Our departure from Etosha effectively ended (apart from a planned visit to Addo Elephant Park) our safari phase. The journey south kept us both happy, M trying to keep up his 80 Kph on bendy gravel and sandy roads, while K went gem hunting and made frequent stops at the Himba and Herero (local traditional tribes) stalls that dotted the side of the road.  Many of the offerings just had an honestly box and no prices - we later found out you pay "what you feel in your heart" so we made a judgement of value and left the right money.

The Himba women are famous for rubbing their bodies with otjize, a mixture of butter fat and ochre to protect themselves from the sun and the Herero ladies wear a more traditional attire derived from a Victorian woman's dress. Despite these differences one thing they do have in common is trying to sell their goods for about 5 times the price of anywhere else in Africa. 

Once we reached the  Skeleton Coast, a rugged hostile 500 Km coastline that goes all the way up to Angola, we made a slight detour to visit Cape Cross and seal colony. All our pre-reading was true and it was not an overly pleasant experience as the crushed seal pups provide ample pickings for the hyenas, jackals and various vulture like birds.  The stench was bad enough to only stay for 15 minutes but that is natures way and the seal colony has been in existence for hundreds of years. 

The Skeleton Coast was historically named due to all the Whale bones, but as they were hunted, ships succumbed to the Atlantic coast and the large number of modern day skeletons in the form of shipwrecks are dotted along the entire length of the coast.

The Skeleton Coast road ranks in the top 5 worlds most dangerous roads but the bottom section we navigated was fine, it is in fact made from salt even though it is black and looks like tar.  Apparently, when wet they are treacherous and like driving on ice but fortunately we did not experience this.  The entire region around Swakapmund is full of salt mines and provides much needed employment for some locals, though we have been told new rules only allow Chinese workers which is not going down well.

Swakapmund is very upmarket with lots of plush hotels and restaurants. As we were about half way into our trip, in both distance covered (5000 Km) and time, we had a spot of R&R (rest and recuperation) and severally over indulged in our eating and drinking.