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the next morning we walked into the mountains. At the base of the mountains, Pipa and Alene turned back around, and we followed them. We got in the car and drove through the Huab Riverbead, looking for elephants the whole time. We stopped at a tiny settlement and bought a bracelet and a Namibian flag. We gave them a toy airplane. On the way to the other section of the Huab, we stopped at a place where Pipa had seen a cheetah. It looked like the American south-west, but it was really the African south-west. Here are some pictures…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way to the upper Huab, the other car popped their tyre. We were in the barren Namib desert.

A bit of the barren desert

The tyre had to be replaced with another leaky tyre. We decided to turn back after that.

The dead beetles had been bleached by the sun.

On the way back, we drove through through the Huab Riverbead. Nocked down trees and elephant poop & footprints, but we didn’t see any elephants at all.

The Namib Desert

 

 

That morning we left the camp early to go around the Brandberg Massif. On the way we saw welwitschia plants. These plants have incredibly long roots to find water and two leaves that grow outwards from the woody centre. Sometimes welwitschia’s leaves split in the wind and it appears that they have many leaves. Welwitschias live only in the Namib desert, in parts of Namibia and Angola. They can grow to around 2,000 years old!

 

After the welwitschias, we drove through a place where there was no life at all except for us. It looked like the moon or Mars.

 

After the nothingness, we drove through a grassy area where Sam found us a zebra and a family of three adult ostriches and 15 babies!

We kept driving into a beautiful canyon with many succulents

 

In the Ugab river bed, we got out of the car to take a hike to the top of a mountain. On the way I saw a kudu

Can you spot the kudu?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Views of Damaraland from jeppie’s lookout.

Then, we drove by a beautiful fold.

After the Ugab river, we drove across the Namib Desert to a grassy area where a huge herd of ostriches crossed the road in front of us and springbok frolicked in the trees. we pulled over for that.

Someone spotted an oryx herd and elephant poop.

At the end of the day, we pulled up under a tree near a pile of elephant poop.

 

I took pictures of Jupiter and Venus

Jupiter

Venus

 

The next morning, we all drove to another guest house that had a lot of succulents. This is where Paul Hoffman, Mary, and some other people were. We met here, and went on our way.

 

Cactus at the other guesthouse.

On our way there, we did not see any wildlife but birds, but the savannah grassland was beautiful.

 

At one time, we stopped at a little town among the tall termite mounds. At the town there was a coffe shop with a nice cat. There were also chickens in the back yard

The cat and chickens.

We kept driving, while the trees and grasses got shorter and shorter until there were none at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At a gas station in Uis, some Herero women and a baby were selling things they’d made. I bought a dishcloth with Guinea Foul on it. Sam bought a bracelet with porcupine quills on it.

On our way to the campsite we saw 3 ostriches.

 

 

At the campsite, there was a large rock

The Namib desert from the rock

At sunset, it was beautiful

The sun was red to, but the picture didn’t take it

 

On Wednesday, we woke up early to go on a plane at the airport. This plane would take us to Namibia. The plane was small, but we did see the Kalahari desert’s many sand dunes.

The plane

When the plane reached Windhoek, I was very excited because I was in Namibia. Aparently, the airport was far away from the city so on the drive there we saw a bunch of baboons and a warthog crossed the street in front of us. In Windhoek we received our car and our guest house room.

Receiving our car.

In Windhoek we ate dinner with everybody at Joes Beerhouse where they serve gazel and zebra meat. I didn’t eat any. The guesthouse had a lot of animals, including 4 cats & 3 dogs. It also had incredible succulents their too.

Cactiat the guest house

 

Haworthias at the guest house.

Euphorbia at the guesthouse

 

On our last day in Cape Town, we wanted to go to Robben Island. Sam felt better now, and the sea was calm. Unfortunately the tickets were sold out, so we went down the cape of good hope. On the way down, we ate lunch at a fancy restraunt and went to a boulders beach, a penguin colony beach.

A penguin family at boulders beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the Penguins, we tried to go down to the end of the cape of good hope, but it was too late. We were still glad we saw the penguinS.

 

 

The next day Sam threw up. Unfortunately, that was the same day we were supposed to go to Robben Island. Mama decided she would go there with me, but she was to worried to go. We finally decided to go down the Cape of Good Hope, but in Hout Bay, we ended up in townships, or shanty towns, where everyone stared at us like we weren’t supposed to be there. After that, we went home. When we got back, Daddy told me he would take me up Table Mountain, so that is what we did.

Table mountain

We found out that we should take a gondola to the top and hike back down so we got onto the gondola and took it to the top.

Robben Island from Table Mountain

At the top, there was a restaurant, and Daddy forgot the PB&J’s so we ate next to aloe at the restaurant.

After lunch, Daddy and I walked across table mountain to the hike down. On the hike back down, I saw many succulents and birds. The views were incredible!

Succulent on tAble mountain

Orange and black bird on table mountain

View from the trail down.

 

After we landed in Cape Town, we drove to our temporary house. It had amazing views of the ocean and Table Mountain.

The view from the house.

After we saw the house, we headed for Kirstenbosch, an amazing botanical garden in Cape Town. I found many succulents.

aloes at Kirstenbosch

Kirstenbosch didn’t have only plants, Guinea Fowl and ducks were everywhere. One kid almost got bitten by a duck(he deserved it).

 

Guinea Fowl at Kirstenbosch

The succulents at Kirstenbosch are incredible!

Tuberous succulent at Kirstenbosch .

Asclepiadaceae member at Kirstenbosch

Aloes at Kirstenbosch

Kirstenbosch also had a boardwalk in the sky. A treetop path wends its way through the canopy of Kirstenbosch.

Sam on the boardwalk

 

We drove to LAX at 7:00 pm. We ate sushi and I found a succulent called Sanseveria.

While we were playing on the convador belt, we spotted our plane out the window. It had two stories. The top and the bottom were equal in length and we sat on the top.

We took that plane to London Hethrow. When we landed in London, we spotted a huge funnel of smoke in the air. We think that London was on fire! We took trams around under the runway to get to large glass buildings surrounded by airplanes, or as they call it, “aeroplanes.” We found our airplane to Cape Town next to the one to Madrid. This time the airplane was smaller, but had farther to go.

We flew over France, Spain, Andorra, and The Meddeteranian before I took pictures of desert towns in Algeria, Angola, and Namibia.

 

Algerian City

Angolan San people camp

Windhoek, Namibia.

We saw South Africa from above. It had interesting cloud patterns.

Salt marsh in South Africa

 

Today we shall go to the top of a jumbo jet and take it to London. Then we shall take a small plane to Cape Town. We shall be in Cape Town for a few days and then we shall leave for Windhoek, Namibia, and we’ll be in Namibia for two and a half weeks. Then, we shall fly through Johannesburg, Abu dhabi, and Berlin to get to Graz, Austria. We will drive around Austria and go down to Slovenia. Then we will drive to Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. We might go to Montenegro. We will drive back up to Vienna and take a bus to Prague in the Czech Republic. From there we will fly to Copenhagen and then to Amsterdam in the Netherlands and back to LA.

 

 

testing…