Today we got up hella early because we had a decent distance to cover AND we had our first border crossing – South Africa into Namibia via the Voolisdrift Border Post.

We had a quick breakfast and since Jane and I are tent experts now, we had everything packed up pretty quickly, so I was able to pop off for a walk around camp before we left. I decided to sit down by the river for a moment, and as soon as I did, all four camp dogs came to sit watch with me. I can’t even with how adorable they are and the fact that they accompanied me on my river watch, so I snapped a quick photo with them. The two that were closest to me and thus in the photo are Lucy and her mom.

After my puppy bonding, we were on the truck and headed to the Namibia border!

The border crossing was actually pretty easy. On the South African side we went through immigration and were permitted to exit the country. Then our tour leader had Silia collect our passports so she could get us entry forms for Namibia. We got the forms, hopped on the truck to drive to the Namibian side so we could go through customs and their immigration process, and then we were off the truck with our passports and forms.

The Namibian side was pretty much just as easy – we all spoke to the immigration official, Nathan declared his profession under much duress, and then we were off! Or so we thought.

When we got back to the truck, the border police told us very seriously that they needed to search out vehicle.

Shit.

So they boarded our bus and were on there for a few minutes, and then they came out and started asking us a bunch of questions about where we’re going and where we’re staying and what we’re doing. We were all clearly really nervous and tried to answer their questions as best as we could… and then the two of them cracked smiles and told us that they were fucking with us.

Gosh. Darnit.

They ushered us back on the bus and we were off!

We made amazing time and arrived at Canyon Roadhouse pretty early – Canyon has an *awesome* Poison Room, a really adorable pool and laying out area, and there were barely any other campers there, so we had the majority of the facilities all to ourselves. We made camp, had a quick lunch, and then we were left to our own devices for a few hours.

Jane and I decided to test out the floatation device I had for my waterproof camera, so we tossed on bathing suits and headed for the pool to relax for the afternoon. If you’re interested, the floaty wristband I bought on ebay for like $3 USD totally works for my camera. Huge score.

During our pool adventure, a few more of the Perfect 10 came by and asked if we wanted to go for a hike up a small mountain on our own… Uhhh hell yeah. We hopped out of the pool and we were off. In our flipflops. A.W.F.U.L. idea, but we all survived… the views from the top of the mountain were awesome, so it was all worth it in the end.

We had to be back at the truck at 4:30 because we had a sunset date with Fish River Canyon, and all of us were on time and loaded in at 4:25 or so and we headed off.

When we got there, it was about a 25 minute pre-sunset hike from the dropoff point to the viewing point. We walked along leisurely, took a plethora of photos of the Canyon, which is apparently the next biggest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. The scenery was gorgeous and the hike was simple but perfect for the end of the day.

The viewing point was nicely appointed for the middle of nowhere in the Kalahari Desert – it had a permanent overhang, plenty of picnic tables, and some pretty strong metal railings to ensure that we didn’t careen over the edge. Haha.

Maja and Masai had dinner prepared for us at the viewing point when we arrived, so we washed up, grabbed a platter, and raced back up to the railing to watch the sunset and enjoy our meal.

All of us were chatting during the sunset, and one of the things we’ve really been amazed by on the tour so far is the fact that the sunrises and sunsets TRULY are the colors that we’ve been trained to imagine by Disney movies. The reds, blues, purples, oranges and yellows are all there… and it’s really unlike anything any of us have experienced in our home countries or in other places we’ve traveled. I tried to snap a few photos, but honestly even though these are nice, they don’t do the reality any justice at all.

Post dinner we hopped back in the truck and headed back to the campsite. We were all pretty wiped out, but a few of us went to the Poison Room to have a nightcap and try to get on the WiFi. Fortunately the drinks were good, but unfortunately the WiFi was horrendous.

This prompted an interesting discussion about WiFi and the trip in general… we came to the conclusion that we’d rather a place just not have WiFi than it tell us they do and then it not work. There’s something about having the promise of something and then having it be incorrect that seems worse to us than just not having it at all. #firstworldproblems I suppose, eh?

I DID manage to get a blog posted with a photo I downloaded from the Acacia website, and then the last of us headed back to camp to get some rest. Tomorrow’s another day!