Deserts and daisies day 1

[ali-s]

So, I'll start at Upington, which should have been day 1 but was now day 2. Our flight landed early afternoon.

We collect a Nissan X trail from Avis and head into Upington, following the map in my head to the Kalahari mall ( I have directions printed out, but from the b&b we were supposed to be at) we find it after a short tour of the suburbs first stop is a Vodacom shop so I can buy a South African sim card for my phone and phone Air France to organise delivery of our suitcase. Then grocery shopping. I have a list but we are a few hours behind schedule, so our grocery shop resembles a supermarket sweep, items being thrown into the trolley with no regards to price or ingredients. We load up the car and are finally on our way by 3.30pm.

It's a 2.5 hour drive to the Kgalagadi. Our first night is at Twee rivieren camp, which is right on the border of the park, but we still have to be there before gates close at 6.30pm. I was expecting our drive to be rather boring with barren scenery, but I was surprised. The road is called the ' red dunes route' and it was mostly scrub covered dunes , but they have their own beauty. The road is long and straight and empty. You don't have to lift your foot from the accelerator until the turn off for the Kgalagadi. Except when you're braking for mongoose. We saw warning signs for fox, antelope,horses, owls , an unidentifiable bird, but the one animal who was running into the road every 5 minutes had no warning sign, still, they kept me alert.

We arrived at Twee rivieren at 6pm, got settled in to our chalet and I decided that after the stressful start to the holiday we would eat in the one and only restaurant in the park. The menu was limited but perfectly acceptable, and there was wine and a bat flying circuits above our heads. We were here, we could finally relax .