chris wrote:
Those are some really beautiful photos!

I was struck by how much many of the photos look like the Marfa TX
area. I've seen a lot of hill, mountains, and redish soil that
resemble SW Texas.

some of my pictures are at
http://www.chilhowee.com/marfa.htm

Chris

Can't talk about Marfa, but I have some experience of Namibia. None soaring
unfortunately.

You are correct, this is a beautiful, and in most places unspoiled country. The
infrastructure works, and it is a great place to holiday. (although it can be
expensive)

The weather pattern is such that there is a vast area that has almost perpetual
ideal soaring weather. The trough line extends all the way to Gariep with semi
desert all the way too.

One major difference to Marfa, there are no significant mountain ranges. Most of
the inland area is a 4,000" or higher plateau with low hills. Where this drops
to the coastal plain you get some spectacular scenery, and temperatures. Even in
the urban areas population density is really low, it would be easy to land out
and not be found.

Local soaring? Many of the regulars apparently don't bother to log anything less
than 1000km on OLC... As a hint, they are complaining about the unusually cool
and wet weather the whole of Southern Africa has experienced in the last while,
and reporting "low" average speeds of 120km/h and only around 80 "long" flights
this season. Both Bitterwasser and Pokweni offer outstanding soaring - look at

http://www2.onlinecontest.org/olcphp...olc-kaf&spr=en

--
Bruce Greeff
Std Cirrus #57
I'm no-T at the address above.