Sandboarding and 1500 year old trees
Sand boarding in the morning. A good experience and actually quite a bit easier than snowboarding. The sand is much softer than ice, so when the board 'goes under', you don't actually fall over. Not to say I didn't fall, as I did have my share of the sand-wich.
In the afternoon, the Welwitschia drive & moon landscape, according to the Lonely Planet "a worthwhile excursion", but I found it only mildly interesting, even though you get to see a 1500 year old tree. And then there was the constant fear that the car would finally fall apart on the dirt roads of the route.
Dinner at The Lighthouse, where the size of the meals resembles that of a food aid shipment to some small hungry African nation. And, as size isn't everything, or so they say, it was also very tasteful. Their most extravagant dishes carry the word 'Lighthouse' in the name, including The Lighthouse Burger, which was something of a foot-high hamburger with a kebab-stick through it to keep everything together.
For our last night in Swakop, we moved to a different location, Dunes Backpackers Lodge where the slightly lower price tag of 27 euros per double per night wasn't really justified as this, really, was a backpackers, even though this meant the possibility of ogling the too-young girls with too-short skirts travelling through Africa on an overlander trip.
Dunes does have an indoor pool and bar area but on this Friday night, the bar was taken over by the owner and her friends, who were line dancing on Afrikaans sokkies (dance music). The owner, a middle-aged woman who had had a few Lighthouse burgers too many, ended up dancing on the bar before taking a fully clothed dive in the pool. All very entertaining, I'm sure, but as this happened shortly before 12 at night, I'm sure not everyone in the hostel appreciated this as much as she herself did. Shortly after, all the Afrikaans party goers had retreated to the pool and were smoking and drinking in their new wet surroundings.