Swakopmund

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Swakopmund is a small, pretty, clean town in the middle of nowhere, in the desert on the edge of the wild Atlantic, one would wonder why anyone would want to build a town here, but the arcitecture, food, drink and languadge are all clues to is origin; Swakopmund was established by the Germans and became a German potectorate. They required a safe port and apparently there was a fresh water source near by. It is now on the tourist list, it as become the adrenelin capital of Namibia, but it is not overly commercialised. I was not not interested in the adrenelin activities (why would I be, when I come from the adrenalin capital of the world!) so spent the days relaxing, walking around Swakopmund (only takes half hour), doing washing, reading etc. On Sunday evening I went to a pre-briefing meeting with EHRA (Elephant Humann Relationship Aid), and met the others on the project. The project runs in 2 week rotations, I am just going for 2 weeks, but some people stay for as many as 8 weeks. Our group consisted of 12 people of various ages; 5 males & 7 females, from US, UK, Switzerland, Sweden, and me, 4 of the group were about to start on their second rotation so knew the ropes. Our guide and protector is a guy called Neil, very interesting and experienced, his deputy is a guy called Mattheus who we will met when we get to basecamp. First week will be build week, where we go out to a farm where they are having trouble with elephants damaging their water pump or windmill, here we build a wall to protect the equipment, but ensuring that the elephants can still get access to water. The second week is patrol week where we track the resident elephant herds in the area to check on them and record their activities.
The next day (Monday) at about lunch time we all piled into a minibus and toeing a trailer, with all our luggage and food for next 2 weeks, left Swakopmund and headed for EHRA base camp about 4 hour drive away in an area called Damaraland, about 50km outside Swakopmund, the road turned to dust, although the road is considered a main route. We had a bumpy journey but we were to get very familiar with dirt roads.

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