A night sleeping under the Namibia Desert stars.....

One of the downsides of this overland adventure is that it's very much self service - tent, tea, chair etc all need a bit of manual work to get them to be in the right place and at the right time. When we had our chill out time in Swakopmund we were on our own food wise. That meant to my delight that you didn't need to wash up or prepare your food. Time for a 3 course meal to take full advantage. Über guide in training Dylan had recommended the restaurant at the end of the pier - So a reservation for us girls was made - timed to take advantage of the sunset. Oysters started us off, the local kingklip fish was my main and we finished with an amarula desert thing - all washed down with copious amounts of South African wine ( £4/ bottle - rude not to).

Unfortunately the perfect day and evening was about to take a turn for the worse - we'd upgraded to a private room the previous evening, and sadly said private room wasnt available for the 2nd night. I was in with the old people, Jodie above chief snorer Rudi, and Em had wangled a space in the small Aussie room. To say the old people snored would be a massive understatement - I had 3 massive snorers - Lars had a very erratic sound not unlike a warthog, Rita had a consistently heavy breathing nightmarish sound. Finally I had Maria who also had a full on erratic pig like snore. It was as if each of them were competing in a ' who can piss Gemma off the most' competition. I had visions of getting no sleep at all, and was at the point of considering sleeping in the bathroom when I thought I'd try earplugs. I've never really thought they worked - but these were desperate times. Thankfully the zoo started to resemble a lower level distant farm sound. Sleep was had.

The bus was full of skydiving stories ( no deaths, lots of happy smiles) that morning, I showed people the video of the snorers. The drive was stunning, we went through two massive passes - a bit hair raising but there was some good driving by new truck driver Johnny - and in the main we all enjoyed being shaken about in the back of the truck.

An unexpected downside of the bumpy Namibian roads was a pretty much continual need for someone on the truck needing a wee stop. I'm not sure ill ever get used to al fresco urinating - and I was certainly regretting my large latte that morning.....there ain't much shade in the desert.

We made a few stops on the way to see some of the local flora and fauna - uber guide yet again showing off his enthusiasm and erm fit body. The quiver tree he showed us was very, very cool. Although I'm not entirely sure I was very focused.........

The bump fest continued into the afternoon until we arrived at the Charee camp site - in the beautiful Namibia desert. Stunning. We went out in an open top jeep with a fascinating guide called Boes Man ( bushman) - he wanted to show us how the desert was full of life - despite appearances. He showed us desert spiders, taught us some of the bushmen people's ways, and pointed out how the local plants had adapted to the water shortages. One of the most interesting things for me was about how the heavy rain falls of 2 years ago had massively changed the appearance of the desert - grass is now present where it used to be red soil.

That evening we decided to sleep out under the stars in the open air - I drew the short straw and had Tyler next to me - a known snorer ( negative) but he promised to protect me from scorpions and snakes. In the end around 10 of us slept out in what über guide called a Christmas tree bed. The snoring was minimal. Two amazing things happened on waking - firstly I saw a herd of mountain zebra's 50m away, secondly über guide was bringing me my final cuppa.

As I told him, it's a truly beautiful sight, only I didn't just mean the tea.....

Next stop: souslevkki for some red desert dune time....