16 December – Khorixas

It is now Friday 14 December and we are in Palmwag, a place in the middle of a nature reserve just north of the cattle fence. We left from Opuwo this morning and did a lot of shopping before we drove through the C43 to the south. This road is unpaved but you can pick up reasonable speeds (60 km/h), at least on most pieces. Sometimes there is suddenly a small river and you usee the brakes because the road goes very steeply and in other cases the road suddenly becomes very narrow. Fortunately there is little traffic, we may have encountered 20 cars during the entire ride of 235 km (5 hours drive). The landscape is breathtaking and varies from plains with trees to rocky outcrops with deep valleys and gorges. The earth has a red color here and you can look tens of kilometers far because the sky is so bright. On the way we came across a car that had trubles and of course we stopped. He only needed water for the radiator and we had more than enough! We sleep the next two nights in the Palmwag Lodge, the most expensive campsite so far (eeeh 65 euros for two nights….) but beautiful sites with electricity, water and a table. We do not know what we are going to do tomorrow, but we see that.

Last week Farrah booked the tickets to Cape Town for her and her family. They will be travelling on March 18th and go back 2 April. We spend several days together in a house in Hout Bay, cozy! Tamara was told by her employer yesterday that she can get unpaid leave so she arrives in Cape Town at the end of January and also flies back to the Netherlands at the beginning of April. We’re waiting for you Tamara!!!

Tom will also come to Cape Town, probably in mid-February. He still wants to spend some time in Alphen to prepare for his admission exam. From our neighbours (not those of number 15 but those others) we got a letter written by a lawyer that, before 1 April, we must cut and model our shrubs and trees to their satisfaction. She (yes she…) sends us every year a letter how we have to model our garden, with a deadline and to what extent and has now believed, after I have indicated that there was no need for her advice, to have a letter sent by a lawyer. Pathetic people but I will send the ‘Rechtsbijstandbureau’ a kind note!

We just arrived in Khorixas on a ride of over 200 km from Palmwag. It is today Sunday, December 16. Yesterday we did nothing but sit in the shadows because it was awfully hot. This morning we were stopped at the cattle fence and immediately put to work to disinfect a swearing finger of one of the officials and help another with sore eyes because of the sun. Luckily we had an extensive first aid bag with it and we could help them.

Then we drove south to Twyfelfonteyn through an unimaginable landscape. There is an abandoned farm in an unearthly landscape with a source that does not always give water, now almost nothing. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because there are many bushman paintings, some are 8000 years old. Wonderful to see. We were guided by a guide who could tell a lot.

Then we drove towards Khorixas over a dirt road where I approached speeds of 90 km/h, so good was this. On the way we stopped at the Petrified Forest, a completely stoned forest (well, pieces of ‘ wood ‘ lying on the ground) of 70 million years old. Tomorrow we go to Brandberg and then to Cape Cross.