Day 2, Namibia

Thursday December 16th. Up and off by 8:00. We were woken up by a chorus of birds, with many different sounding songs to what I'm used to. First stop the Namibia border. No big deal, but took awhile to get us all through the crossing from South Africa to Namibia.

As we drove north into the country, the area became drier and more desert like. We drove for a couple of hours along a good dirt road and then turned onto a rough one that led us to an oasis. We were at the Ai Ais Hot Springs! This is a lovely resort built by the Namibian government in the middle of the desert. The hot springs are enclosed in a beautiful building and are very hot. There is also a beautiful, warm, outside pool for swimming. We enjoyed the indoor pools and the outdoor swim. We ate a bbq sausage lunch in the parking area of the resort. Then we packed up again and drove off. I sat beside Roger today, a Cuban. He loves to hear himself talk. We arrived at our camping site at Fish River Canyon by 3:00. Set up our tents and then sat around chatting. At 5:30 we loaded up again and drove to the rim of the canyon. A beautiful, large canyon, second in size only to Grand Canyon. We went for a 2km walk along the rim until we arrived at an amazing viewpoint. When we arrived our guides had set up a surprise wine and cheese party for us. We snacked away, and talked and then watched the sunset over the canyon. I talked a lot to Leland, a 57 year old teacher from rural Alberta, who is an avid photographer and outdoorsman (hunting and fishing) and Richard a 65 year old doctor from Hawaii.

Back to camp where we sat around, had a drink or two and toasted marshmallows. The guides were going to cook us dinner, but we vetoed that, because we were all full from the wine and cheese.