On a horse with no name

Our journey to and from Walvis Bay and Swakopmund was pretty cool.  If you look at the country on the map, Namibia is only the size of a couple of our midwestern states combined.  Even so, we get all the landscapes.  The amazing thing about the drive is that there were no transitions.  You turn the corner and you're out of the desert and into the plains.  You top the crest of the hill and BOOM...you're in mountains.  You go from sea level to nearly a mile high in about 200 miles.  Incredible drive...even if it is all dirt road.  So, I've included some pictures in chronological order of our drive home.To the right here, you'll see the where the ocean meets the desert again.  

 Here is the desert.  We cruised through nothing but sand and gradual desert vegetation for about 70 miles.  It's the straightest road I've ever been on.  Straighter and flatter than Kansas if you can imagine that.

You'll notice it stayed flat, but we got some grass.  With the grass came a few animals.  The most impressive (and within picture range) was this Gemsbock here.  It's a gorgeous animal.  It took off running and we were able to stay with it for a few kilometers before it changed directions.  Really a remarkable animal.  In a related story, we had Gemsbock fajitas last night.  So, apart from magnificent, also quite delicious.

Same story with this fella.  This is a Springbock.  Really fast.  We were cruising along around 60 kph and this little guy was keeping up right in stride.  You'll notice the fence posts.  Well, he didn't.  He decided he wanted to come our direction and went right through the fence, doing a full flip, and crashing in the weeds.  He didn't jump right up either.  We stopped and went back to check on him when he got up and tried to jump back over the fence, only to another flip and crash to the ground before taking off across the field.


A little further down the road, we happened upon this riverbed in the mountains.  The mountains were incredible.  You can kind of see the ridges in the side that look like God swept over the region with a comb.  The entire area of about 50 km looked like they were formed quickly and violently.  This picture doesn't do it any justice.  I'll try to find some others. It's very impressive and breathtaking.  I never got bored looking out the window.

 You can kind of see the rolling hills that created deep, deep caverns in the landscape.  These were for as far as they eye could see.  I've really never seen any other formation quite like it.

So, there you have a brief tour of the Namib desert.  Amazing drive, absolutely amazing.  Next week we are going to Etosha, and game reserve in the north, so I should have more pictures coming.  Hopefully, we'll get to see the "lion's share" of the Big 5.  Get it? "Lion's share"?  Seriously.  I really want to see a lion.