namibia

merry christmas and happy new year all! so i'm surviving the first brutal round of holidays far far way from home/family/friends/etc. fortunatly i'm on an amazing vacation in namibia which is such an absolutly beautiful country. the trip started out back on 20 dec in livingstone, zambia-home of victoria falls. there i decided to bungee jump-freakin scary and i somehow burst my capilaries around my eyes so i looked like a deranged racoon for a few days. from there it was off to namibia where we spend a transit day in the capitol, windhook, which is a cool little city surrounded by mountians. from there we drove through the desert to swakopmund. the desert was unreal-lots of antelope, kudu, ostriches, some zebra and a meer cat-baobob trees as well. it felt so nice to ride in a real car on relativly flat land listening to real music rather than the hectic zambian public transportation. swakopmund may be one of my favorite towns on the planet. its this beautiful beach town with cool german architecture and palm trees everywhere. it was also one of the most racially diverese places i've ever been which was interesting. spent lots of time on the beach and bumming around town, plus a bit of partying time (heck i'm on vacation). from swak it was off to the namib desert for camping and climbing the worlds biggest sand dunes. totally amazing, peacful and humbling. today we are back in windhook for two days then its back to zambia. its been an amazing time but i will be excited to return to the village and get back to work. hopefully pictures will be online soon. thanks to everyone who has been writing/sending packages, it means a lot more than you can imagine. with each day i'm loving peace corps service more yet also missing home as well, and insanley enough my service is about 25% over already...guess you all better plan your trips out here soon soon. take care.