Last look at Southern Namibia

I was going through some photos and realized I neglected to show a few in past posts.   We left Gondwana National Park a couple weeks ago and drove back to Luderitz.  But before we left the resort, I took a couple pics of these fellas.   I thought they look like groundhogs, but they are as tame as squirrels and are called a rock hyrax.   They weren’t skiddish or camera shy, as you can tell.

On the drive home we saw some of our feathered and furry friends.  A group of ostriches and several packs of baboons.   Both very camera shy, but luckily I had my telephoto lense on the camera.

We saw lots of scenic lanscapes and rock formations.   We even stopped at a river.  It always surprised me how much difference water makes in this environment.  Most of what we saw was barren desert and wasteland, but then all of a sudden a river would pop up out of nowhere and completely change the look and feel of things.  Our guide, Rudy, told us a lot about diamonds and I couldn’t help but think about all the diamonds buried in this soil. Almost everywhere we drove, there were mounds of dirt where people/companies had dug up the area looking for diamonds.  I started wondering whether I would get lucky enough to stumble across one and actively looked on the ground everywhere we stopped.  Of course there are fines and jail time for smuggling diamonds out of the country, but the allure was still there.   More on this in future posts.

And you know that I have a hard time resisting skyscapes as well.   Here are some of the amazing cloud formations we saw on the drive home.

Our three day tour of the southern Namibian desert came to a close and we were definitely more appreciative of the Namibian landscape.   What are your favorite places to visit in Namibia?

Next up, I’ll be posting about a ghost town where diamonds were mined and people lived the life of luxury in the heyday of this former mining town.  As always, don’t forget to subscribe by email or you can follow on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, or Instagram!  Let me know how you are Living Large by Living Little!