Namibia continued (multiple entries)


So this morning we woke up at sunrise, and I can't explain how nice it was to leave my tent with some light in the sky. We've been waking up so early the past 6 or so days that I have been accustomed to still seeing stars in the sky when I rise. We have a long drive today, about 9 hours into Swampkamond, a coastal town on the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia. The land that we're driving through is dry and arid, but there is still some vegetation and there are many mountain looming in the background while the immediate countryside is very hilly. Yesterday was a really good day. We took an hour break in a town where we could spend time at a coffee shop and on the internet, and I had a delicious meal of sausage pies, cappuccino, and apple strudel. It was so peaceful and a lovely break from the monotony of the truck. I was able to reclaim my phone from the rice yesterday, so while there are still water stains on the screen it is opera table and I am able to listen to music. I had missed my iPod over the last few days, since without it it's quite hard to withdraw into yourself on the truck and it gets very tiring constantly conversing with others for hours on end at days at a time.


We arrived at our campsite rather early yesterday in a blistering heat. The thermometer read 42• Celsius. I took advantage of the heat and did a quick load of laundry while we had lunch, then we set off to see the stone engravings done by bushmen and nomads in the region 6000 years ago. It was an incredible experience. Often the engravings relayed messages from shaman during their trances, but there were also navigational engravings used to direct others towards water. The engravings were made in bright red sandstone, and the area was unbelievably peaceful and stoically quiet. After exploring the stone engravings we all went to a hotel where we bought drinks from the bar and jumped into their pool. The pool was already cast into the shadow when we arrived, so the water was really cold, but after such a hot day it was a very pleasant treat. We had a beef stir fry for dinner, then enjoyed some of the campsite staff's songs for evening entertainment.




We just made a stop during our journey today at a Nemba craft shop in the middle of the desert. We had been saving all of our empty 5L water bottles from the entire journey, and we filled them up at etosha when the water was particularly good. When we got to the craft shop we unloaded all of the water bottles and carried them to their mud huts. We also have them the rubber soccer ball that we had picked up in Malawi, and the women were very joyous when we kicked it around with them. I gave them my blanket from Turkish airlines, and after realizing that it caused jealousy among the women because of how useful it was for keeping the children warm I went back to the truck to grab my towel (which I have not used once this entire trip because of the utility I have found in the shamy I packed) to trade with the other woman for a bracelet. Apparently I started a trend, and soon many of the travelers with us found blankets that we're not essential to their travel and gave them to the women. They were very happy, which was nice to see. Perhaps a picture would be more valuable, and in time I will be able to post one with this blog, but the women were incredibly uniquely dressed. They wore clay in their hair and on their skin, exposed bare breast decorated with necklaces and beaded designs, and just a small cloth around their wastes. They had about 20 anklets on each foot as well, and walked barefoot. The babies all wore necklaces as well, and only covered their front sides with cloth. Some of the children were really playful, and we played games jumping and high-fiving the kids, and some of the kids really took to Saskia and climbed all over her and she picked them up and spun them around. We're now back on the road and the air is getting colder as we approach the Atlantic coast. Oh yeah... The roads have been all gravel and dirt today, and are torn up with ruts so the travel has been pretty rough.





This is a bit of a side note, but one thing I've noticed since Zambia is te fact that all cell phone and satallite towers here are disguised to look like very tall trees. It's really interesting.

Written July 24 and posted when Internet is available

---

Since my last update we have traveled through swakopmund and are now in the Namib desert departing for Dune 45 and Sesriem canyon. Swakopmund was an adventure. The highlights include sand dune boarding and a township tour where we met women from different Namibian tribes and spent time in their homes. The worst part of the weekend there was the death of my camera due to sand grains. Sand is literally everywhere and it's difficult to protect against it.

The first thing we did when we arrived into the city was to check into our hostel. We had all been under the impression that we would be in rooms of 6-8 beds because of what the itinerary had lead us to believe, but instead our entire truckload of people was housed together in one massive 22 bed dorm room that had a total of 2 showers and 2 toilets and very few outlets. Luckily most of the couples opted to upgrade out of the dorm so we had a little more space. It was nice to finally have a bed nonetheless, my thin mattress that I sleep on while camping is starting to feel like it's as thick as a sheet of paper. After everyone settled in for a bit we reconvened together to load up for the township tour. We divided between two vans and two guides and drove out of the city 1 km to the "township" that was built as a result of apartheid. Our first stop was at a Herero woman's home. She wore the traditional dress, which is a very poufy dress and headgear shaped to look like a cow's horns because cows are the most valuable and sacred things in their culture. The Herero practice polygamy, and in the household the first wife has the ultimate power and even chooses the next wife for herself and her husband. Each of the woman bear children, but must treat all of their husband's kids as their own. The men work out on the farm with the cattle, which is about 800km away from Swakopmund. The women stay in town together, however, so that the children have the opportunity to go to a good school. Girls in their culture are married to their mother in laws at age 18, and for 3 years are taught all of the traditions and household necessities for her new home before she is married to her husband at age 21, the year a girl is considered a woman. Once a girl marries into a new family she is no longer a part of her old one, and her mother-in-law becomes her mother. Our host was very kind, and after a round of questions we departed for our next destination.






