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September 19, 2001

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First full day in Namibia, a contry of approximately 1.8 million people spread out over 800,000 square miles in South West Africa. Although English is the official language, everyone seems to speak Afrikaans, which reminds us that Namibia has only been independent from South Africa since 1990. At independence, the new government shed the creative name of South West Africa and changed to a name derived from the local language of the Nama people. Namib means 'vast, dry plain,' a fitting description for much of the country's geography.

Namibia is a huge country: if you placed it over Europe it would cover over London, Rome, Paris, and Munich.

The first thing people do in a desert is gravitate to water. We spent our first day in this dry country floating down the Orange river.

Rough lava shoreline.