Namibia

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Day 3 Tuesday - Today began as a lazy day for most of us. Only two people did the optional canoe ride in the morning, and the rest of us slept in a bit and walked around again. Once we got the tents packed up, we got on our way to the Namibian border. The border crossing went smoothly, but ended up taking us forever because Richard had to get his VAT tax refund check, which proved tedious. However, we did gain an hour once we crossed the border, which was good. We still had a way to go before we could set up in our new campsite. Once we did this, we had to rush off to get to the Fish River Canyon, one of the largest around and the only thing like it in Africa. We arrived as sunset was happening, which was later than was ideal in the end. It was a beautiful sunset but it would have been nice to see the canyon in the daylight as well. I felt like it was hard to appreciate it, and we arrived too late to do a walk in the area to see it better. Got back to camp and had some dinner, sat at the camp fire toasting marshmallows, and then got to sleep.

*Note - I did a quick check today on the countries I will visiting and found that English is the, or one of the, official languages in each of them. So for those of you who are thinking they could never get by in Africa, think again.

Day 4 - Left camp at 7:30am and drove until 4:30am, with some stops in between. We did have some nice views though - we saw zebra, ostrich and springbok, a kind of antelope. We had lunch late, as we have had every day fairly consistently. This is the only problem with meals we have really come across - we eat breakfast really early, then we don’t have lunch until 2 or 3pm, followed by dinner somewhere around 7 or 8pm. It is a long day and everyone gets hungry. This day we ate inside the truck and had to make sandwiches while the truck was moving, it was funny. We usually eat in camp or pull over to the side of the road and eat there. For dinner, Sarah and Doug made us bangers and mash, or for those non-Brits out there, sausages and mashed potatoes. It was yummy. At this time I started to feel a little bad in the belly, but I ate anyway. And I ate a bunch of popcorn that was made up for us. Went to sleep at 9:00 since we would be waking up really early the following morning. Got up again at 11:30 to make a toilet stop, saw an owl land on a post on the way back to the tent, and just as I got there, I felt sick and had to almost run back to the bathroom. I ended up being pretty sick - food poisoning? - eventually made it outside again. By this time I was hot and felt like I needed to sit down immediately, dirty as it was. Then I found myself lying down, vomiting, and eventually feeling better. At 1am I made it back to the tent (passed the owl again to get there) and got some sleep until 3:20am, when I heard the truck start up. Since it was an hour early, I ignored it. Finally we heard laughing and the truck turned off. Turns out Bernard had used his cell phone as an alarm, but it was set to South African time. Barbel thought this was the funniest thing ever.

Day 5 - Once the giggles subsided, we laid in bed for a bit before getting up at 4am. The reason for the early start was to get to the sand dunes early enough for sunrise. We got to the gate of the park early and waited until 5am, when they allowed us in. Bernard wanted to get us there in time to be the first ones up Dune 45, the most famous dune in that area. It was very steep and I was slow, but just as I as nearing the top I realized there was far more to climb than I had imagined - we just couldn’t see it all from the bottom. But I got up there and saw the sunrise. Unfortunately it was really cloudy and it wasn’t the spectacular color-changing-on-the-dunes scenario we were hoping for, but there were bursts of sunlight and it was pretty all the same. Afterwards most everyone ran down the dune, but since my stomach was recovering I walked down with Jules. The views were great on the way down though. Once down Patrick made some breakfast, maybe the best yet, but I didn’t eat because I didn’t want to push it. Breakfast is usually cereal and some combination of eggs, bread, meat, and oatmeal. The next activity was an optional desert walk through Sussesvlei, a beautiful desert area near Dune 45. Once we got there, we found out that our guide wouldn’t be taking us into that area due to the roads being problematic after so much rain, so several of us decided not to do the guided walk. Instead we walked on our own through the desert and the dunes and it was a nice time. There has been so much rain here that it is fairly green in the desert and things are growing. We walked to the top of the high dunes in the area and it was a beautiful scene on the other side, like an oasis. After this we went back to camp, packed up our tents, and hung around while we waited for lunch. Some swam, but I chatted. After lunch we got on the road and drove to the next campsite. En route we stopped at the Seisrein Canyon, a much smaller canyon that we were able to walk in for a bit, Once we arrived at the camp site, it was threatening a storm and we considered moving on to a town a bit further, but we decided to stay. This was a bush camp, with no electricity, but it turned out to be maybe the best site so far. The bathrooms were beautiful and had the best showers (though of course I had already showered that day). Some people decided to go for an upgrade and sleep in a little hut with an actual bed, but I camped and shared a tent with Ann. We put the tent up in the light rain - though holding metal poles in the lightening was a bit scary - and then headed into the truck to play cards with Dana, Trevor, Laurens, and Austin. We played until 10pm or so and were the last to get to sleep after a long long day. It rained a bit overnight but it didn’t rain inside the tent, whoo hoo.

