Advertisement
Hello, Everyone,
Sorry it has been so long, but I have been busy having adventures! My sister Nicki is here and we are at this very moment driving from Swakopmund on the coast to Etosha National Park! It is the big, famous park. The whole center is Etosha Pan which is a dry lake, but it sometimes fills with water if the rains are good. They were not good this year, so everything is very dry.
Rachel, my roommate and I left school on April 25th. We were picked up at 5:00 a.m. and in Windhoek by 3:00 p.m. We had two days of in-service in Windhoek at the same backpackers hostel as January. It felt like home! Then I flew to Cape Town where Nicki and Cathy were waiting for me right outside customs. Cathy Beatty (nee Curtis) is a childhood friend from PEI. We have seen each other only once or twice since I was about 16, but she still seemed so familiar. We had a lovely time. I had thought about taking the bus to Cape Town, which would have been 22 hours, but I found a flight which was only about $30.00 more than the bus and 20 hours shorter. One of the teachers tried to persuade me that it was a beautiful drive... the mountains!. . .but I said, “I live surrounded by mountains,” and booked the flight. 22 hours on a bus seems unbearable.
Cape Town was probably the most spectacular city I have ever seen. Table Mountain on one side and the rest water. Cathy (or Cat) and Michael live in a suburb called Kommatjie (pronounced Komakey) about a block from the beach. While we were there there was a longboard surfing competition going on, so one afternoon we walked up to watch for a while. They may have been practicing for all I could tell, but it was fun to watch. Surfers always seem incredibly talented to me, just to be able to stand up, but then they turn and go back and forth and it looks so easy. I think Ian had a longboard when he was in San Diego, but I’m not sure. I can picture him being able to do it.
We did go up Table Mountain, but in the cable car. Cathy said she went up once with her nephews (Michael’s side) but they were about 3 1/2 hours faster than she, and that was a while ago. And many of you know how I hate walking uphill!! (Wait until you hear what I did do.) Anyway, we walked around the top of the mountain, and of course had a cup of coffee. When we got down, cashless (I bought some earrings up there, too), we asked about an ATM and were told it was on the top. So we had to walk back to our guest house, fortunately all down hill, but about an hour’s walk. We stayed with Cat and Michael through the weekend when we arrived, then they had both to work or other commitments, so we stayed in a guest house just below Table Mountain for three days, near the center of Cape Town. Everything was downhill from us, so coming home in the evenings was a long, very steep uphill. It was okay, however, because just around the corner from our guesthouse was a pizza restaurant, and I have become fond of Windhoek lager!
We spent the next weekend at Cat and Michael’s, too. The first weekend they took us all around the Cape. We saw the Cape of Good Hope (which, btw, is not the southernmost point of Africa) where there were baboons. We also went to a place called Boulders where there was a colony of penguins. They are called jackass penguins, and are quite small.
One day on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront we bumped into Ted Guggenheim, another WorldTeach volunteer. That was fun. I love the small-world happenings. Cape Town also has some great museums. We went to the planetarium (I can finally find the Southern Cross), and history museum. Also, we went to the Jewish Museum where there was a collection of netsuke which had been collected by a man whose name was Shapiro. Another person wrote a book about the family called "The Hare with Amber Eyes." Ladies who read, I'm suggesting it for book group. Nicki had read the book and really wanted to see it; I'm glad because it was really interesting.
We flew back to Windhoek and stayed two nights. On the 10th we picked up our rental car (Avis!) and also ran into (not literally) Emilie and Kristen, two more volunteers whose parents are here visiting. We set out on the 11th, and drove to Keetmanshoop (south if you want to look at a map). We stayed in a gorgeous B & B, where on the morning we were leaving, I flattened our tire by driving over the gate stop, while getting out of someone’s way. It was Sunday!! I am happy to say that Nicki and I changed the tire with ease. The man whose car I was getting out of the way of (I can't think how to say that less awkwardly) loosened the lugs for us, but we put them back on ourselves, so if need be, I think we’ll be able to do it again. When we picked up the car, we got Avis to show us exactly where the jack goes and how to use it. Definitely we are learning Africa.
We got on the road later than planned, of course, and headed for Luderitz. It is right on the coast, just at the top of the closed diamond mining area called the Sperrgebiet. You can only go in there with approved tours. We didn’t. Luderitz looked a bit ghost towny when we drove in, and absolutely no one could be found at the hotel I booked, so we finally left and went to another. Our room was right on the swimming pool, but it was fairly chilly. I asked if anyone used the pool at this season and the desk person laughed!
Luderitz was a major city and port at the beginning of the 1900s, and there are many lovely old buildings and churches (old in the Alaskan sense). It is still a port, mostly for the diamond mines. In the morning before we left, we took a boat tour into the Atlantic to an island where we saw seals, then penguins and flamingoes. There were a couple of ruined buildings on the island, and the captain said they were for workers when they used to mine guano (bird poop). It was once 6-8 feet deep all over this island. They used it for explosives and fertilizer! Can you imagine? (We are driving now and I just pointed to a small village and said to Nicki, “Look, there is a little hamlet over there.” I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “hamlet” before, except for the play.)
