In the morning, after checking out, we went to the "Kristall Galerie", which accommodates a splendid collection of crystals in varying colors and sizes.

Following a sandwich and a cake at the "Out of Africa" cafe we caught a taxi to the airport. At first the driver offered me to do the trip for something like 35 dollars which I kindly met with a counter- offer of 20. A little bit of bargaining later he finally agreed to the 20. When we arrived at the airport he wanted to charge us 40. I said "No, we agreed on 20". "Yes, per person!" he said whilst trying to look surprised of my ignorance. "Bullshit, you must be out of your mind", I said with an ironic smile, "I've never payed a taxi on a per person basis in my life ... does it read 'Idiot' on my forehead?". He wanted to drive us back to town if we didn't pay. While I was arguing with him, Linda unloaded our luggage and carried it into the hangar. But the taxi driver persisted that paying per person was the way taxi-business was done in Swakopmund. He even claimed he had the regulations in print so I requested to see them. Funny enough he didn't have them with him but offered to go and get them. Of course he never returned - at least not while we still were at the airport ;-)

Before going down the coast we flew over the Welwitschia moon landscape which we had visited by car a couple of days earlier. It is particulairly interesting to see an area from the air, when you already have studied it on the ground. Different angle, different perspective, different experience.

So we flew southbound along the coast, down to Walvis Bay, over the salt refinery and Sandwich Harbour.

One of the highlights that day was definitely the "Eduard Bohlen". Probably the most famous shipwreck in Namibia. We didn't have proper coordinates, just som crude tourist map with a shipwreck symbol in the general area of its location. Luckily we found it. Following the coastline it would have been hard to miss anyway. It was very tempting to land the plane next to it and have a closer inspection, but firstly you never know what kind of sand it is and secondly there were many other planes going up and down the coast (all of them having to do with the diamond mining business) and one of them might have reported our landing. So we decided to just do a couple of low pass-by's instead.

Then we headed for Sossusvlei, an area with the highest and certainaly most visited sand dunes in Namibia. The timing was perfect. Not necessarily planned as such, but perfect anyway. When we flew over the dunes it was late afternoon which, as everybody knows, is the best time for photography.
More cool photgraphs from Namibia (Frantisek Staud)

There are two landing strips near the camp site of Sesriem. We had tried to get permission to land at the one inside the national park, but failed to do so. Nobody seemed to be able to make the decission. One after the other person told us to call somebody else. Finally, and after we had run out of money, we gave up and decided to land at the strip belonging to the Sossusvlei lodge even though this was supposed to be very expensive (NAD 110). Shortly after we landed two other planes touched down. The pilots, Ulrich and Johan, were working for the owner of the lodge and had just completed a tourist flights for some guests. They were very friendly and gave us a lift to the camp-site (we didn't want to pay the close to NDA 2000 for a double room at the lodge), even though they actually weren't allowed to do that.

Sossusvlei is about 70 kilometers away from Sesriem. It is not possible to stay overnight inside the national park - the camp site at the entrance is actually the closest you can get accomodation wise. The last 5 km to Sossusvlei can be negotiated with a 4x4 only. For this reason there is a shuttle serivce. Ulrich and Johan suggested we should ask one of the drivers, Colin, whether he would take us with him on the morning drive to the 2x4 car park, where the shuttle service begins.

Love or hate your job

For instance Roger, the owner of Westair Aviation in Swakopmund . He had checked Charlie Romeo Oscars undercarriage for defects. On leaving Swakopmund I asked how much I owed him. His answer was simply "Ahh, nothing. We didn't find anything wrong with it". I couldn't believe it and continued: "Still, you spent time on checking and the plane has been standing in your hangar for four days now". "She wasn't in my way" was all he responded to that. Roger, thank you very much!

Unfortunately there is also the other type of person like the most unappealing woman from the Sesriem Camp Site who apparently hates her job and the customers she has to deal with.

Just the attitude makes such a difference. A lot more effort should be put into ensuring that people like their job - or that they get a job they enjoy. In other words: The overweight b&%�# from Sesriem should be re-assigned something completely different - preferably on a different planet. She was just no help whatsoever and tried to make our stay as uncomfortable as possible.