they also had a souvenir shop with local crafts the spouses of some of the employees made as well. They also had amazing “sand art” from an ex-balloon guide where he collects all different colors of sand around the country and somehow glues them to make amazingly realistic looking animal scenes.

After saying goodbye to the guide and school teachers we went back to the campsite at Sesriem. The middle of the day gets so hot that we retreated to the shade by the pool for some naps and refreshments while we waited for the sun to get less intense to go back out.

Once back from the hot air balloon, we rested by the pool as the temperature kept rising above 100°F. Thankfully, we could grab water bottles from the bar area to stay hydrated. We also confirmed that we should head to our following location in Namibia after our sunrise hike to enjoy some cooler temperatures for the rest of our time here in Namibia.

As evening approached, we headed out into the park to enjoy a drive through the dunes and hopefully see the trees in Deadvlei. We had to turn back around during our first trip to make a quick pit stop at the bathroom. We weren’t 100% sure there were any in the park (at least the map we received didn’t show any), so I asked Grant to turn around. However, this quick pit stop allowed us to be the only ones in Deadvlei once we arrived as we passed a group on their way out. Funny how things work out like that!

On our way to Sossusvlei/Deadvlei, we stopped at Dune 45 and started the ascent up the dune. The temperature didn’t feel too bad once we started the hike, but the wind kept whipping the sand, and it felt like needles poking you in the calves. Tim slid back down as Grant and I continued up the dune. It was amazing how much our lungs burned the further we climbed up – pictures and videos really don’t do the dunes justice in terms of just how huge and how hard to hike up they are! We decided to head back down as the wind was too much the higher we climbed and continued our journey onto Deadvlei.

The last kilometer or two into Deadvlei were fairly deep sand that required 4-wheel drive to navigate. We slid through the sand almost like we were driving through ice/snow but made it without problem. When we arrived, we saw a sign that said 11km to Deadvlei and were shocked the hike was that long. As we started to head that way, we quickly realized we missed the decimal between the ones, and the walk was only 1.1km. The short hike took us up and down sandy paths until it opened into a white clearing with a smattering of these 1,000+-year-old trees. It was pretty crazy to see! According to the internet, the camel thorn trees died after a drought and became almost petrified. The skeletons of the trees do not decompose because it is so dry. It was so cool to see; they had signs everywhere telling you not to touch the trees. It was so tempting, though! After taking some pictures and checking out the dune behind Deadvlei (nicknamed “Big Daddy”), it was time to head back as the gates closed at 8:30 pm. With Grant’s speeding, we returned just in time with a few minutes to spare!

After climbing the dune, we were all pretty sandy, so we rinsed off before cooking dinner. The wind was pretty heavy that night, making cooking on the gas stove tricky – we ran out of all the matches we’d borrowed the previous night just trying to light it. Grant went to the neighboring campsite again, this time occupied by a group of South African friends who noted they were also looking to wake up at sunrise the next morning to catch sunrise on a dune. We traded them some extra fruit for desert as a thank you for the lighter, but even by 10 pm, our pasta still wasn’t cooking, so we just had some sliced veggies and called it a night as we had another early morning wake up the next day. With the wind, the temperature was much more reasonable this night and it made sleeping much more comfortable. I think we all got a better night’s sleep this night, even with the early wake-up a second day in a row.

The next day we got up and headed to the grocery store to grab some snack items and food for meals for the next few days in the desert. Grant was hopeful that our lodge nearby would let us eat dinner there, but thankfully we were prepped with dinner/lunch options for camping to be safe (as well as road trip snacks). When we got to the shopping center, it turned out that we parked on the wrong side of the building in attempt to not take the tall truck through a parking garage, and had to walk about 1/4 mile to get to the store, which had us going through a crowd of homeless people begging for food. While in the grocery store, Tim grabbed some Fanta and bread to hand them on the way out for his good deed of the day. Once we’d paid for all our food for the coming days and started our walk back we took a stop to go to the restroom. While I was in the restroom Grant and Tim saw a local walk by with a bag of the same bread and some Fantas – this gave Grant and Tim a good chuckle as they high-fived noting we’d picked the perfect items to give to the beggars on our way out. However, we did not see the same guys on our return trip to the truck so did not get to hand the items out. I did end up giving a bottle of water and Fanta to a worker sitting on the corner before he got picked up for a painting job in the city, and he seemed so thankful for a cold beverage on a warm day – he gave me the largest smile!

We had about a 5-hour trip to our campsite in Sesriem through different microclimates of Namibia. We decided to go old school with the directions and use the map provided by the tour company to head to Sesriem. It started rough as I mixed up the directions leaving the grocery store. Driving on the left side of the road also didn’t help as we accidentally all three decided a certain on-ramp was correct, but it took us the opposite way we wanted – a lesson in making sure to reverse your intuition! Once on the main road, I had us going in the right direction and it was smooth sailing. The tour company gave us two suggested routes to take: 1) the fastest option or 2) the scenic option. We opted for the scenic option, which allowed us the opportunity to stop and grab some pictures of the Tropic of Capricorn sign and various sites along the route. A few folks had noted that they just got a lot of really rare rain so the start of our drive was very green and even got to see a giraffe grazing. As we drove further southwest the scenery became much dryer and we approached a huge valley into the desert via Spreetshoogte Pass. Grant used this opportunity to take out the drone and get some scenic shots. After the pass dropped us in elevation, the rest of the drive was very flat and sandy, starting to set the stage for the big dunes of Sossusvlei.

