Traveling with strangers.... a journey in itself...

We woke up on morning number two of our journey with high hopes. We new that it was not too far to the beautiful dunes of Soussoslvei. It was very cold the night before and the chill seemed to stay for a good portion of the morning. We pack the van and loaded up for the short journey to Sessriem the gateway to the dunes. The gravel road wound its way through the desolate desert passing through the jagged peaks of stark brown mountains of the central Namibian plains. The beautiful peaks cast huge shadows over the yellow savannah as we went further into desolation. We passed several large groups of animals including many springbok and Oryx. We did not see any predators though as it was probably to late in the morning and we knew they would be sleeping. After only about a three hour drive we were at the small campsite/settlement called Sessriem. Another minute outpost in the middle of nowhere. We were assigned a campsite and settled in. That is to say that Erika and I set up our now dusty tent. Our two type A travel companions had other ideas. Both were chomping at the bit to get out to see the dunes. We decided to let them go on their own with the promise that they would return in the mid afternoon so we could go out and enjoy the area also. It was becoming way too hot too quickly and we had been on the road for so long the past few day that we needed some down time just to give our aching bodies some well needed rest. Immediately upon their return they were ready to go back out and explore. Nervous energy was prevalent between these two. We all hopped in to the van and venture along a beautiful paved tarmac toward our end destination, Soussoslvei. 60km later we hit the last 5k and were now off onto a deep sandy road which was for 4x4 only. We slogged through the sand and hit the end of the trail. Immediately our two type A's were out of the van and halfway up a dune before we even had a chance to put our shoes on! The wind had picked up and so as we slowly slogged our way up we were repeatedly blasted with the stinging sand. By the time we reached the top our companions were already down and trying to climb the next one. We on the other hand decided to stay on top and take full advantage of the incredible 360 panorama of these incredible red hued dunes that sprawled out in every direction. We watched as the sun slowly dropped over the horizon in sheer awe of this amazing landscape. We made our way down to the car and waited patiently for our travel mates to return. We knew that the park closed at 6:45 and that it was a certain hour to get back to the gate. We were cutting it close. They finally returned and we set off through the first 5km of sand at one point getting stuck to the point we all had to get out and push. We made it to the tarmac and set off toward the gate as darkness was setting in. Colin did not seem to sense that we needed to hurry back as he drove at a pace that would make a 90 year old proud. Slowing along the way in the dark to look at the various lizards that crossed the road. At one point turning the car around to search for a little 3 inch creature that certainly ran off into the nearby grass. All the other cars had long since passed us back to the gate and here we were trying to find reptiles in the dark. Sure enough we arrived 15 minutes late to the gate. Of course it was locked and no one was in sight. We sat for quite a while before a guard appeared. We explained that we got stuck in the sand for a long time knowing that the truth would not be a reasonable excuse. After much persuasion Silas, the watchman finally relented, mumbling under his breath his dissatisfaction. We were lucky as we could have been locked in all night. We decided to get up early the next day so we could see the sun rise over the dunes. We got to the gate a little late and were about 25 cars back in the Que so that we had to wait a while to be processed. We did make it to Dead Vlei and started to make our way up a dune of course the other two had long since disappeared on a mission. The Deadvlei was amazing as the intense contrast in colors of the dunes and the sky sat beautifully against the backdrop of the dead trees. We wandered around for a couple of hours until our type a's finally appeared. We wanted to stay longer at this enchanted place but they seemed bored and were ready to move on. Reluctantly we obliged. I am not sure where they wanted to go but we ended up basically making a slow drive back to camp where we spent the remainder of the afternoon. We had a nice nights sleep and made our way the next morning towards the south of Namibia. Neither of our mates seemed to have a clue on how to read a map, yet they did not want to listen to our suggestions on how to proceed forward. We ended up heading toward the south on roads that made the others look like super highways. Eventually we were starting to run out of real estate as we