Warning to the dear reader: this post is long, but it's hopefully worth the read. I'm not even sorry. If you don't want to skim your eyes across the words, just look at the pretty pictures. Carry on.
As much as PC or whoever likes to think otherwise, going on awesome vacations like this is most of the reason I’m here. After being gone for two weeks for the workshop, then back at my site for almost a week, spending a few days at the orphanage pretending to teach English, I left once again for the big winter break vacation. Kyle and Chelsea, collectively known as Chyle, had planned out most of the details of the trip, and John Lee, Lee, and I would be along for the ride. The basic plan was to get out of Lesotho and to Johannesburg via taxi, then fly to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, spend about two weeks there, fly back to Joburg, and taxi back to Maseru in time for the All Volunteer conference.
Lee and I were the only ones from the south, and the other three northerners were still having their PDM workshop, it being separated into two different weeks for the north and the south. So we decided to go spend a few days in Joburg before our flight left to get in some much-needed shopping and eating. We planned to go up to Maseru and leave from that border gate. We got a message from PC security a few days earlier that the Maseru border had been blocked by a line of taxis, god knows why, so we hitched up to Mafeteng, the camptown just south of Maseru. Then we took the jankiest taxi in Lesotho to the Van Rooyens border gate. This taxi was so torn up, the front doors had to be lifted into place in order to close, the driver kept having to grab the window and pull it up because the wild rattling of the van made it slide down, and when we arrived, the side sliding door wouldn’t open, so everyone had to crawl over the seats to exit via the front passenger door. After walking across the border and getting our passports stamped, we were in South Africa at last. Surprise, everyone still spoke Sesotho, but there was an instantly noticeable 1) lack of mountains as far as you could see, and 2) change in infrastructure. All the roads were paved, there was clear signage everywhere, and there was even a landfill. So we taxied to Bloemfontein and then to Joburg. The difference between the taxis in SA is that you pay ahead of time at this little office instead of paying on the taxi some time during the trip. Then when the taxi is full, the office person comes into the taxi and calls everyone’s name. They didn’t bother with Lee or my name, though, referring to us as “makhooa a mabedi” [the two white people]. We laughed hard at that one, surprising the lady taking roll that we actually understood Sesotho. In Lesotho taxis, everyone is carrying loads of stuff, unaffectedly listening to deafening famu music, drinking straight from 2L sugary cokes, wrapped in blankets, sealing the windows shut, and just doing absolutely nothing besides staring out the window. In these taxis, the people were carrying comparatively very little stuff, the taxi was playing easy pop music at a low level, people were drinking water, not a blanket skirt to be found, there was a sign encouraging people to open the windows to fight TB, and people were actually doing stuff like listening to music in their headphones, playing on their phones, and reading books (gasp!). People weren’t even throwing their trash out the window. Definitely a 180 turn from Lesotho taxi life.
About 7ish hours later, we got to Joburg after dark, so we decided to get a taxi to the hostel. We paid R100 (The normal fare! Compared to R30 for an after-dark taxi in Maseru.) and got to Brown Sugar Backpacker Hostel. Fun fact: the hostel is a former mafia mansion in the fancy part of Joburg. All the houses around there are huge and have tall walls with barbed or electrified wire on top. Lee said it reminded him of Caracas. In the city, we definitely felt like two country mice. Multi-lane, elevated highways? Skyscrapers? Flashing lights? Hoards of people? Activity after dark? Madness. Though there were much of the same little shops and street vendors and things as anywhere else, we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
The next day, our mission was the mall. Now, normally, I’m not really a mall person, but being deprived of even halfway decent stores in Lesotho was wearing on me, and it was almost overwhelming to find myself in what I’ve heard is the biggest mall in southern Africa. Well, let me back up. First, we went to this other mall across the street from the huge mall, which was mediocre except that it had a Food Lover’s Market, which was basically Whole Foods. I really couldn’t stop drooling. Real food at last! Then we ventured across to the big mama mall. Sports stores, toy stores, sunglasses stores, salons, gadget stores, etc. etc. Lee and I ran around like kids in a candy store. Seeing that my tennis shoes had been beat almost to shreds in these last nine months, my first mission was to buy warmish hiking boots for both the winter and for hiking. Then I splurged and bought two pairs of jeans because I know that the ones I have now won’t last much longer. After many hours, feeling like snobs with multiple bags hanging off our arms, we walked back toward the hostel. On the way was China Town, so we stopped to get some legit hole-in-the-wall Chinese food and bubble tea. It was beyond good. Well, maybe it was just normal, but not having anything but basic staples at home and then coming to this was awesome.
