We drove to Fish River Canyon in the morning of August 5th. We had another 400 kilometres to get there. We stopped again to watch the wild horses and continued our journey. The scenery changed a bit after the turn towards the canyon with flat plains along a railroad, yellow sandy unsealed roads, and more rocky patches. At some point, we saw a sign for “the best applestruddel in Namibia” in the middle of nowhere. It was time for a coffee break! The coffee place ended up being in an old farm, owned and managed by a couple in their sixties, former farmers who had enough with cattle. There were many junked cars nicely displayed in the garden, and even two massive crocodiles in a cage. They were really sweet and fun people, and the applestruddel business was a breakthrough for them. Nobody was stopping for a coffee only on their way to Fish River Canyon, but since they added their apple pie, things changed. And indeed, while we were there, three other cars stopped and first question was “Can we have applestruddel?”.

After this nice break we headed to Hobas, the camp where we would be based for the night. We got the keys to our chalet and drove to the main viewpoint over the canyon. Fish River Canyon is apparently the second biggest larger canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in the United States. The sun was still a bit high, so we drove to go and see the other viewpoints. The first one was Hiker’s viewpoint, which is also the start point of the multi day hike in the canyon. Then we took a side track to go a bit further, spotting mountain zebras on the way. The view above the canyon became more and more impressive with the setting sun. We stopped for a sundowner, meaning having a drink watching sunset in the middle of nowhere, and waited for the sun to disappear on the horizon while sipping our glass of wine. That is probably my favourite time of the day, enjoying beauty of nature, quietness, wilderness and wine with Eff.We went back to the camp and settled in out very nice chalet. There was no campsite available when we booked, so had to pick another accommodation, but we were very happy with the large bungalow we got instead. A bit lazy to cook, we also had dinner at the restaurant. We knew we would not have that many opportunities later on to indulge much, so we enjoyed while we could.

We came back to the canyon for sunrise. It was quite cold, and to be honest not really worth it. The view was much better when we came back after breakfast. Had I known, I would have stayed in bed longer and had let Eff go by himself… The canyon is very nice, but not up to my expectations. For some reasons I was expecting richer colours on the rocky walls, more red and orange than brownish. It was still a nice stop and I was glad we came for a day.

We drove to Keepmanshoop to refuel and do a bit of grocery shopping, and we were back on the road. Only few miles away from the town, the landscape was full of quiver trees. They were standing tall, branches up to the sky. We drove a bit more and entered the neighbouring part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The sandy road was going up and down through the tiny sand dunes, alternating between white and red, with small greenish bushes along the way. Some oryxes were here and there, popping up in the scenery with their graphic design. We could feel the safari adventure being closer and closer. We stopped at a farm stall to spend the night, 15km before the Mata-Mata gate. The day after was the start of the main reason of our trip: safari, national parks, big five and any other animals we could see and observe. It was time for a well-deserved sleep, full of the dreams we were about to live.

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