Thank you for the friendly reminder that I never finished this story. It’s hard to keep up when things are changing so fast.
We did end up spending an extra day in Cape Town with Tom and Cindy. It was a great time to learn more about what it truly means to live in community; they share everything. We also just got to absorb some of their wisdom and experience. It was a real blessing.
When it was getting close to time to leave, I grabbed the map to look for some adventure on the way back to Pretoria. There did not seem to be much to see on the route we had planned, so I looked for other options.
There was another route that went up the west coast and across the north by the border to Namibia. I have a friend that spent a few months in Namibia and I would have loved to visit myself but it wasn’t on the schedule. Maybe I could get close though.
Namibia is a whole lot of sand dunes just like in the movies. So, I thought if we got close, we might be able to see some at least. I calculated the distance and discovered that it was only 119 km farther than the direct route. That’s only about an hour or two. And, there is another Nature Reserve with a really cool waterfall. This time, there was even a picture to prove that it exists.
After petitioning Jake and Eric for a few minutes, they agreed to the adventure. I think the girls wanted to stuff me in a box and tie me to the roof though. But, I assured them that I checked the distance and that it wasn’t another day and a half out of the way. They reluctantly let down their protests.
The scenery was amazing as we drove up the west side of the country. We were too far inland to see the coast, but there were lots of vineyards and orchards along the way. The landscape changed every few minutes as we drove north. It continued to get drier and rockier the farther we went.
By the time the sun set, we were in the middle of some red rock formations. It looked a lot like Arizona. It was gorgeous with the red and orange glow and the blue sky behind us.
By the time we reached the reserve, it was dark. We were heading toward the park when we found a “Backpackers” sign with arrows. That was the same place they had told us about when we stopped in East London. We decided to just go there and wait until morning to go to the reserve.
We followed the arrows left and then right and then left and then right and on and on until we finally go to a driveway at the end of the road. The place was kind of vacant, accept for one guy inside the main building. He didn’t own the place but was just visiting. The owner had gone out for a few minutes.
He invited us inside to wait for the owner to return. It turns out that the owner didn’t really want to run the place anymore, so he quit advertising it. He still takes in the few people that happen to drive in, but his main focus was on flying his hot air balloon. The man visiting was working with him for a short while. He said something about flying around to look for a lost city or something. I didn’t catch the whole story.
I was reading the tourist guide in the lobby and realized that we were actually in the Kalahari desert. How cool is that? It wasn’t the part that is all sand dunes, but it was still cool. I wanted to go dune boarding, but he said there are only a few dunes scattered around that area.
They made up some rooms for us and let us use the kitchen to cook dinner. We even watched a movie in the living room for a while. It was very quiet, and there were millions of stars visible in the desert sky.
A few hour after going to sleep, I woke up feeling very sick. I had to run down to the boy’s house because we didn’t have a bathroom in ours. My stomach was messed up!
I was in there for a long time, and I suddenly got really weak and felt like I was going to pass out. I stumbled down the hall and into the first door I found. It was Jake’s room. I told him I was really sick, and then ran back to the bathroom just in time to puck in the bathtub. I was really sick.
When I could get up, I went and laid down in the extra room. I didn’t sleep much. There was a creepy picture of a serpent painted on the wall, but I prayed that the room was protected in Jesus name, and tried to sleep. Jake checked in a few times throughout the night, but I was doing better.
In the morning, Jake told me that when I came into his room and woke him up, he saw a little demon following behind me. He prayed against it, and that is when I pucked and the demon left.
I felt nauseous all day, and the car ride was not real fun. I wasn’t even all that excited about the waterfall at that point. I just wanted to sleep.
We did go to the reserve though, and took a few quick pictures before getting back on the road. We would have stayed a little longer, but they wanted to charge us a whole lot of money to be there. We told them we couldn’t afford it, so they said we could just leave. We quickly ran down the path and snapped a few pictures and ran back to the car. Then it was another day of driving non-stop.
We arrived safely back at Alabanza just after sunset. It was a great trip, but I don’t think my teammates ever want me to have the map again.
