Day 2 of Namibia-Botswana trip

We got up early in our B&B in Upington, 130km from the Namibian border.  The day before we drove the 800km from Pretoria, but apart from the torrential rain there is not a great deal to tell.  Let me start therefore at 7am on day 2, when we headed off with Jeepy full of petrol (including 2 jerry cans) towards the Nakop border crossing.  We immediately got a flavour of what was to come, very long straight roads with about 1 vehicle coming the other way every 20 minutes.  We started noticing some amazing constructions on the telegraph poles.  First I thought they were manmade but then it became clear they were the thatched nests of the sociable weaver bird.  They seemed to get larger and larger as we neared the border.  The crossing was quite an event.  We had been used to border crossings of course, but this was a far more involved affair.  We had to fill in forms, declare all our electronic goods and have the car checked.  On the Namibian side we even had to pay road tax.  It took us almost an hour!  The road continued, straight with barely any other cars, onto the first town and petrol station at Karasburg.  We filled up, at one rand a litre cheaper than in South Africa.  No wonder the officials at the border were puzzled as to why our jerry cans were full!  Kit took the wheel as we swapped tar for gravel and headed to our first site, the Fish River Canyon.  The roads were smooth and we managed a far greater speed than the 10 km/h TomTom estimated, which was fortunate!  

The canyon was beautiful.  There were hints of a river winding its way at the bottom.  The surrounds were rocky and arid with every shade of red and brown visible.  We had a picnic lunch at the canyon’s edge and after about an hour of touring the area we decided to continue on to our night stopover at Keetmanshoop.  The afternoon drive was a hot one with temperatures into the mid-thirties in the shade.  When we arrived at our lodge at 4pm the swimming pool was most inviting.  A quick cooling dip, followed by a film in our air conditioned room and then dinner.  The menu provided the first hints of Namibia’s colonial past.  There were numerous sausages, schnitzels and sauerkraut available.  After a filling meal we returned to our room for another film and a good night’s sleep.

Bird of the day: martial eagle

4-legged animal of the day: hartmann’s mountain zebra