Road Trippin

I don't have much time here because we have to get back on the road in a bit, but I'll give you guys a quick recap of our life since Franschhoek. We left Cape Town fairly late in the day on Tuesday due to a mix-up with the car so we spent the morning printing out pictures from our time in Franschhoek and framing them to give to all of our friends there. We finally got a call from Rudi that our car had arrived and met him at his office. Before long a SWEET bright blue Honda Jazz rolled up so we jammed our giant backpacks into the hatchback and set off for Cape Town. Pete, a friend of Doug's, had offered his apartment to us for our time in Cape Town. Little did we know that he was completely giving up the apartment for us. He slept at his brother's all week and would phone us to see if it was OK for him to come up to grab something for 10 minutes. We did the major sights in Cape Town: took a cable car and hiked the top of Table Mountain (advice: don't wear flip-flops or tight jeans to do this), drove along the coast, went to the Waterfront (basically a large mall), the District Six museum and Robben Island. The District Six museum was awesome because it talked about a very vibrant, cultural neighborhood that existed from the 1930's - 1960's, but the city wanted to re-zone to make room for growth. This only meant growth for white people, though, so they uprooted 100's of thousands of black and coloured people to tiny houses (if anything) with few amenities on the Cape Flats. Robben Island was awesome to see also because that's where many of the political prisoners were kept including Nelson Mandela. We had a good time in Cape Town but were anxious to get the road trip started so on Saturday morning we drove for 6 hours along the Western Cape.

Rudi had reserved us a room at a farm where families host visitors. He wasn't kidding when he said the farm was in the middle of nowhere... the scenery on the way there was gorgeous but we drove on dirt roads (which the Jazz isn't built for) for a long time looking for the farm. When we finally found it they told us we were staying on a different property and made us backtrack... by the time we got there they had dinner waiting for us though and there were 2 American couples and 1 South African family staying there too so we visited with them for awhile and passed out. Yesterday we drove 3 more hours to the town we are in now, Springbok. It's the largest town in the northern Cape, but that's not saying much. It reminds me of a lot of small, agricultural towns in California or Nevada (think, King City). Not much here, but the past 2 stops have just been layovers on our way to Namibia. We're heading up to the border today and spending the next couple of nights at Fish River Canyon. It's supposedly the next most spectacular canyon after the Grand Canyon and they have Hot Springs too! We'll write more after our stay there.

OK, I've been promising to post our road trip itinerary for awhile so here it is. We do not know exactly how long we will be in each place but we estimate about 3 weeks between Namibia and Botswana and a week and a half for South Africa.

Today: Head north of Springbok to Vioolsdrif (Namibian border city), continue to Ai Ais in Fish River Canyon.

Drive north to Windhoek (capital of Namibia)

Drive to Swakopmund - this is where Brad's friend operates the desert white elephant tour, so we may meet up with him. There is also sand boarding and skydiving here!

Visit Walvis Bay to see flamingo colonies and sand dunes.

Head north to Etosha State Park for 3 day safari

Drive east along Caprivi Strip of Namibia, stay 1 night in Caprivi National Park

Continue to Kasani, Botswana. Leave car at police station and arrange trips to Victoria Falls & Chobe National Park from here.

Drive to Maun and arrange a trip to the Okavongo Delta from there.

Continue south to Sherwood (South African border city) and overnight in Sandton, outside Jo-Berg.

Drive to Golden Gate National Park, stay for 2 days.

Continue to the Drakensberg Mountains

Drive to Bethlehem, stay in Clarens overnight.

Continue to Smithfield and then Port Elizabeth (stay overnight).

Continue along Garden Route back to Cape Town (includes Jeffrey's Bay, Plettenberg Bay, Knysna and other fun beach towns).

**Well, that's what we have so far. We'll keep you updated as we go! Keep the emails and posts coming, we love to get them.