The next day, we split a ride to the airport with an American lady who owned her own engineering business in San Francisco. We met up with Chyle and John Lee. At the check in counter, the dude asked about the tent we were checking. You’re camping? Aren’t you scared of snakes? Nope, they taste like chicken. Then we flew! We flew through the air and it was glorious.
We landed in Namibia and immediately had to turn in a health survey asking if we had any ebola-like symptoms, then stand in front of a temperature camera that could tell if we had a fever or not. We got a rental car upgrade from a sedan to a small SUV after the lady saw all our bags. Nice! Lee and Kyle would be driving, since they were the ones most used to driving a manual. It was a little sketchy at first, neither of them having driven in almost a year, plus having to drive on the left side of the road, but they got the hang of it pretty fast. And the new animals were immediately apparent. Right outside of the airport, we were already seeing baboons on the side of the road.
Our hostel, Cardboard Box, was definitely more than its name leads on, but it was still pretty iffy. Whatever; it gave us a place to sleep and crepe things for breakfast. We ate dinner at a place called Joe’s Beer House, where I ate a huge skewer of kudu, springbok, zebra, oryx, and crocodile meats. So nom. The croc was my favorite. Everything else was just different versions of red meat, pretty much normal tasting.
The next morning, we got some grocery shopping done at a really nice Pick and Pay (grocery store), then once we got out of town, the road wasn’t tarred any more. There were a lot of dips in the road, and once we ended up at the Betesda lodge, we realized we had gotten a flat tire. Good thing we got tire and windshield insurance. The rental car lady said that 80% of the customers get a flat tire. We changed it for the spare and drove to a gas station to get the other one patched.
On the way back, we found a very small mountain to climb on and got some great photos. The rock was really weird- like the stone equivalent of particle board, flaking off in big chunks and sounding hollow when hit. And the sunset was pretty sweet too.
After camping in our tents (and in the car for John Lee, who felt sick and didn’t want to wait for the tent to be set up to go to sleep) for the night, we set off at 5am and drove to the nearby national park with the tall sand dunes. We climbed the biggest dune we could find. It took about one hour to get to the top and about one minute to run down. The views from the top were amazing. The untouched crests of the nearby dunes looked like they were painted on. After jumping and rolling around up there, we absolutely flew down the hill. It was like you didn’t have to worry about how fast you were going because the sand would cushion your steps and slide down with you. Crazy fun.
Then we stopped for gas where I dropped not one, but two ice cream cones. I am really a clumsy person, but in my defense, they were quite unstably-constructed ice cream peaks. Or so I’d like to think. The third time, the lady gave me a cup. Wise move. We drove through such diverse landscapes that afternoon: swirly mountains, flat desert with scrub, white mountains, canyons, dunes, etc.
We ended the day in Swakopmund, the quaintest little town on the beach, where we ate unbelievable Indian food. We stayed at a backpackers/hotel called Villa Weise, which was quiet and nice.
The town only has about 40 thousand people, but they have everything. For example, they have a store for dogs, several nice grocery stores, a movie theater, a casino, a blood transfusion clinic, a dance studio, etc. etc. It’s booming so fast, too- lots of construction-, and there are a lot of Germans and other white folk living there.
In the morning, we walked from our hostel to the beach. Kyle and Lee went on a beach run. I would have gone, but my stupid foot is still kind of injured. Boo. Then, the two crazies jumped in the freezing ocean to cool off.
