Up bright and early before the heat rose, for a hike in the mountains that surrounded our lodge.  We built a couple of small inukshuks  to leave our Canadian mark in Africa.  The rest of the day was spent exploring around the lodge and sitting by the pool to escape the high heat of the day. In the evening before sunset we were off to do a sundowner by the famous Fish River Canyon. It’s the second largest canyon next to the Grand Canyon. The sunset was gorgeous as we all toasted it  with a glass of fine wine.  I think it was $3.00 a bottle .LOL 

The next day took us 500 k’s out of Namibia to South Africa. We entered the Kgalagadi Transformation Park and drove 90 k through the park. It seems they forgot to tell us the last 35ks we had to transfer to small Jeeps and drive through the desert ,over a total of 90 sand dunes . It took an extra 1.5 hours of topsy turvy riding through sand and brush. There was a lot of wild life we came across along the way such as lions,  steen bucks ,oryx, and  springboks. .When we arrived we were read the riot act to always wear closed shoes due to the deadly scorpions found in the area along with the many cobras . He told us if we were bitten by a cobra or snake we had approx 8 hours to live without the anti venom. We were 5 hours from any hospital. Nice to know. One couple in our  group ended up sleeping in the lobby (such as it was) due to a snake they found in their room at night.   We  were also told to always stay on the wooded walk ways  and couldn’t go out at night as the leopards jump the fence to drink out of the swimming pool . Needless to say there was no night walking.  It was a hot sunrise the next morning with even a hotter afternoon in the sun(but it was a dry heat LOL) We all went for a desert walk with guards surrounding us. It was only 1.5 hours but long enough to have a thirst on when we got back.  It was a sleepless night due to the heat with no fans or AC and as nice and unique as it was it was nice to move on, but only after another 1.5 hour ride over the dunes again.

It is now time to enter South Africa where we are hoping it will be a little cooler out of the desert  and into the wine regions. 

Quiver trees that live up to 800 yrs

Blue Wildebeast seen by the road

Lions seen as we drove the 35k dune ride

Just one of the 91 dunes we rode over to get to our lodge

The Fish Creek Canyon  as seen with the sun setting

Our home at the end of the 91  sanddune ride