Namibian Desert= sand everywhere

We loaded up our car with camping gear and headed to the desert.

If you ever have the chance to go to Namibia, do it. This country is amazing, it is pretty desolate, but the scenery is spectacular. 

we saw these nests everywhere, they are huge nests, but I guess with the severe weather it has to be strong. 

The Namibian Quiver Tree

The thorns on this tree where like 3 inches long!

most of the villagers had donkey drawn carriages, it was interesting to see, most of the time it was children driving the carriage.

We got caught in a nasty sandstorm, it lasted all night so we had to sleep in our car, there is still sand in my ears.

we stopped at this gas station/ lodge in the middle of nowhere and they had all of these old cars, it was a good opportunity to take some fun photos.

on our way to Botswana, we had to go over this high mountain on gravel road ( yes i was really scared) at the top it was really windy- the wind is holding me up.

This is our trusty car that made it up this mountain!

women carrying water back to their village

African Sunset

Toilet on a throne- it was at a campsite we stayed at

Sandstorm

Dune 49 in the Namibian Desert, this is a pretty famous dune, it has been photographed a lot.

Dune 49

These dunes are huge! the sand is blown all the way from the ocean 

Rusty emptying out his shoes!

Fish River Canyon

Namibia is a relatively barren country characterized by desert and more desert. The coastlines are lined by endless sand dunes and the inland is as vast, open, and arid as can be. We drove the long lonely roads to the fish river canyon, kind of a small version of the grand canyon. 

The roads just seemed to stretch on forever into an endless desert

At our campground there were these really cool yellow and green trees. The bark itself was green, covered with a yellow powder.

We took a couple of days to hike around the canyons and relax. There canyon floors are covered in rose quartz and other interesting stones.

Hiker Chelsea looking for diamonds.

Taking a break from the sun in a baboon cave

The canyon was desolate, dark stone and dust. It took little time to see the beauty of this moon like landscape.

Northern Province

From Cape Town we wanted to head north to Namibia, through some of the most incredible landscape in the world

Overlooking some of the farmland north of the Cape.

I found these glasses in a hostel in Cape Town. They were a killer find 

These flowers coated the landscape where sheep grazed, everywhere you looked the ground would be orange, white, and purple.

We camped out in Springbok South Africa, just below the Namibian border. We pitched our tent below a tree that was full of these little hanging nests. At about 5am this little bird went back and forth between all of his nests singing the loudest most obnoxious little song, inside all the nests were all sorts of baby birds nagging in a high pitched tome for more food. We got up just after five without an alarm...

Out little tent. South Africans are serious campers, they have all sorts of gear and pack a full car with a trailer for every two people. Suffice it to say, when we put up our little tent, everybody seemed to watch in horror, wondering if we would make it through the night. We were offered food and blankets that night by several people. 

Cape town 2

We drove around Cape Town a lot, just enjoying the scenery. It is so beautiful

I thought this little lizard was pretty interesting with its green head and red body.

Camps bay on the east side of Cape Town proper. Supposedly there are supposed to be a lot of whales in  the area. We didn't see any after a while of watching. The road snaked back and forth along shear cliff faces. Truly epic views.

We stopped by an ostrich farm on a whim and got to feed some ostriches. 

Chelsea fed this Ostrich with her eyes closed and was apparently trying to pet it at the same time

In the first picture you can see the Ostrich is also trying to eat her finger. Her gentle pet turned into a defensive slap on the back of its neck. If you look closely you can see the ostrich is quite stunned and its neck it bent over the wire fence in an odd way.

Chelsea and the Ostrich both stunned. Epic photography!

Ostrich

These baboons where just sitting on the road. The small one is grooming the large one 

More beautiful coastline

We went to a monkey sanctuary and took a tour. The sanctuary had an interesting setup where the monkeys were held in a giant communal enclosure and we were allowed to walk through it in a caged pathway. So we were in the cages really while the monkeys were free to roam about. We put an almond beside the fence, out of reach from the monkeys, and one of the monkeys grabbed a small stick and fished the almond for himself.

A squirrel monkey eating an orange

This spider monkey followed us around the whole time we were there. She would just sit and watch us with as much interest as we were watching her.

A cool set of statues of all of the South African Nobel prize winners. After we took this picture a man walked out of the dark and gave the statue of Desmond Tutu a  hug. He remained hanging on the statue for a long time whispering sweet nothings into his ear.