We wandered through the “African Crafts Market,” aka annoying hawkers trying to sell the same little carved animals and other nick nacks on the sidewalk. Then we found the playground. It was awesome. We played on the swings, the see-saws, and this huge spinning thing. We later found the sign that said 12 years old max. Oops. Sorry not sorry.
We spent three nights in Swakopmund, and two of the nights we took advantage of the movie theater where we saw Minions one night and Jurrasic World the next, both in 3D. Minions was especially funny because their minion language was kind of a mixture of European languages, so Lee and I, knowing various levels of French and Spanish, were able to decipher more of what they were saying.
The next day, we drove to the neighboring town, Walvis Bay, where they had big salt flats and flamingo colonies. It was pretty weird seeing these giant pink birds there, but I guess they have to live somewhere, you know? We walked a long way along the beach where we saw seals pop their heads out of the water, and there were two dolphins swimming alongside us in the ocean as we walked.
We left glorious Swakopmund and drove toward the giant rock in the distance that was Spitzkoppe. The park was almost like being in Arizona, with all the rock formations. The landscape was all a beautiful burnt orange with spots of green. Kyle wanted to come here to go rock climbing, which he is basically a pro at. He met up with this old guy named Andreas and they went climbing up this crack way up high on the mountain.
You may be able to see two specks in the crack. That's Kyle and Andreas.
The rest of us wandered around and explored the park. We saw some bushmen cave paintings which were pretty cool.
(Part of this wandering around included me learning to drive stick. On the right side of the car. I only stalled it out a few dozen times....)
After the climbing duo finished their big boy climbing for the day, they hooked us up to do some baby climbing. It was all slab/friction, with very little to hold on to, really grinding on your fingertips and toe tips. Belaying me, Kyle saved my life a few times because I was slipping a lot.
That night, Lee used my camera to get some night shots of the awesome view of the stars. Note to self: I need to practice more with my camera and not use auto mode so much so that I can know how to take photos like these.
We drove back to Swakopmund after our Spitzkoppe rock climbing detour to find that the electricity of the town was down for maintenance. Most of us not having electricity at home, this wasn’t so unusual. We found one café that was open and decided to eat there. We sat next to an oldish American lady who was living in Namibia. She told us that we weren’t seeing the “real Namiba” after hearing how impressed we were with Swakopmund. We were like “Duh. That’s why we came here. To get away from Stone Age Africa for a little while.” The rest of the crew wanted to watch ANOTHER movie- Terminator- but I was too tired, so I just went to bed. The next morning, we just kind of messed around in town, going to the beach again and making drip sand castles, then getting delish pastries and bread at a bakery.
Swimming at own risk. No swimming. Also, no hubbly bubbly?
Mmm, braised lamp
Leaving for the north, we arrived at desolate Mile 108, where we convinced the lady to give us a bungalow, as it was the same price split 5 ways as 5 individual camping fares. This was not what you think of when you hear the word “bungalow,” though. It could have easily been the murder scene of a horror movie. It was cloudy, misty, windy, and quite cold, with a half-destroyed water tower of some kind right behind us, rotting away. Fortunately, there was a gas stove, so we cooked game hot dogs over the flames. We decided that if we were camping, we probably would have all been huddled in the car eating them raw, keeping one eye out for a crazy man limping up the gray beach with a chainsaw who might come kill all of us. Fortunately, we all made it out alive.
We left sketchy Mile 108 and drove north up the coast, arriving at the gate for the Skeleton Coast. There are supposed to be a bunch of shipwrecks here, but all we found were a few relatively unimpressive hunks of rust buried in the sand, but then we found a really cool old oil rig that we explored around. Oddly enough, the best shipwreck we found had not been on the Skeleton Coast, but on a beach farther south. The ship had wrecked in the 80s as it was being towed to become scrap metal. The waves crashing through it and the motionless birds perched on top made it very ominous.