Back to the boat trip. The captain / owner of the boat told us he used to be a diamond diver. Apparently, they go down to the bottom of the sea and have these big pipes that vacuum up the sand and they find diamonds. He got tired of that, and got his boat. But before the diamond diving, he and his wife spent eleven years sailing around the world. I was just thinking about the very different lives people lead and yet we are all in the same world. I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking, but it always surprises me. For instance, there I was teaching at Bartlett and living in Anchorage raising my children, and this man and his wife, and then son as well, were sailing around the world, stopping occasionally to work, and I was not even aware of their existence. And then one day we meet in Luderitz, Namibia. Pehaps my mind is just easy to boggle, but I seem to be spending a lot of time being awed by time and space and existence in general.
Okay, we left Luderitz around noon to drive to the Desert Homestead near Sesriem and the park where Sossusvlei is. It was a gravel road, lots of washboarding, and it got dark before we arrived. When the sun sets out in the desert, it gets VERY dark. Nicki was driving, fortunately. Both my sisters always want to drive, but here we are on the opposite side of the road, so Nicki probably does it better. This isn’t difficult on the open road, but I think her brain does it better in town, so I let her. And she sees better in the dark. We finally made it there, and they were still serving dinner. Gourmet and very welcome. We stayed in a little thatched round hut, and had mosquito nets over the beds. It was exquisite: a front porch with two chairs overlooking the Namib desert. One man told me when he went out early in the morning there was an oryx right off his porch.
We spent a really good day in the park. We went every which way but in general toward Sossusvlei. On the way there, we stopped at Dune 45, and we climbed it!!! Pretty steep uphill. I’ll try to upload pictures. We started out upright, but it got harder to balance as it got steeper. I did figure out that when climbing sand, if you kick your toe hard into the dune, you don’t slide back as much, but eventually Nicki stopped, and I continued on all fours. Much easier! I sat to rest and have a picture of myself. I think Nicki may have one of my rear as I scrambled.
I learned that Sossusvlei is actually a huge pan which occasionally does get full of water. I always thought it was the dune. We were able to drive within 4 km where there was a car park for two-wheel drive cars then a 4-wheel drive shuttle to Sossusvlei. On the way the driver pointed out the big dune of photos, which they call “Big Daddy.” He dropped us at the trail to Dead Vlei and practically forced us to hike in. It is a large expanse of white hardened salt, maybe, with a few black dead trees scattered around. By then I was pretty jaded and exhausted, so excuse the description. The walk out was entirely sand.
Then the shuttle took us to actual Sossusvlei, but told us it was much more stunning when there was water. The road was paved as far as the two-wheel drive car park, then not really a road, but a deep sandy track. I think the Namibians are starting to get the hang of tourism. If you want to come, you should do it soon. I have a vacation for almost two weeks starting about August 20, if anyone wants to come over to play. I am hoping to figure out a way to go to the Tsodilo Hills (spiritually sigmificant to both the San (Bushmen) and Mbukushu (the people in our area and over the border in Botswana). The hills are full of rock paintings, and if you read Laurens van der Post’s Lost World of the Kalahari, he has lots to say about them. They are in Botswana, but not actually far from Divundu. The problem is you really need four-wheel drive and possibly a guide. I also would like to go to Zambia or the Okavango Delta or wherever.
I’ll be happy to tailor my whims for anyone who wants to come.
After Sossusvlei we had a horrendous drive to Swakopmund--long and bad road. Getting closer there, it was incredibly spooky terrain. But we made it and found our B & B. They were lovely people and helped us order a pizza (something I haven’t found in Divundu). We spent a leisurely day in Swakop. Went to the museum, walked on the beach, then drove north on the salt road--again very spooky. The desert comes right down to the sea, and it is flat and grayish--very like the moon in the Sea of Tranquility, I picture. We found a salt works and a little stretch of paved road, along which we found flamingoes. If my pictures look at all good, I’ll upload some. I wish I had Alba with me. She is a much better photographer. Or Jay. Jay, maybe you’d like to come over?
Now we are on our way to Etosha, stopped at a gas station while Nicki takes a picture of the dry Omaruru River. I am so excited about Etosha. Our first night there is a waterhole near the lodge, where we can sit all night if we want to. I will stop for now. I’m feeling just like I did when I taught. Panic that vacation is almost over. I’ll let you know how going back for a second term goes. Much love to everyone. Pictures tomorrow, sorry, I don't have my camera with me.
Wendy
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0403s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Shirley Gordon
non-member comment
Fabulous!
I could hear your voice as you told about your travels with Nicki! Wish Paneen could join you on your next adventure. You are missing the coldest "Spring" on record here in Alaska. Love, Shirley