Closest neighbors 7km away.

Since we had already established over lunch that there was no realistic way for us to make it all the way to Swakopmund today, I had researched interesting looking campsites along the way. One that stuck out was called the RostockRitz. Rostock, in case you are unaware, is a small city at the Baltic coast of Germany.

The German influence in Namibia had not gone unnoticed by us, with a lot of the street names in Windhoek having German names ("Talstraße") , and a proper "Buchhandlung" (book store) right next to our apartment there.

Along the way, as we were heading out of the Namib Desert, the vegetation shift was very obvious. First grasses appeared, then bushes and smaller trees. As we were cruising, we spotted a variety of animals. Funnily enough we spotted the real life equivalents of both Timon and Pumbaa from the Lion King - meerkats and warthogs. And also many of the emblematic oryx antelopes and ostriches.

We arrived at the RostockRitz approximately at sunset, where we ordered dinner in the lodge (which felt like they were only hosting German tourists, the duty manager even greeted us in German when we walked in), explored a nearby lookout point while we waited for the food, tried to get connected to the internet (which failed in the desert), and then just enjoyed the view over the great plain.

After dinner, in complete darkness, we took our camper to the campsite belonging to the lodge, which was at a distance of seven kilometers. We couldn't see very far when we arrived since the moon hadn't risen yet, but we were the only people in a range of at least seven kilometers, since we were the only ones at the campsite. We were treated to an amazing view of the milky-way while we were setting up the tent.

In the darkness it took me a little while to figure out where the showers were, but I ended up having a well deserved shower with a view over the wide plain with some mountains in the background.Read more