Rich woke up the following morning with a sore back and flu-like symptoms. We put it down to too many Drostyhofs, and it was only when we met up with Bill and Claire (who is a doctor) that we realized these are also symptoms of malaria. After a slight fever in the middle of the night Rich started a course of anti-malaria drugs we had brought with us as a precautionary measure. We monitored his progress and felt happy to be in the company of a qualified GP. At the Sesriem campsite, on the edge of the Sossusvlei dunes, there was a real overlanders gathering: us, Bill and Claire (from UK), Sofie and Wim (from Belgium), Marica and Noel (from Netherlands) and John and Cathy (from South Africa). It was great to see everyone and we wanted to celebrate by having a campfire and cooking a big brai Just as we were setting everything up and the fire was lit, the most ferocious storm of our trip hit in an instant. It was just like someone throwing an enormous bucket of water over us. Everything was drenched, we slept on a sodden mattress in soaked clothes and fell asleep to the sounds of wind and rain beating against the tent. We felt more like we were onboard a boat in an Atlantic gale force storm rather than camping in the Namibian desert, a place known for not getting any rain at all! We were up at 5am, although soaked to the skin the rain had stopped so we had a chance of seeing Sossusvlei at sunrise. It is a seventy kilometer tarmac road to the point where a 4x4 track takes you right into the dunes. Before we reached the 4x4 track the main road was submerged with water. By the time we got to the track it was obvious that the rains last night were unlike any normal weather conditions Sossusvlei normally experiences. The track had become a torrent of water, totally impassable for cars. The only thing to do was to walk, or rather wade through knee-deep rivers to hope to see something of the area. The fog and dark clouds put an end to our hope of seeing the dunes at sunrise but we made the most of it by running down dunes, practicing stunt falling and singing in the rain. We found out that Sossusvlei hadn't seen that amount of rain in one night for over thirty years. We were told also that we were very lucky to see the dunes in such rare conditions, however, looking at our clothes and the state of our mattress we did start to wonder! We all decided to head to the dunes further South near Luderitz, where we were certain that the weather would eventually improve! It was the desert afterall!