The owner of Travel Bug Safaris, Chad, was our guide for the trip, his humor and love for his job made things extra special. We had quite the international crew as travel companions - besides Kaylan, me, and Kaylan's two friends from Stanford, we had an Australian globe-trotter (taking a year off to travel, he'd just spend 6 weeks in India), a South Korean chemistry student on holiday, a Franco-German working in Windhoek temporarily. Since Chad is South African, we did quite well with the Continental representation (except for South America).
Leaving Windhoek Friday morning, we headed south-west through the Khomas Hochland highlands to the edge of the Great Escarpment, the dividing range which also crosses Angola, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. This major geographic feature separates the high plateaus of the southern African interior from the coastal lowlands. While munching on sandwiches for lunch, we enjoyed the dramatic view from the top of the Spreetshoogte Pass. Ham and salami are very popular sandwich meats here, good luck finding turkey. Also, I was a little bummed we didn't have any mustard or mayo for our sandwiches... until I discovered dijon mustard cream cheese. The texture was what we'd call "whipped" in the states so it was easy to spread and had little hunks of mustard seed in it. It felt weird to put cream cheese on a sandwich, but then again, most sandwiches are buttered here, and it ended up being really tasty.
After descending the steep and scary roads through the Spreetshoogte Pass, I was happy to be on the flat land and enjoyed the view of the Namib Desert. After about an hour's drive, we stopped at tiny oasis town aptly called Solitaire – well known for its bakery and homemade apple pie. Good thing Kaylan and I split a piece... this was more like an apple experience than a traditional pie, per se. There was a crusty, buttery layer at the bottom, topped with some sort of rich, carmel-y, buttery custard, then cinnamon and sugar apples, more of the creamy custard, brown-sugar & butter crumb topping, and garnished with some homeade whipped cream. Wow.
After apple pie and coffee in Solitaire, it was only a forty-minute drive to Camp Agama. The Camp is situated at the base of the Naukluft Mountains and is just plain gorgeous. Since Chad brings a group every week, there were huge dome tents already set up for us - it felt like a palace after Brooke, Kaylan, and I shared the teeny 2-person tent in Harnas last weekend, we could stand up in this one! Since setting up camp was a breeze, we had the rest of the afternoon to take a walk and enjoy the scenery (and sunshine).
I'm not sure if Kaylan and I were still giddy / delirious from the apple pie or just feeling patriotic, here's us giving a little tribute the States in front of the Naukluft Mountains.
Nothing like a sundowner and an African sunset... breathtaking.
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