Today was a spectacular drive through the Namib Desert - quite probably the best driving day yet. The biggest excitement was no car problems! In the desert we saw ostrich, oryx, and lots of birds. Early in the day we stopped to examine these huge nests that are in many of the trees - hundreds of little sparrow sized birds build these giant (I'd guess that some of them are up to 6 x 10 x 20 feet) nests. They look like giant hay bales stuck in trees, with hundreds of holes in the bottom.
We had a beer with lunch, and then afterwards continued drinking in the car - somehow always happens with Craig and Margaret in the back!
We're spending the night at Sesriem in Namib-Naukluft National Park (we hoped - we were told we had to be back between six and eight to see if there'd be room in the camp). While we were waiting we drove the 65km out to the Sossusvlei mud flats. The road is through huge (some close to 1,000 feet high) sand dunes of brilliant red sand. The dunes are spectacular - so large that they made the dunes in Morocco seem small. We hiked up one of the medium size ones (maybe 650 feet high) and made it about two thirds of the way up before deciding it would be more fun to run down the steep sides.
In the evening light the contrast of the red sand and dark shadows was especially dramatic. While we were out in the mud flats we rescued another stuck car before racing to get back to the office by 8pm. We were about half an hour late back to the office, but the ranger let us camp anyway when we used our rescue as an excuse. Cooked a diner of pasta, potatoes and sausage and hung out with some overlanders before going to sleep under the stars.
