i suppose i'd better start on teh 11th. i'd packed all my luggage luggage the saturday night which was quite unbelievably efficient for me but all i'd done hand luggage wise was lay out all of it out on the table!! after all by this point it was approaching 1.00am and i knew i had an early start. i set my alarm for 6.00am on sunda ymorning as my lift was at 7.30! hoever i did "a me". i woke up and went straight back to sleep and only woke up at 10 to 7!!! i was like ooooooo crap!!! i managed somehow to get myself dressed and my hand luggage all sorted on time! was a miracle!!!! even more impressive was the fact that sonja says so far she hasnt found ANYTHING i've left behind - impressed?!?! it was calvyn who came to pick me up - he was the guy who ran the garden route tour i was prevented from going on! there were 3 other people on the bus, 2 were dropped off at CT airport and 1 guy was left. it turned out that he was from namibia but was studying for him MA therfore travelled to stellenbosch a lot for courses and stuff... he was on the same bus as me and very experience in how to travel on it! i was really relieved and to be honest i had been quite terrified of travelling there all on my own but this was a good way to let me in gently! we boarded the bus which arrived eary which prevented us having to wait around too long!!! the first thing i noticed was that the ceilings were very low (this was due to the fact that one of them gave my head a fair whack!) and the chairs were very close together - i was like this is gonna be a looooooooooooooong trip!!!! i swear by the time we set off there wasnt 1 free seat... i was sat behind this awful guy who rammed his seat right back and no matter what i did wouldnt move it forward so i was practically being crushed... wasnt fun!!!i had a really comfortable 18hours - NOT!!! the girl next to me sunelle was a 1st year student at stellenbosch and was travelling back to namibia where she's from so she was also a huge help! i think i managed to grab about 4 hours sleep in total in very short bursts... by the end i was SHATTERED! a bit more about the journey before i get to that! i didnt really notice much of what was going on outside as i was talking/trying to get comfy/occasionally asleep or whatever... at one point we randomly stopped and i was like oh no!!! sunelle had said if you stop theres a problem and last time she'd got stuck for 3 hours! luckily our clutch problem was sorted in 30 mins and we were on our way again! was quite funny hearing that massive groan everyone let out when we stopped! we reached the border and you'd think ooo quite exciting but no!!! involved getting out an exceedingly bad passport foto and a tiny form, waiting in line for 30 mins and getting a stamp... woooo!!! the namibian side was even slower!!! there was one cool thing which was that in between the 2 borders there was literally "no-mans-land" ... not owned by anyone!!!! journey continued the same but cold! got there and changed buses... easy same procedure on this bus just less cramped and shorter journey so all in all a lot better!!! arrived at 10.35 bang on time and i had a panic cos the driver had no idea where the lodge was... luckily one of the guys heard my query and went and found out for me, escorted me there and helped me with my bags... was lovely! dunes seems really nice... checked me in straight away and showed me room etc etc./.. sharing with 2 eng lads which could be fun *ahem*! only 2 nights tho i spose... is all very quaint and sweet and the weathers actually really nice... warm but with a cool breeze to stop you sweating like a pig - not an attractive image! freshened up, made myself feel more like a human being, grabbed some food etc and now i'm writing this sitting outside on the grass... v nice! gotta go, time running out will write again soon love ya m xxxxxxxxx