Day 6 - Got up today around 6:15am and had some oatmeal. It started to clear up but then got cloudy again, a theme that is ongoing. Ann and I took down our tent and got ready for the day, and eventually we got on the road about 8am. After a couple hours we stopped at Solitaire, the smallest town in Namibia, where several people bought some apple pie. On the road afterwards we managed to spot both Namibian wild horses and mountain zebra, both cool finds. The landscape changes here so quickly, like the weather. We went from desert to rolling green hills, to moonscape, back to deserty type conditions. We stopped several places for animal sightings and to take photos of the landscape. We eventually ended up in Swakopmund, a coastal town. The ocean is on one side of the street and the desert is on the other. We stopped first at an adventure tour company where we were shown a presentation of optional activities we could do the next day, like sand boarding, skydiving, and quad biking. I decided to have a day off instead. After the presentation and subsequent sign-ups, we came to the Dunes Lodge, where we would be staying the next two nights. I chose the 6-person room but got outvoted in the end to the 10-person room. We have 10 girls and 4 guys who didn’t upgrade to more private accommodations and it was decided that we would put the boys (aka the snorers) in a room together. Had some hours to relax and shower, and then everyone went out for dinner and drinks. I decided to stay at the lodge and relax instead. How often is there a time when you can be alone when you are constantly with 22 others? Instead I wrote in my journal, watched a DVD (A Knight’s Tale) and borrowed Richard’s laptop to start updating my blog. There was a birthday party for one of the owners that night, so it was far from quiet, but it was a nice rest anyway. Until some of the drunk guys at the party started stripping and doing naked back flips into the pool anyway. Bernard brought some ribs back from dinner for me, which were really yummy.

Day 7 - Spent the day checking out the town, walking on the beach and through the markets. Also spent some quality time looking for Brad Pitt, as he and his pregnant wife were holed up just outside of town awaiting the imminent birth of their child. No luck, though we were told exactly where they were staying by the information office in town. Quite some information. Checked some email but it was painfully slow. In the late afternoon I walked with Anne, Anke, and Elizabeth across the main street to the nearby dunes to play, only to find that it is closed off in that area for conservation purposes.

Day 8 - Started the morning by saying good-bye to Nicole, Sarah, and Doug, as they were only on the tour as far as Swakopmund. It was sad to see them go - they were all very nice. Doug and Sarah were a fountain of information as far as cheap flights around Europe (to get me to Russia) and a few other places I am trying to get to this year. Afterwards we drove to Spitzkoppe, a beautiful place in the desert with wonderful rock formations. We were introduced to our guide France who showed us around the area, including some old San paintings in a small cave. The camp that we stayed at was very basic, but beautiful. The toilet, a “long drop” was somewhat undesirable, but other than that it was great. Some choose to sleep out directly under the stars, but I choose the comfort and warmth of my tent. Good choice to, as everything got really wet outside from the condensation. But a word about African stargazing - amazing. I have only seen stars like this in maybe one other place. It is simply breathtaking.

Day 9 - Today we arrived at a new camp near the Himba people, would we would be meeting the following morning. They had a rustic looking building near the pool, where the rich people stay when they come. Though I checked it out and am not impressed - the bathrooms were closed off by curtains that blew open in the breeze. We were allowed to use the pool there. There was also an outdoor shower near the pool that I was going to use, until I realized that the back was completely open and anyone walking by would get a full view. Instead I showered near the camp in a slightly more closed off situation, yet open enough that I could watch the amazing sunset while showering. It was beautiful. That evening, like most evenings, we sat around the campfire and chatted.

