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Published: April 4th 2007
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Golden drops
Two men walking in the late afternoon. Probably they're happy about the beautiful raincloud pouring down on the dry plains of central Namibia. High were my expectations of the
Namibian capital. A castle
Neuschwanstein perched on the slopes between the
Eros and
Auas mountain chains, with a quaint cobblestoned town centre of thatched roof houses, was the least I expected.
Of course this wasn’t the case as we arrived at six o’ clock to a nondescript bus-station, next to a soulless mall and the sky was as grey as in a
Philip K. Dick inspired science fiction movie.
The sun never rose that day, instead that grey excuse for a sky shed yet more dreariness to the capital with its neat and tidy streets.
During my second visit to the city, that first impression was totally washed away by the city’s friendly inhabitants, but for the first few days, that impression stayed and flecked our experience of what is actually a very beautiful and captivating nation.
Namibia has got a few so called “
must-see-destinations”. All heavily marketed, expensive to visit and impossible to get to on public transport, which made us decide against going. This poor public transport system made us feel very limited, which is a strange feeling in such a country of vast expanse.
In Namibia’s claim
Mirage
Sand in all directions, and mirrors. On the road from Swacobmund to Karibib, somewhere in the desert. for beach fame;
Swakopmund we had another strange feeling. There was an eerie ghost-town feel to the town, and it felt like we were walking around in a movie set. The layout of wide and perfectly straight streets were almost empty, and we didn’t know what we were supposed do in the town. The tourism industry was aimed at two contradictory groups. The free-spending adrenaline-sport junkies doing a quick stop-over on their “overland-journeys”, or the huge number retired
Germans who slowly bought the beachfront and spent their time walking up and down the beach collecting shells.
It wasn’t until we stood at the roadside, waving down cars for a lift to
Walvis Bay, that our opinion of Namibia as a dull country, actually changed.
Walvis Bay was very different from Swakopmund. It smelled more, sounded more and there was a lot of commotion on the streets. It was flawed and far from picturesque, but had something Swakopmund lacked. It had character.
We browsed the harbour for truck drivers heading north with fish to Congo, then got a ride back to Swakopmund were we resided for the night. The next morning we went to the outskirts of town, next
Colourfully loud
Some friendly game-reserve owners also collected parrots, and had these colourful birds among a few hundred more. Cowdray, Kalahari, Namibia. to the colourful township of
Mondesa and began our “trans-Namibian hitch-hiking project”.
Truck drivers, guesthouse-owners, housewives, a government employee, a businessman, a teacher, a foreman at a mine and a borehole-drill team.
Rich or poor. Black, white or coloured, we held no preference and crossed the nation in a fleet of diversity.
We never knew how long we would have to wait, who would pick us up, how far we would get or how long time it would take us to get there, and we loved it.
The Namibian sun smiled down at us from the perfect blue skies, and everywhere we got, something good would always happen.
We got stranded in the rustic town of Karibib halfway between Swakopmund and
Windhoek, and couldn’t find a ride further north. Then the owner of the only hotel in town appeared, invited us to stay in the nice hotel for free, paid for a full night out at the three local bars, then sent us away the next morning with a topaz the size of a big peanut and 200 Namibian dollars on the hip! We’ve never experienced that kind of hospitality before in Africa.
Arriving in Swakopmund
The small town is easy to navigate, but it still took us some time to find the youth hostel that we later staid in. Here Aili's confused outside an old building I forgot the name of. The Atlas on the roof was originally made out of concrete, but when the building was restored in the 90:ies, it was replaced by a replica in carbon-fibre. Eventually we crossed the veterinary cordon fence (or the red line as it is referred to by the locals), that effectively separates the European culturally influenced south, from the “
African” north. In the north the cattle would grace freely in a landscape dotted by the timeless African mud-huts. Instead of the German and
Afrikaans names of towns in the south like:
Luderitz, Keetmanshoop, Hentiesbaai, Grootfontein and
Mariental, towns in the north would have names like:
Oshikango, Ondangwa, Ombalantu, Oshakati, Nkurenkuru, Katima Mulilo and
Rundu. As always in these African towns there would be some sort of controlled chaos, that I’ll never figure out how it actually works, but we were happy to be back in a region with a strong traditional African culture again. As we entered Rundu on a Friday around noon, the small town was full of drunkards. Men walked around screaming and singing with bottles in their hands, and down by the
Okavango River a drunkard picked a fight with a police officer who pulled his rifle and aimed at his head, which he probably was too drunk to comprehend, so it was good for him that his mates convinced him to calm down.
The Okavango
Okavango Sunrise
The Okavango river in its flooded beauty. was flooded, and with that came an unbearable presence of flying insects. Flies around and inside our ears, nostrils, mouths and eyes in the days; and as if they worked shifts, mosquitoes did their obligation of constant nuisance, at the evenings and nights.
We didn’t linger for long.
As soon as I got my visa to
Angola we put our thumbs out and got a lift back to the organised part of Namibia again.
Me and
Aili spent our last night together in the neat, well planned town of
Tsumeb, at an unfriendly backpacker’s called
Mousebird. The German chain-smoking owner did her best to ruin our last night together for the coming weeks, by openly being inhospitable, in her inimitable menopausal tone.
After Aili and I spending the last 14 months “24-7” with each other it was time for a well needed short break.
She was heading back down south to
Cape Town in
South Africa, to our friends and the farm.
Me on the other hand, I would go north carrying as little as possible.
I had my small tent and a sleeping bag; a fresh visa and a home drawn
map; a jar of peanut butter and some hard cash on the hip; and hopefully enough inquisitiveness of Angola, to stop me from turning back at the border and head straight back south to reunite with Aili.
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Yas
non-member comment
Loving it....
Hey Le Flow! I've been reading your blog since you were in The Gambia.... funnily enough I live there. You described it pretty well... Tell me what camera do you use to take your photos? Some are awesome! Yas