The next home we went to was a Nama woman's. She was a herbalist and although she didn't speak any English our female guide translated for her. She passed around all of her different plant specimens and explained what it was used for. After we all explored the natural remedies we were given a lesson in her language by our guide. The Nama speak with worlds and clicks. There are 4 different types of clicks: tongue at front teeth, a cheek squeak, clicking from the front part of the roof of the mouth, and clicking from the back part of the roof of the mouth. It was really difficult, but so exciting to learn a little of such an exotic language.

After her home we went to a craft shop where I couldn't help myself and bought a beautiful hand painted bag and handmade card for just $10. The art was beautiful, and the shop was formed as a cooperative of a bunch of different women. Following the craft shop we went to a bar where they let us try the local beer (which, of course we had all already tried....),  but the best was learning how to say cheers in the Nama language with a click. Our guides told us to take our glasses and go into another room just down the alley. It was a cozy dining room and we were all able to sit around a table. A woman entered after we were all settled and passed around a bowl full of food for us to try. Guess what it was? Caterpillars! They were baked with salt and seasoning so that they were crispy. I figured that I have already tried crocodile and different types of game this trip, so I picked a small on and chowed down. The flavor was fine, but the texture was something to reckon with. It got stuck in my throat twice as I tried to swallow, but luckily I still had a beer so after a third attempt I could get it down and wash it away. I'm hoping that will be the most exotic thing I will ever eat!

After our little meal a singing group came into the room to perform. It was a group of 5 men and 1 woman, but they said that at full capacity they were 9 strong with 4 more females. They had some of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. I was brought to tears by their story of losing their 10th member to gender violence and their tribute to her. If you see me when I get home, ask me to play the cd for you! I purchased 2:)

The singing marked the end of our tour, so we returned back to the hostel and then organized a group dinner which lasted far too long. By the time I was back in bed I was ready to close my eyes for a long time. The next morning we woke up around 8 to get ready for our 9:30pick up for sand boarding. The vans that picked us up fit everyone in our group but me, so I made friends with travelers from different companies as I was passed from van to van before room was found to fit me in. The drive to the sand dunes was only about 10 minutes, and when we got there they already had the boards, helmets and boots laying around ready to be adopted by a person for the day. In order to get up to the top of the dune we had to hike up- which is way more difficult than it sounds. Because of the steepness of the dunes and the texture of the sand I was out of breath by the time I made it up. Once there we received brief instruction and were given wax for our boards. The boarding experience was a mixed bag. I haven't snowboarded all that much, so while I could get down the dune doing the falling leaf pattern without any trouble, I had a lot of difficulty linking turns from my toes to my heels and fell often. I was very ambitious to get better with practice, so I hiked back up and went back down as quickly as I could, which ended up with me hiking the dunes 10 times - enough to make my body utterly exhausted. On my fifth try I went off the jump with the help of one of the instructors and had marginal success with it. By the end of the day when we were all tired we got to try the lying down version of sandboarding. It was a blast! I went down the hill at 68 kph! I went a second time because the first was so much fun, but unfortunately the wind had picked up so my board took a different path and I ended up hitting the holes produced by the camera woman's footprints, and I went flying off the board and tumbling down the dune. No one but a couple of instructors really saw it because everyone was making their way back to the truck, and my injuries were minor - pretty much just trouble breathing for a second because I had the wind knocked out of me. After that I made it down the other face of the dune on the snowboard once more, chowed down on some sandwiches, and loaded back into the truck to return to the hostel. Oh, I forgot to mention.  I was COATED in sand, everywhere. My face was completely covered in it, it was in my socks, my pants, my mouth... Everything. It was a really fun experience, but I don't like sand that much and the exertion required to hike back up the dune each time took away from the fun of riding down a little bit.



That afternoon I went with Tim and Saskia to walk around the town and to put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. We stepped into a German church to learn that literally everything in it was imported from Germany, and I met a really nice guy named Savior at the craft market. We talked about business and the responsibilities a business owner has to others when they decide what they want to start. It was a really special conversation, and I learned a lot from him. He said he had never been to school, but he spoke 5 languages and seemed to me one of the most intelligent people I've met.

