It's a lifestyle. I don't own anything, but I travel-Kari, from Finland

Tuesday morning of our trip, we woke up and walked to pick up our Toyota Rav 4 for the next 10 days. We drove back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and as Kiah as co-pilot we made it. We kept reminding ourselves to drive on the left, turn to the left lane, stay on the left.

After a light breakfast, we were out and on the road. We drove for about 4 hours from Windhoek to Sossusvlei. When we picked up the rental car, we had to watch a safety video and I'm really glad we did. Leaving the city, the road is paved, but after a turn a third of the way, you turn on to a dirt, gravel road for the rest of the trip. The dirt road is bumpy and most of the way held the tires in place. However, there was a section of the road that I seriously thought we were going to spin out. It was about half way and the car started to veer to the left and into the side of the road. I overcompensated to the right and then the car started to loose it's traction and spin, but I remembered my high school car training and stepped off the brake and had the car slow it's self down to get ourselves situated again. It was a little scary being my first time skidding, but we were able to make it out ok. 

During the last third of the trip, there was a sign warning drivers about a steep gradient. Before the steep hill, the road turns from dirt to brick and is paved in a small brick pattern and thank goodness. There were portions of the road that when you got to the top and went over the hill, you couldn't see the rest of the road ahead and just hoped it was there. The anticipation of the road being there was the scariest part of the drive. The majority of the roads in Namibia are not paved so overall driving is a little scary and a little difficult. 

We arrived at Namib Naukflat safe and sound. We checked in and headed out for a sunset drive. We saw a few animals-geckos, springbok, oreck and warthog. I was trying to explain warthog to someone in the car we were in, and someone helped us out by saying "Pumba, from the Lion King" and Kiah thanked him for speaking Kiah. 

This gentleman ended up joining us for dinner. His name was Kari, from Finland who I got the title of this post from. Very nice guy, traveled all over and we were able to talk to him about his many adventures. After a delicious dinner of chicken stew and oreck ribs, we headed to our hotel room to get ready to get up at 6 the next morning. Our first day of driving was completed and our 10 day trip around the country was beginning. 

Wazers unite

Do you know the application Waze? It’s a map application to help you navigate around traffic with updated traffic and obstacles by other users. However, the greatness of the application is determined by the other users. Usually, I don’t listen to my Waze. Sometimes the lady is a little bit of a pain and doesn’t like making left turns. Sometimes I’m not in a hurry and while the other way might be 2 minutes faster, I want to go this way because I want to stop by Starbucks.

On my way to Vegas, my estimated time of arrival changed with an addition of 40 minutes on the road. Then I heard the sound I wanted to hear “A faster route has been found”. My Waze directed me off the freeway and I drove like the wind on a side road that paralleled the freeway. I was cruising right along where I passed the accident and was wondering “how come no one else is on this road?” With about 3 miles left on the road, I come to a road closure on that stretch of high way. “NOOOO!” I shouted and cursed into the wind. Oh, well there is another road here, I wonder if it’ll work…..driving down the road about 5 miles, I can to the end of a dirt road that just faded into the desert. Damn it. I turned around and at the point of the road closure, saw cars caravanning through the desert to get back on the freeway past the point of the accident. I then proceeded to get inline and update my Waze so other’s wouldn’t make the same mistake I did.

But as I was in line, the trailer that was leading the pack got stuck in the sand and while kicking up dirt, I decided to just go back half way and get on the freeway entrance I had previously passed. Luckily though, the truck that had overturned was pushed off to the side and traffic was once again moving. But Wazers, if you had taken the time to update the road closure (cause I doubt I was the first person to have seen it) I wouldn’t have been misled. I was thanked several times through the application for updating the roads. You could have been thanked too. So Wazers, take the time to update the major things to help us save time for the small things.