Desert Fun

After my tour ended, I headed onwards to Swakopmund to meet up with Victoria. We spent a very foggy and alarmingly cold weekend in this peculiar town. Despite the fog and the cold, we still managed to have a great time.

The first night, we went to an old-style seafood restaurant called The Lighthouse Grill, which was decked out in dark stained wood and large brass nautical implements, accented by the green and red lights from nautical buoys. There was no mistake that we were by the sea, even if we couldn't see much of it.

For Victoria, seafood was a great novelty. I managed to convince her that escargots are tasty, especially when they're doused in melted garlic butter. Calamari and mussels were also an adventure. We topped off our feast with a delicious dessert of Cherries Jubilee – YUMMY! Though nightlife options seemed a bit sparse in Swakopmund, we managed to find a great place where the locals were belting out the classic karaoke tunes... some well, and others not so well.

"I can't believe this is edible!"

Tasty prawns!

 

Having a blast at karaoke!

The next day, we headed off into the Namib Desert to do some quad-biking over the dunes, as well as the exhilarating (and more than mildly terrifying) phenomenon called sand boarding. This involves lying face down on a piece of particle board greased up with floor polish and then hurtling down a sand dune at full speed. At the end of our adventure in the desert, Victoria said, “My face muscles hurt from smiling so much!” Come to think of it, I never did see a frown on her face. All in all, it was a wonderful vacation.

Setting out on the quad bikes.

Motorized fun!

Smiling under that helmet.

Yes, this is a crazy thing to do.

But it's too much fun to resist!

The realities back in Zambia were quite obvious however: upon coming through the door, I discovered that the water utility had shut off the water for the day. Later, the power also went off for about 20 minutes. Welcome home!