The second day of our trip through Southern Namibia began early: we arose at 6:30 a.m. to pack up our tents, have breakfast around the remnants of the campfire, and get back on the road.

Just before noon, we arrived at the Mesosaurus Camp. The site is run by a farmer who discovered mesosaurus (a lizard-like creature that lived approximately 270 million years ago) fossils on his property. The farmer, who was a bit of a ham and clearly enjoyed having tourists, took us on a tour of part of his property, first to show us the fossils and then to tell us about the local terrain.

The first leg of our our 23-day camping trip was a 7-day circuit through Southern Namibia. After meeting our guides and the rest of our group in Windhoek, we set off into the Kalahari Desert.

Since we had arrived in Namibia via overnight bus, this was the first chance we had to see the Namibian countryside. During our brief stops at the sign demarcating the Tropic of Capricorn and for lunch, we admired the wide-open spaces and the desert life.

After spending a month driving ourselves around South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho, we decided to hand the trip-planning reins over to Wild Dog Safaris and booked ourselves on their 23-day “African Odyssey” camping trip. The trip was essentially comprised of three smaller trips: (i) a 7-day circuit through Southern Namibia, (ii) a 7-day loop through Northern Namibia, and (iii) a 9-day journey through Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and Botswana, ending at the Zambian side of Victoria Falls in Livingstone. Our trip began in Windhoek, and also returned to Windhoek for one night after each of our weeks in Southern and Northern Namibia.

To reach Windhoek, we took an Intercape bus from Cape Town. The journey, which began at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, was projected to take 18 hours. In fact, due to road construction and the general shenanigans associated with international border crossings, the bus took more than 24 hours to reach Windhoek.

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