Sealy Saturday

Oceanside in Swakopmund, Namibia, Robyn and I took to the chilly seas atop a kayak to visit seals and dolphins.  Spectacular visibility awaited us at the end of Pelican Point in a sheltered bay.  A quick lesson from Leonard from Namibia Kayak Tours and we were on the glassy bay as seals young and old played in the water and on the sandbanks.  At Leonard's urging we paddle sprinted to the dorsal fins of dolphins and were rewarded as they popped up to breathe a handful of boat lengths away.  

We're approximately halfway through an overland tour of Namibia with Nomads bound for Cape Town, South Africa.  Our tourmateys have actually been a treat, our one (out of two) guides lacklustre and we've collectively been blown away by the scenery, animals and diversity of this African gem.  

Curious marine friends

Chillin on the beach

My favourite bow bitch

Namibian flora has some spectacular adaptations to its dry climate

Typical tentscapes

TIA

There's no shit shy in Africa.

"How's your bowels?" is a common greeting as meds are swapped on the advice of the coincidentally on-board Aussie nurse and pharmacist.  When not popping Cipro or "stoppers" for the travel days, any lingering reservations of pooping in public washrooms has literally disappeared down the toilet for our Commonwealth-citizened truck bound for Johannesburg.

With public washrooms a generous term, I have yet to encounter Thea's Malian "trous" or Risa's poo-bombed cement pads in Ghana but have been blessed with my fair share of filthy squat toilets where your and, more often, other's waste could not be more confronting.

While beach strolling in Essaouira, Morocco, I happened on a two-child couple engaged in the most compelling birth control: the father suspending a defecating toddler while the mother collected it from the sand in a plastic baggie.

As Dan was throwing his bag into his airport taxi - after his nth visit to the hostel's clean, private toilets - to start on his journey back to Chetwynd, I was dispensing his second course of Cipro.  Fingers crossed he lands an aisle seat for his 23-hour journey...