Swakopmund Day 17

This morning I woke up early and had a lovely cooked breakfast before heading out on my living desert tour, named the "little 5". Our guide is like the Steve Irwin of Namibia and was very entertaining, I was introduced as the Australian Mafia..

We set out into the dunes and he immediately jumped out and gave us an 1 hour introduction, he can talk I tell you. Such interesting information as well. When you walk through the desert here you are walking over spiders, snakes, skinks and the like, so much wildlife. He found us a small spider hole but did not bring this one out as it was an albino and would take several hours to re built it's hole. The first thing we saw was a horned adder, they move sideways and was beautiful in colour and waxy to touch like most of the desert animals. I also saw a chamelion and a little light coloured skink, then lastly a small lizard. Really cool tour. One of the sad things is that when quad bikes etc go through the flats the tyre prints never leave as the wind will not move the gravel, there are tracks from carts of 120 years ago that can still be seen today. Totally devasatating for the environment. This tour stays to only one set of tracks all the time and my guide may no bones about how much it upset him that approx 80% of the desert is covered in 4x4 tracks and quad tracks, apparently there are around 360 new tracks made each year as a round estimate, these will never go away.

I returned home and went out for coffee and cake with Tash who is feeling much better after a day of rest. Tonight Tash and Flanagan are making me Pap a traditional African dish with a Braai (bbq). I am sitting watching the sun retreat through the window with my "sundowner" (beer with lemon and ice) very refreshing...