Ok, here comes a very early morning. Wessel was shaking our tents at 5 am so that we could be the first at the gate which opens at 5:45. We were not. However, the truck that was in front of us all the time obviously didn't have a very experienced driver and thus missed the turn to Dune 45. We were first at the dune! :) And very excited!I took my shoes off and started to run to the top of the dune. Oh, I didn't say why we went there. To watch the sunset. Ok, back to the running part. It didn't last too long. I got exhausted after about 5 minutes. Try to run up a dune and you won't ask why. It was the hardest exercise I've ever done! Not only it's hard to walk up in sand, it was also very windy and I felt as if my lungs were full of sand too...
When we finally got up, I don't think anyone cared about the sunset... We just wanted to breathe!!! But then, of course, after a while, we recovered and could enjoy the African beauty. And so can you...
Then it was time to go down which was really fun. We ran down the steeper side of the dune, it was kind of an adrenaline activity. Followed by breakfast. And this was the first time Wessel promised we'd get a big one - eggs and bacon and... it didn't happen. He said the stove wasn't working but nobody believed him. We got food, though, as always. :)
The next stop was Sossuvlei where we could pay for a "Guided Walk with Local Expert" and we did. And regretted it later. We were told that there was going to be the guy Susan talked about - a white bushman, who is very famous, who is very cool and knows everything about the area. But he wasn't there and our guide was simply boring and a little weird.
I'll tell you something about Sossuvlei now. The word means something like "where the water ends". The place is, basically, dunes. But from time to time, they have water there which creates the places where the water ends - it can't get over the dunes. And, from time to time, there are two dunes that are, after some time and thanks to wind, I guess, kinda connected together. When this happens, the new big dune stops the water and what happens next is this: the area that was left behind the dune without water is not Sossuvlei anymore, but now it's called Deadvlei (because it's dead :)). New Sossuvlei is created where the water ended. Does it make sense? :) And here you have some pictures of Deadvlei:
What else did we learn? We saw the dessert rose, tried (at least some of us) to eat some plants that could save your life if you got lost in the dunes, learnt how to track a lizzard (and that you could actually eat it... yummy :)). And it was very hot.
When we were done with this, we went back to the campsite which we left in the morning, packed our stuff and went to a campsite called Solitaire. There was a pool with freaking cold water. Which, I think, we tried. And also, they had amazing strudel in the bar (I wanted to be friendly so I asked the guy who worked there "Hoe gaan dit met jou?" and he started to talk in Afrikaans to me, in reply... Well, I told him I don't understand and he didn't want to believe me. :) That's what happens when you want to be friendly :))
Before the dinner, we watched another African sunset. One sunset a day, that was our motto. :)
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