I called it early that night for bed, as we were departing the next morning. We spent a good portion of the following day driving, and the landscapes changed so dramatically! We started with the white sand dunes, then drove through a beach area with seals and flamingos, then hit rocky hills called the lunar landscape and ended at a campsite that was nestled between hills and plateaus of red sand. We went on a hike at our campsite to appreciate the scenery and remoteness of where we were. It was a truly beautiful experience to be completely removed from man-made anything. Also, the stars last night were the best I have ever seen in my life. I witnessed 3 shooting stars and could see the Milky Way running from horizon to horizon. I could even see where it split a little bit into 3 different branches, and I found all of my new favorite constellations.

Today we are driving through the desert to reach dune 45. We just stopped at a little bakery in the middle of nowhere for some sweet treats, and now we're back on the road. My throat is sore and I'm not feeling that great, but my trip is almost over and I'm still excited by each passing day.

Written July 27 and posted when Internet is available.

------

The past two days have been really cool in terms of scenery, but also very challenging for travel, camping, and health. The cold that the other travelers have been suffering from has made it's way to almost everyone, including myself and my tent mate. The roads we have been traversing have consistently been gravel or dirt, and yesterday the truck suffered it's first flat tire in the middle of the desert amongst howling winds that we all had to stand in while it was changed by our driver, CEO, and some of the men in our group.

Before heading to dune 45 we stopped at Seserim canyon, a small 4km canyon that made for a really fun hike. The walls were pebbled, and it looked almost as if it was man made from stones and concrete. The texture of the walls made it really great for rock climbing, as the stones were great hand holds and the holes where the stones had fallen out made for sturdy foot holds. All across the canyon floor there were man made stone towers that I had seen all over Korea. After a bit I got bored and sat down to make my own, and I was really proud of its sturdiness and elegance. After the canyon we went a bit further for some dunes, but it was an optional activity that involved a hike, and since I was feeling ill I opted to stay on the truck to rest. The rest of the group was gone about 2 and a half hours, but when they returned we made our way to Dune 45, the most photographed sand dune in Namibia. When we got there I kicked off my hiking boots and left my socks on to climb up the face of the dune.




If you've ever looked at pictures of a dune you'll see that the face of it is the ridge where the winds converge. On either face of the dune each step you take will make you sink to your mid-calf, but on the ridge the sand is packed hard enough that you can manage to walk without sinking more than half a foot's height. Although it's much better walking on the ridge than the faces, traveling up a steep incline with the soft surface makes for a very challenging work out. Despite the hardship, we were able to climb all the way up the face to the highest point on the region of the dune we were on. The dune kind of looked like the Great Wall of China, because it continued as far as we could see and the ridge had the same twists and turns as the wall. The view from the top of the dune was fantastic. I literally felt like I was on top of the world, and I could easily picture dinosaurs and large mammals roaming the plains below me. It felt like I was a part of the prehistoric earth. Because I had killed my camera while sandboarding, I decided not to risk my phone, so this experience of mine was for my eyes only and wasn't recorded with pictures. When I think of how rarely I look back on pictures from past trips it puts me at ease knowing that I will have this experience better recorded in my memory than I would have if I had been looking through a viewfinder.

That night we camped in the desert, and we experienced the worst weather we've had yet. Luckily the desert environment almost guarantees that there will be no rain, but we did experience a sand storm and our tents were battered by the wind all night long. Sleep was very scattered as the tents kept flapping inwards and out again because of the wind, and the howls from the wind were more frightening than all of the animal sounds I've heard at night since arriving in Africa. Luckily (maybe?) we had an early morning, and we woke up at 4:45 in order to get on the road early for our long day of travel. Taking the tents down in the wind was really hard, and we had everything coated in red sand from the night because the wind blew so much sand in through the windows of the tent during the night. We hardly had breakfast as well since we couldn't put any food out without it being coated by sand immediately. As I already alluded to, while we were on the road driving yesterday we got a flat tire from one of the gravel roads, and we were forced back into the wind while we waited for it to be changed. Lunch was sandwiches again... For like the 12th day in a row. I think I'm going to avoid sandwiches for at least a month when I get home.

Although yesterday had it's challenges, in the afternoon we got to drive to the Fish River Canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the world behind the Grand Canyon. I was really surprised by how similar the two looked, although the Grand Canyon definitely is deeper. We got to walk a scenic path along the canyon at our own pace, and caught the sunset from a beautiful viewing point. The geographical diversity in Namibia is just outstanding, and I would argue that it may be the most majestic in the world.





I slept decently well last night, and enjoyed a night free of howling wind. My cold is still a big burden, but I feel better today than I did yesterday. We're driving now and will soon cross the border to South Africa. Tonightwe're staying at the Orange River, and then we only have 2 more campsites before arriving in Cape Town. It's kind of weird to think that I only have 3 more nights left in the tent. I'll be home in a week!




Sent from my iPhone