{"id":12865,"date":"2013-04-10T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T14:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-4-walvis-bay-and-swakopmund-namibia\/"},"modified":"2013-04-10T14:04:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T14:04:00","slug":"g-adventures-west-africa-day-4-walvis-bay-and-swakopmund-namibia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/04\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-4-walvis-bay-and-swakopmund-namibia\/","title":{"rendered":"G Adventures West Africa. Day 4: Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, Namibia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-iUhcJgRDSjA\/UWVvKRSJc7I\/AAAAAAAAerU\/PqN2dMiH5b8\/s1600\/dune_girls_dance-789008.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-iUhcJgRDSjA\/UWVvKRSJc7I\/AAAAAAAAerU\/PqN2dMiH5b8\/s320\/dune_girls_dance-789008.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/--4Nihf6Q0Oo\/UWVvLNaBLzI\/AAAAAAAAerg\/0LCeKZPfcPo\/s1600\/welwitschia-791929.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/--4Nihf6Q0Oo\/UWVvLNaBLzI\/AAAAAAAAerg\/0LCeKZPfcPo\/s320\/welwitschia-791929.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Almost 800km by road north from Luderitz is the deep water port of Walvis <br \/>Bay where even the largest cruise ships can tie up. My guide for the day, <br \/>Estelle Pretorius, tells me that QM2 is coming back for her second visit <br \/>soon and that many cruise companies are visiting this town, sandwiched <br \/>between the great Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean more-or-less midway <br \/>along the Namibian Coast. <\/p>\n<p>The port, which mainly services the mining industry \u2013 evidenced by great <br \/>piles of black manganese ore on the wharf \u2013 is the nautical gateway to the <br \/>tourist centre of Swakopmund, 35kms further north. It&#8217;s difficult to <br \/>envisage a thriving tourism industry in such a remote location, surrounded <br \/>by wave upon wave of desert sand dunes. But apparently the town became a <br \/>hideaway for Angelina Jolie, who came here to give birth some years back. <\/p>\n<p>At the famous Dune 7, so called for being seven miles from town, some of the <br \/>hardy group scale the 100m pile of sand, while the rest of us enjoy an <br \/>energetic dance display from local schoolchildren (pic above). I opt for the <br \/>latter and even join the kids for a jig, a source of some amusement to both <br \/>the troupe and the assembled passengers. <\/p>\n<p>Out in the desert we see the famous and seriously ugly Welwitschia plant <br \/>(pic above) that lives for hundreds of years on a few drops of rainwater <br \/>(and looks the part \u2013 imagine a desiccated triffid run over by a <br \/>semi-trailer) as well as the desolate so-called moon landscape that could <br \/>easily be the setting for a science fiction movie. <\/p>\n<p>We sprint back to the port to try and get first dibs on the pilot, but lose <br \/>out the stately Saga Ruby just leaving for Accra, so we pop down to check <br \/>out the flamingoes wading just off the beachside boulevard. <\/p>\n<p>Our pilot aboard, we sail into the setting sun en route for Angola with two <br \/>full days at sea. <\/p>\n<p>More pics: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rodeime\">www.flickr.com\/photos\/rodeime<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>For more detail on this itinerary, see\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gadventures.com\/\">www.gadventures.com<\/a>\u00a0> West Africa <\/p>\n<p>Sent to you over a satellite phone using GMN&#8217;s XGate software. <br \/>Please be kind and keep your replies short<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost 800km by road north from Luderitz is the deep water port of Walvis Bay where even the largest cruise ships can tie up. My guide for the day, Estelle Pretorius, tells me that QM2 is coming back for her second visit soon and that many cruise companies are visiting this town, sandwiched between the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[344],"class_list":["post-12865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gap-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}