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.

Kalahari Anib Lodge

This is our last review of the Gondwana Collection of Namibia lodges. We'll do one more post at some point over the next little while detailing our "best of" those lodges! But for now, let's have a look at the Kalahari Anib Lodge.

This lodge is the closest one to the capital City of Windhoek, and so it's a common location for people either beginning or ending their Namibia adventure.

Hiking with the Oryx!

We went for a 7 km (4.5 mile) hike yesterday morning. We were a little late leaving and it gets hot fairly early in the day. We could have turned around early, but we decided we could do the whole route.

Besides, when you're hiking with the oryx, the wildebeest, the ostriches, and the springbok it's pretty interesting!

The Desert Horse Inn

We recently spent two nights at Gondwana Collection's Klein-Aus Vista Desert Horse Inn. This lodge is the closest Gondwana property to Luderitz and the Kolmanskop ghost town. And of course to the wild horses of the Namib Desert.

But you don't even need to leave the property for something to do. Especially if you're into hiking or mountain biking!

We can see the sea!

On Friday, we took a drive to the seaside town of Luderitz, Namibia. It was about 115 kms (71 miles) along a stretch of very boring road. But we had a fun day when we got there.

It really makes you wonder what attracted the Germans to the area in the first place. Of course it was the diamonds that were found at nearby Kolmanskop, and the fact that there was an actual bay to dock a boat in. But, the town lies on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa.

The fantastic Canyon Lodge!

We showed you some preview pictures of Gondwana Collection's amazing Canyon Lodge and the response was that you want to see more. We don't blame you. What a great place, and anyone coming to Namibia's Fish River Canyon owes themselves a stay at Canyon Lodge.

Here you go...and you even get a video of our very cool room!

The diamond mining ghost town of Kolmanskop, Namibia

In 1908, a large diamond field was found near the southeast coast of Namibia. The area was so rich in diamonds that they say that the first miners to the area were able to scoop them out of the sand!

A town grew around the mining area. Soon, the German government at the time built a hospital and the town thrived with a power station, a school, a ballroom and activity center and other amenities.

Canyon Roadhouse

We stayed two nights at the Gondwana Canyon Roadhouse . It's a fun place, decorated like an old "Route 66" style garage. Where they come up with this number of artifacts, I have no idea. It's almost like an old museum.

And it's located only 14 kms from the Fish River Canyon.

Well that was a different Christmas.

We haven't really updated you about our activities since we arrived at The Canyon Roadhouse on the 23rd. And then, we took a blog holiday yesterday! We figured that none of you were going to be on the internet anyhow (yeah, right!) being that it was Christmas Day and all...so we took a break too.

So we'll kind of squeeze two days worth of activities in this one post!

Kalahari Farmhouse

We recently spent two nights at the Gondwana Collection's Kalahari Farmhouse near Stampriet, Namibia. This place is a little different because the lodge and chalet rooms are situated on an actual working farm.

And you can even have a tour of the farm.

Rain turns the dirt roads to mud!

We had to do about 440 kms (275 miles) yesterday from the Kalahari Farmhouse to the Canyon Roadhouse. There's an easy paved road that goes that distance, but it wouldn't be like us to do it the easy way!

Actually it was more wanting to do it the exciting way instead of the boring way. And exciting it was...

Namib Desert Lodge

We recently spent three nights at the Gondwana Collection's Namib Desert Lodge. This is a larger resort, with 65 rooms. It's within a day trip of the popular desert dunes at Sossusvlei, and that's the main attraction for most people.

But, it's also a very scenic destination itself, and we enjoyed the three days we spent just exploring the area around the lodge.

From one desert to the next.

Yesterday we drove from the Namib Desert to the western edge of the Kalahari Desert. And we had to drive through the Naukluft Mountains to do it. A really pretty area, and we totally enjoyed that part of the drive.

And, we picked up another hitchhiker along the way!

Thunderstorm in the desert!

Here in the Namib Desert, it gets pretty hot at this time of year. And it's supposed to be the rainy season now, but after all, this is the desert. So we weren't counting on seeing too much of that! Either way, we wanted to do some hiking and they've got two trails here at the Namib Desert Lodge. And because it gets so hot, we hit the trail at 7:30am yesterday morning.

Before breakfast!

The Dune Star

We're currently staying at The Namib Desert Lodge. The lodge is located on the edge of a series of petrified sand dunes. Yes, sand that has sat and compressed for so long that it has turned to rock. The scenery here is so spectacular that Gondwana Collection has built a camp on top of one of these petrified dunes!

Yesterday, we went on a little sundowner safari to have a look at this new camp. The Dune Star Camp.