Spitzkoppe

Today it was on to Spitzkoppe, the African "Materhorn".  Its actually a lot like Ayers |Rock in Australia as well.  Its a large group of HUGE rocks in the middle of the Namib desert.  The granite is ore than 20M years old and rises about1 784m above sea level.  (700 m above the desert floor).  There are ancient bushmen cave paintings that we weren't able to catch before our camera battery died.

Our guide and chef Gerti explaining how deadly this plant is (like poison ivy if you get the sap, fatal if you burn it and inhale the fumes) to Shawn, Jen and our Austrian friend Martin

Matti, Bar and Fabio (seriously) looking for the African Bush Toilet

Monica spent a lot of time with Rachel, doing French Braids.

Rising out of the Namib Desert... Spitzkoppe

These are mountains on the back side of Spitzkoppe

The back side of Spitzkoppe

The bridge

Bushmen paintings of Shawn, Rachel and Rebekka

Here they are in person

Shawn jumped from one peak to the next giving his Dad his first heart attack since Shawn was 2 and did a similar prank. I honestly thought he was going over the edge (a 50' drop onto stone)

That evening we all sat around the campfire and the group had me give them a talk on Astronomy.  They said they enjoyed it.. I got lots of great questions.  Someone even pointed out the Southern Cross.  We were literally hundreds of miles from the nearest light bulb so it was a perfect spot for it.