Day 10 - Started the day bright and early with a visit to the Himba tribe. They are usually a nomadic people, but are living in a village situation right now. They are very dependent on cattle and we weren’t able to meet any of the men as they were out grazing the cattle. The women and children were very kind in allowing us to come in and see what their way of life is like. We had a foreigner as a guide, which made me sceptical, but she works with the Himba regularly, knows their language and their customs and did a good job showing us around. The Himba women wear a lot of jewellery with leather and iron beads, which denote their marital status. They don’t wear much in the way of clothes, but they have a very special red dye, which is made of red ochre, and butterfat that they rub into their skin every morning, so that they are a beautiful reddish color. They get the red ochre very far away and the women make the journey once a year to get it, and they make the butterfat by shaking milk in a gourd hung on a tree for up to two days. They also use a smoke bath to clean themselves, which is highly effective against any kind of parasite as well. The children also wore their hair in a way that allows someone to know whether they are male or female. Overall, we learned a lot and it was a wonderful experience. After we left the Himba we drove to Etosha National Park, our first game viewing location. We spent a few hours driving through the park looking for animals and we were rewarded, even though it has been very wet there and there is a lot of vegetation at the time. We saw springbok, kudu, a few giraffe, wildebeest and lots of zebras. We camped in the park near a water hole, which we spent some time at during the early and late evening hoping for some large animals. We did see some zebra, but that was it. There was no shortage of water at that time and no real need for the animals to come so close to the camp I think.

Day 11 - We got up early to do several game drives today. In the morning, just before leaving camp, we were treated a lion at the water hole, though it was just passing through and quite a distance away. In the day Richard spotted our first elephant way back in the distance - we were just able to see its ears flapping. It was exciting though. During the rest of the day we didn’t see many new animals, though we saw a hartebeest, one of the ugliest animals ever. We did, however, drive along the Etosha pan, which was currently filled with water and looked like an ocean from our point of view. It was beautiful. I was disappointed in the number of giraffes we came across until the very end of the drive, just past the pan, when we saw about 40-50 giraffe in a very small area. It was like a giraffe convention and all of Etosha was there. It was amazing. We couldn’t stay as long as we wanted though, because it was getting near 6pm, and we had to be in the next camp before the gates closed at 6pm. Set up camp and had some dinner.

Day 12 - Today we spent the day driving to Rundu, our last stop in Namibia before heading to the Okavango Delta. Had some lunch after we arrived, really late for lunch. Went into town to buy some water to bring to the delta, and then took a walk with Anne, Trevor, and Dana once we returned to camp. We met a guy who didn’t speak English but who we think was trying to sell us rides on his donkeys. We said no but he kept going and going and talking and talking and coming with us, Meanwhile we picked up about 10 kids were walking behind us and talking to us a bit. Trevor has the guy and we had the kids, but you could see Trevor was a little uncomfortable, easy enough to understand considering we had no idea what he was talking about. So I suggested that he tell the guy all about Canada and from then on it was great - Trevor talked about snow and hockey and the guy just listened and replied like he understood. It was hilarious. He stayed until we came across two women who reprimanded him and sent him away. The children also left upon seeing the women - maybe they were to be doing chores instead.

Day 13 - Today we had a trip into a nearby village to see the school and meet the children. Unfortunately the school was closed for a month for a school holiday, but we were able to meet a teacher, who explained how the school system in Namibia functions. The cost is mostly subsidized by the government, but each child needs to pay 30 Namibian dollars, or about $5 per year, which is too much for some families to pay. They were selling necklaces that the students made in art class, as well as cards for pen pals in order to help subsidize the cost for the kids. I bought 3 cards for $5 (two from Maria, one of the girls we had met the day before) - so it will send one kid to school for the year and a couple lucky friends of mine will receive pen pals. I also have the school address if anyone would like to donate money or supplies (just ask me). We also met some children who were around and who absolutely loved to have their photos taken. This was the time I most regretted not having a digital camera - they loved looking at themselves in the pictures! Afterwards we walked a ways back to the camp with out guide via a very spread out village. We then stopped at the church and were all converted to Christianity, we think. In the evening we had a tradition dance at the campsite main lodge area. It was great - lots of women in hula looking skirts with beer bottle caps attached to them to make sounds when they danced (very traditional) and a couple of guys dancing, as well as three men playing drums, which they held up to the fire first to make the skin tighter for the right sound. The dances were fun to watch and then they did some songs, including Namibia’s National Anthem. It was a good night.

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