Along the route, we ended up passing a couple who looked to be struggling on the side of the road. Given how hot it was and how infrequently we saw any cars go by, we stopped to ask if the couple needed help, and the guy said back, “No worries unless one of you guys knows how to work on cars.” And it turns out Tim does very well! Grant and Tim helped them change their flat and get them back on the road. While changing the tire we learned they were German and he asked if he could take a video of the Americans that stopped to help them (of course we obliged). They had helped a few people out earlier in the day, giving water to a dehydrated older lady and helping a gentleman lower his tire pressure before driving on the sand in the national park so they said that must have been their good karma for the day that brought them help later on. We parted ways and before we knew it, we were at the campsite entrance and headed to check-in. We grabbed a drink at the bar in the lodge to relax before setting up our tent and prepping for dinner. I tested out the temperature of the sand, and let me tell you, it was hot (especially if you stood on it for more than a few seconds)! The air temperature was about 40C (104F) that afternoon so the sand was quite hot too.

We headed down to the campsite and started prepping for dinner. When we pulled everything out to cook the meal, we noticed we didn’t have a lighter provided. So Tim went over to the campers next door to us and grabbed a couple of matches to light the gas stove. We had pasta and some bread, along with sliced veggies. Thanks to our chef Tim, we probably have some of the best food we’ve had camping! (Well, besides the meals we had through Patagonia, but we won’t count those since we didn’t cook them).

We enjoyed our meal and Fairview white wine from our South Africa leg as we watched the sunset. Grant got his drone out again and quickly grabbed a couple of shots of the sunset from the air. (He technically wasn’t allowed to fly it since we were camping in the national park…)

We set up our tents and prepared for what we thought would be a 5 am wake-up to watch the sunrise in the park. However, before Tim and Grant headed to bed, somebody stopped by and told them that the company had pushed our hot air balloon ride a day earlier, so we needed to depart by 4:50 am. I had tried sleeping earlier; however, sleeping in a tent on top of a truck in 80-degree weather is challenging. Needless to say, it was a rough night of sleep.

Although Grant had told me Namibia was one of the most desolate countries in the world, I did not realize how empty everything would look until we flew in. The experience was like flying into El Calafate, where nothing could be seen for miles until we headed into the city. The capital city of Windhoek where we flew into is the largest in the country (500,000 out of the 2.5 million people living in the country) and was more extensive than any of the three of us expected it would be. After landing and heading through customs, we headed to the arrivals area where we thought our driver would be. With no service and subpar WiFi, we could not contact our tour company to see if they were at the airport waiting for us. We decided to grab a taxi, and on our way out, I spotted what looked like our tour company’s van. The group headed to the airport dropped their truck off late, so he was late to pick us up. Thankfully that saved us an almost $50 taxi ride into town.

We headed to Africa on Wheels, picking up the truck we would rent for the next week. They gave us a tour of what came with the car and how to set up the tents properly. We were surprised with everything the truck included, especially the dishes, cookware, and refrigerator on its own battery hook-up… we did not expect to be able to have cold drinks for the journey! This all ended up working out perfectly, as the lodge we were staying near on the first leg of the trip ended up not allowing campers to eat dinner there. After the paperwork was finished and GPS set up, we went to the local hotel in Windhoek for the night, as our first leg was some hours away. This again was quite a journey finding it, along with trying to figure out how to park since we had two tents atop our truck. But we finally got it figured out and were able to get settled in for the night.

Once checked in, we dropped off our bags before heading up to enjoy drinks and food at the rooftop bar and pool. Grant had thrown on his swim trunks on the off chance that he would hop in; however, once up to the 15th floor, we realized it wasn’t a pool for swimming but instead just for looks. They had a Heineken promotion, and two girls dressed in Heineken green dresses came up to our table to ask if any of us had heard of the beer/wanted to get one – they said Heinken was working to get better brand recognition in Namibia. Grant offered to have one, and they took pictures of her pouring the beer for Grant. We tried a charcuterie board of local cheeses and meats though we only really enjoyed the cheese and the chili bites as the biltong and droewors weren’t as tasty. The dinner wasn’t the most incredible food, especially for Grant, who ordered a sirloin and had difficulty finishing it. And our stomachs didn’t enjoy the food at the end of the night, but we were hopeful that cooking our meals for the next few days in the desert would help! Nonetheless we enjoyed the drinks, watching the sunset, and people watching – it seemed like the place all the locals went to before heading out to the local clubs for the night.

One of the cool things (and the first time we had ever seen it) about the hotel was that the elevators required you to put in your floor number before entering, and it would take you straight up. It felt weird not to push a button once inside, and it took me about the third time before I stopped trying to push a number that wasn’t there.