We kept driving and driving and got to the Abu Huab camp, where there were a lot of what seemed like little brats on safari vacations with their parents. We chose a campsite, and in the morning, we got chewed out by a guy for taking his campsite. He said that his table and chairs were already there, and that it was very “unfriendly” of us to take the site. These tables and chairs were literally at every camp site, so we thought that they just came with the place, but apparently not, and when you’re in a big safari group that all has tables and chairs for everyone, this is how they’re supposed to claim a spot. How were we supposed to know that? We packed up and took a tour of some rock carvings nearby. The tour guide said that a lot of them were made by shamans.
On the way out, we got stopped and our car got sprayed by some mystery fluid by the veterinary services something or other.
Driving further north to Etosha park, we saw a few people from the native Himba tribe, who put a red clay mixture in their hair and on their bodies. As we got into Etosha, an absolutely gigantic national park, we saw a bunch of animals just from the road, including giraffes, lots of springbok, and ostriches. The camp site was super swanky, with really nice bathrooms and showers, electricity stations and lights at each site, and even a pool, which was so refreshing. The campsite was really close to a man-made watering hole, complete with raised seating and lights for night time. It felt a little contrived, but being able to see animals up close was worth it. That night, what went down at the watering hole was more exciting than any TV drama. Let me set the scene. It starts with an empty watering hole at sunset with a very large rock in the middle of the water. But wait, it’s not a rock- it’s a dead elephant. So the plot thickens. A few rhinos come and go, drinking and scratching their faces on logs, then silently from the bushes about 15 elephants emerge. In the course of about an hour and a half, they’re trying to scare off the rhinos by charging and trumpeting, contend with hyenas lingering in the background, and the little ones are spraying water around as they drink. Then toward the end, one of the big elephants goes over to the dead one, touching its foot with its trunk, kind of feeling around on its face, almost as if it were trying to figure out what happened. Elephants have been known to mourn the dead, so maybe it was that? Either way, it was pretty sad.
Excited about the potentials for watering holes, the next day we drove to this other watering hole where there was a herd of 40-50 elephants! One almost looked like it wanted to charge our car and/or throw a rock at us. Other elephants were scratching in the trees, throwing dirt on themselves, little ones were being loving and laying their trunks on each other’s backs, and teenage males were kind of fighting with each other. It was amazing. They’re surprisingly agile for how enormous they are. On our way back, we saw so many zebras both on the side of the road and in the road. I don’t know how many zebras are in this park, but it must be some insanely high number. The next day, we drove around to some other watering holes and saw giraffes straddling their legs to drink, kudus, antelopes, wildebeests, and little deer called duikers. At the park exit, the veterinary services people made us both walk and drive over a blanket soaked with something, I think to detect for diseases or animal remnants or something, the same thing that got sprayed under our car a few days earlier.
We drove a long way to Waterburg Plateau Park, also a pretty swanky park, where we hiked up the plateau an ogled at all the colors of the lichens on the rocks.
After camping out, we went to a cheetah conservation place, where the held cheetahs that couldn’t be released back into the wild. They have successfully helped the cheetah population in Namibia to grow from threateningly low levels. Most of the problem is between the cheetahs and the local farmers. The cheetahs see sheep and goats and things as an easy meal, so they kill them, then the farmers get mad and shoot the cheetahs. The conservancy is working with farmers to prevent this, even raising and selling dogs to farmers to protect the flocks. They also have a goat dairy (the goats are for the dogs to get used to being around them so they will protect them like family). Good business plan.
We came back to the camp to find our tent unzipped and a few medical items strewn around. The park guy said that he saw some baboons make off with a little plastic bag, which turned out to be Lee’s med kit. Little punks. We spent the most of the rest of the day hiking to the top of the plateau and hearing baboons scream across to one another. The next morning, the baboons showed their faces and bared their teeth as we were packing up the car, coming right up to Chelsea and stealing several bags of food. They knew exactly what to take, and that plastic bags normally have food in them. Now they were huge punks. Kyle chased after them, but to no avail. We even had baboon prints on our car, which meant that they were climbing all over it during the night.
After driving back to Windhoek, we washed the past two weeks of dirt off our car, spent one night at a cute house-turned-hostel, returned the car, flew back to Joburg, then taxied back to Maseru. I would do it all over again.
