We are ready for South Africa!

Here we are, the last day of the year 2013 and we are right now in Namibia's capital City of Windhoek.

We have spent the last two months touring Namibia. And we drove a lot of miles.

Our camping trip in the month of November we drove 4,000 kms (2,500 miles).

Our lodge exploration trip during the month of December? 6,000 kms (3,700 miles)!

You can click on the map to enlarge it.

The red roads are the major roads in Namibia. The blue line is where we went with our camping trip, and the green line is where we went with our lodge trip.

It was a pretty ambitious project to visit all of the Gondwana lodges in one month, and it turned out to be a little more expensive than we planned on. We'll get into our expense report for the month within the next couple of days. We lived like royalty, and apparently we have the bills to prove it!

But we're back to a more normal (for us) standard of accommodation. And, we're self catering so we're cooking our own meals. Ruth made the best thai chicken curry and rice last night. It was delicious and as much as we enjoyed the restaurant meals over the last month, we enjoy Ruth's cooking too!

So where to from here?

Well, we are taking the Intercape Sleepliner luxury bus from Windhoek to Cape Town, South Africa. We leave tomorrow, New Year's Day at 5:00pm and arrive in Cape Town on Thursday at 2:00pm.

A 21 hour bus ride!

But, it has reclining sleeper seats, and it's supposed to be really comfortable, with two drivers and a hostess!

From there, we have a couchsurfing host arranged and we'll spend three days with him getting ourselves acquainted with Cape Town. It's supposed to be a vibrant, scenic city and everybody we talk to says we'll love it. So we can't wait to tell you more about it!

Then, we will rent a car for a two month tour of South Africa. The plan is to follow the southern coast as far as Durban, then head to the tiny country of Lesotho. It will still be a fair bit of driving, about 4,000 kms (2,500 miles) but this time, we have a full two months to do it.

Our approximate route for South Africa, starting and finishing in Cape Town on the far left.

But, we are on our own schedule this time, so unlike our Namibia trip that was a bit more structured, this next two months are going to be a little more laid back. So things may change as we go along, and we have no problem with that.

We hope you enjoyed following along with us in 2013, and we look forward to having you with us for whatever the next year will bring.

Happy New Year, and we wish all of our readers the very best for 2014!