Returning to Windhoek and going to Walvis bay

The ride back to Windhoek was interesting. The flood which stopped us on our way to Sossusvlei was only a small part of several days chained by seriously heavy rain which brought floods on the roads. As always, I was optimistic and had the full trust in our drivers who obviously have been before in these sticky situations. The passengers were cheering each time the driver drove through these deep puddles; no one doubted we’d return to the city safe and sound.

Coming back to Windhoek felt strange. The contrast between the urban area and outstanding pieces of nature only makes me want to research and visit such places even more. The purpose of the return to the basecamp was to shift clothes, wash it, create back-back-back of the backups in case any of them fails to provide its purpose, run some tech errands etc., but I just could not wait to be done with it, so I could – not walk, but run – straight back to the desert. Nothing wrong with the cities, or Windhoek, by all means, but nothing compares to an extreme environment, seemingly devoid of life and being such a wide open space that it makes you feel so tiny and undeserving of such scenery, looking like it originates from another planet, way beyond the reach of any of us. This is the closest someone random can be to a space flight and landing on the Moon.

The trip to Walvis included a stop over in Swakopmund, another city on the coast. I paid a lot of attention to the road between these cities during the drive, as a few days after I scheduled myself to hike in the opposite direction. It looked very manageable, and it looked exactly how I assumed it would in reality (after reading a lot about it and doing the calculations on how to execute it perfectly), it just needed a proper good knowledge of where I am + preparation for such a hike. The hike itself is simple and plain, straying off path and being lost would be like falling of a building and getting lost on your way to the pavement, to be perfectly honest, but it does not hurt to be prepared.

Walvis turned out to be very elongated, along the coastline, industrial and the sandiest place in Namibia that I visited. I landed in my bed after a long and scorching shower, and a massive water prep at a local supermarket, in order to ready AF for one of the major highlights of the entire Namibia experience – climbing the highest dune of the entire african continent – Dune 7.