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Swakopmund

take a look at this desert beauty.

we don’t have a name for her yet, but she is a gorgeous 1980 mercedes-benz, in great condition. riding in this thing is like riding in a tank. but smoov, baby, oh so smoov. i think kids these days would say “swag“. we’ve actually had the car for about three weeks now. we had been on the lookout for a car – swakopmund can be travelled on foot, but there are much fun to be had out in the desert! – so when brenda saw it with a for sale sign in the window, it was love at first sight. we didn’t want to buy it outright, so brenda talked to the owner and rustled up a lease for the duration of our stay here instead! win! they don’t make cars like this anymore – its a real pleasure to drive this thing:)

speaking of wheels, we went go-karting! its just five minutes out of swakop but its in the middle of the desert. the photo of our car was taken in their parking lot!

this is the sign of the v8. mad max’s car is the v8 interceptor, and this is the hand sign that one of the guys came up with. they’re using it in the movie as as well. i think its quite clever! speaking of the movie, the shoot is in full swing now (hence lack of blog updates… ahem). the footage they are shooting looks amazing and i am really excited to see the finished version. its going to be awesome!

this looks like some tame david lachappelle shoot to me.

well i’m certianly making up for lost time with all these new posts!

about a month ago brenda and nayou went on a living desert tour, which is a wonderful half-day excursion to see all of the smaller creatures that call this arid patch of land home. nayou really enjoyed it and talked about it for days afterwards. going again was an inevitability (is that even a word? it is now!) and that inevitability happened on monday. tommy the tour guide did not disappoint and both brenda and nayou came back with big smiles on their faces.

look how cute this chameleon is! i can’t wait until i see one in the flesh.

this looks like it could be ticklish… or kind of painful.

they even saw a horned adder!

co-written and co-directed by brenda and nayou!

the story goes like this:

there is a wild velociraptor on the loose, which is tranquilised by a dinosaur huunter. an ambulance rushes to the stunned velociraptor and a medic tries to help it, but it wakes up and runs away.  however, the dino hunter is on its trail again and the poor thing goes down again with a tranquiliser dart. the medic rushes to its rescue but the raptor wakes up. the raptor is not happy. it sees the dino hunter and chases after him. luckily, the medic grabs the tranquiliser dart and takes the raptor down. then the ambulance people come and take the raptor away…. to where? nobody knows.

oh i know its been another long drought for our blog. not that there hasn’t been anything going on, but with the shoot in full swing its hard to find the time to do any posts. i wisened up and brought a couple of photos into work with me so i am throwing them up here on my lunch break. woot woot! i’ve got a bunch more from a camping trip we went on last weekend which i will get up here asap as well. in the meantime here are some snaps from around the way.

 

the folder where i store all the photos i want to post on this blog has reached that critical threshold where i feel too overwhelmed to put them into any sort of context. but here are a set of recent-ish snaps. this first set is from the horse and camel farms about 20km outside of swakopmund. i have never been but my better halves have been a couple of times already and love it.

there are a bunch of other animals to check out as well.

the camel rides look super fun! check out brenda – a real bedouin!

brenda also took nayou to gymnastics class. he had a lot of fun, but unfortunately it made the bump on his forehead swell a little so we have skipped the last two sessions. thankfully he is almost all healed up so they will be going back soon!

one lazy saturday afternoon, bodie made scones so we headed off for afternoon tea at his place.

another beautiful building in swakopmund.

jess brought twister over which was cool.

the highlight of last week was when brenda and nayou spent half a day on a living desert tour. the more time we spend here, the more we are learning that the barren landscape around us is actually teeming with all kinds of life, living within an very complex ecosystem. tommy was a great guide, engaging the kids and adults alike with his decades of experience in the desert.

yes, that is a scorpion. look at the size of that thing! way bigger than the mexican ones. at least we’re not finding them in our house (yet?).

i really really really want to see a chameleon. they are just so cute! this one is a baby. they remain a dark colour in the mornings while they heat up, and then go off and do whatever chameleons do.

the sunsets are glorious as always.

i’ll leave you with a shot of nayou taken at a sundowner in the desert on saturday. if all the world leaders had this photo as their background on their computers i bet there would be world peace 😛