neared the South African border. Nightfall was soon upon us and there did not seem to be any type of civilization least wise campsites!! As luck would have it only 14kms from the border we found somewhere to camp. The two others were vacillating on whether we should do it when finally Erika and I put our foot down and said lets DO IT! They reluctantly agreed. I am not sure where they were thinking (big term for these two) but we had found a place. Needless to say we were the only campers. The following day we made it to Namibian customs and breezed through. We entered a kind of no mans land that was a HUGE game park in the middle of the Kalahari. South African customs was on the other side of the park. We booked a campsite, again Erika and I decided to book along the way as opposed to their suggestion of driving to the other side of the park and doing drives from that site. We did not realize that as soon as we entered the park Our driver Colin would slow his speed to about 5km an hour in search of the hidden animals that were all hiding in the heat of the day. SLOWLY we proceeded toward the first camp as he tried in vain to find anything moving. Not that we are experienced wildlife enthusiasts, but even we knew that most if not all animals take a break from the mid day heat. A few birds aside we saw NOTHING along the whole slow road to our first camp. When we finally arrived some 7 hours later (it was only 135km) we were all prepared to set up camp but our other two had other plans. They wanted to get out and search for animals right away. Our butts needed some respite so we convinced them to hold off for an hour. This was hard for Colin as he kept pacing around the tent site like a caged lion. We were able to get out and see a few animals though we were a bit disappointed by the sheer lack of numbers. I guess we were spoiled from Etosha. The next day Colin wanted to get up early so we could be first in line when the gates opened. The next morning we heard the engine come to life at 5:15! This despite the fact that the gate did not open until 6:30. When we made it to the car with a few minutes to spare to find that we were the only idiots at the gate at that time. What a shock. We spent the ENTIRE day driving up and around the parched Kalahari desert. We did manage to see many animals though not the numbers we had witnessed in Etosha. It seemed our driver was more interested in the limited bird and reptile life that existed. Towards the end of a VERY long day we finally were able to see a couple of male lions sleeping about 50 meters from the roadway. We stopped and watched for only a couple of minutes before Colin decided that we should pull about 300 meters forward for some unknown reason. We sat there for 25 minutes far away from the animals while the two woke from their slumber. Finally Jeff spoke up and asked if maybe we could move a little closer to the action. Colin put the car in reverse and literally moved less than 10 feet! Then stopped again and started talking to Kathy about our exit strategy from the park. This all the while as the 2 huge Cats proceeded to start looking for dinner!Unbelievable. As the sun set, and time was running short because the gates again closed at 6:30pm, we slowly made our way back to camp. We had literally about 10 minutes to go 15 km's in a 50 km/hr. zone. We thought for sure that we would have another situation on our hands. Of course this did not stop Colin from doing a u turn to take photos of a bird. We were both in shock having thought that he might have learned his lesson from before. We did make it through the gate not a minute too soon. We packed the car and got ready for the next morning's drive which we knew would be long since we had to get all the way to Pretoria, some 1100 km's away. Both Erika and I woke up early ready to go while the other two seemed to nonchalantly take their time even though they were the ones who wanted to make good time to Pretoria. The following morning after going through customs we drove virtually non stop except to fill up for gas which we seemed to be going through rapidly because Colin, even though he had his window rolled down, was blasting the air conditioning the whole way. The temperature during the day barely got above 70 degrees so we were a little perplexed. As stated, he did not want to stop at all, not bothering to ask whether Erika or I needed a break or to stop for a bite to eat. The journey itself passed quickly though the scenery was not much to write about. We got turned around several times as our navigator and pilot were not able to read maps nor road signs very well. Erika and I just sat in the back and laughed knowing that even if we wanted to give an opinion, it would have been disregarded straight out. We finally arrived in Pretoria around 9pm that evening and ended up finding a backpackers that we could settle into. We were thankful to finally be rid of these two (and maybe them us)...