Swakapmund

Swakapmund is a beach town that looks like a little like an alpine ski resort without the snow. And with mostly Africans instead of Europeans, although there were a fair amount of European tourists.

Some of the architecture made me forget what continent I was on. 

Or if I was in a fairy tale.

We frolicked on the sand dunes, including sand boarding and quad biking.

Quad biking was a lot of fun, although it took me a while to remember I wasn't actually ON a bike, and to go faster on hills.

The dunes were gorgeous.

We celebrated the New Year with some Afrikaners we met sand boarding.

We spent a lot of time on the beach. Not in the water, which was recently in Antarctica and VERY cold, but just on the beach.

Quad biking on the dunes.

Our backpackers, which reminded us of a dutch attic.

We saw seals on the rocks by the beach.

So cute!

Kind of makes me think of PCVs at the end of a vacation. Exhausted, sleeping in a pile, and you still can't get everything to dry out properly.

But the adventure wasn't over yet, as our bus broke down on the way home. Because they forgot to fill the gas tank up all the way. 

.......

Another bus came but couldn't help. Our driver hitched to the nearest village 130km away and got a few liters of fuel and hitched back with it... 5 hours later.

Then we had to figure out how to get the fuel INTO the bus, and obviously there was no funnel. So they used a Fanta bottle.

At this point, we and several Batswana nominated Liz to be the driver if the first one didn't return, but he did. So we got to Gabs at like 12:45am instead of 7pm, but we made it and it was an awesome trip, break down not withstanding. :)