To the Sand Dunes of Namibia - Namibia

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Namibia To borrow from Lizzy: "My favourite animal encounter so far: we got rushed by a seal on the beach! We were walking on Sedgefield Beach, near Wilderness, and because of the tide coming in, had to wade through some water to get to a more secluded section. As we rounded the corner, me farting around looking at bits of jellyfish, I heard Ian say, "Holy shit!" I looked up and saw this huge, 300kg, wet, angry dog charging down the beach making the most ridiculous barking sound. Two seconds later, on legs of rubber, I realised I myself was making the most ridiculous barking sound (and yelling a very rude word) running away from a very annoyed seal. We must have trapped him by closing off his only exit: the sea. So, 300kg of blubber and fur put me into Cathy Freeman's league (Oz Olympic runner for you people to whom I have to explain everything Australiann, sigh)." Yup, it was pretty cool. Ok, so it wasn't one of the Big Five animals but it was intense enough and we'll see the 'five' later in our travels. In the mean time, Lizzy picked up a new hobby from these cool English women who came down from work in Swaziland Backpackers, Swaziland for a holiday. Lizzy started learning poi from them. Their backpackers sounds really cool. It's in the mountains on a mango farm and they have a solar-powered stove, which basically simmers away 24/7. We finished working at the backpackers after a month, left the bed bugs and took a City to City bus back to Cape Town for 100 Rand. That was about the cheapest we could find and it is a lot cheaper than taking a 'Baz' bus down the Garden Route, which plenty of tourists do when they arrive in South Africa. Basically they hop on a bus and get off whenever, wherever and get back on in the same way. They can even go back the way they came with the acquisition of certain tickets. Anyway, we preferred to be independent and take local transport. We would've liked to see more of South Africa but we had an engagement to keep in Windhoek, Namibia. It wasn't so much that we wanted to see the Garden Route, which is basically one white town after another, but we wanted to go to the beaches and go to places that a lot of locals rave about, the Transkeii, wild coast and Drakensburg Mountains areas. Also, we kept hearing about this groovey backpackers called, The Krall that is an absolute must. Something about no electricity, far away, free ahem ahem, beach, peace, tranquillity, and paradise...hmmmm. We decided that we might in fact go to these places when we return to Jo'berg in a year's time before flying back to Oz before our ticket expires. Six hours later we arrived in Cape Town and prepared for a long night. Most backpackers were booked out for a huuuuge bike race weekend and a street festival right outside our window. Right on Long street they had stages set up for various artists and their crew. Rock bands, punk bands, Dj's and their hip hop turntables and many others. It was one big street party. While standing in line for a schwarma, I met a friend that we had made while working at the backpackers. In fact, we recognised many people that we had seen leading up to the day of our departure in Wilderness, dancing away and drinking in the streets. Anyway, we met our friend Neil and hung out with him for a while. We wandered down near Green Market and came across these guys playing wooden xylophones called silimbas. They were awesome and I could've listened to them sing and play all night. I preferred it to the noise of rock music. Traditional acoustic music is somehow more wholesome and earthy. Anyway, after wandering around together and bumping into more people, we made our way back to the parking lot where Neil had parked his buckey. We were, or I should say Neil was, shocked to find the ol' Denver boot on his wheel. Some wanker who apparently gets off trying to make people feel stupid came around to basically gloat at anybody who would listen to his verbal diarrhoea about how smart he was and how dumb other people were to get their wheels clamped. After Neil got him to step off, it came down to negotiating with the money collector (200 Rand) about getting the bloody thing off our wheel and why she wasn't clamping other cars (was it coincidental that the only people who got the wheel clamp were non-white?). Her response was that she only had two clamps. Two clamps and all the rest were allowed to park as long as they wanted. It was discriminating. 200 Rand, 2 hours and a new parking spot later, it was agreed that we should have a beer. Beers actually. By the time we had ordered our first beer, the party was over and the cleaners were starting to survey the mountains of broken beer bottles to clean up in the streets. I slept easy that Friday night. Neil invited us over and we stayed two nights at his place just chilling out and chewing the fat. It was a good opportunity to learn more about our newfound friend and we are grateful for it. It's refreshing meeting people from other countries, which surprisingly almost didn't happen with Neil. While working at the backpackers, we learned that a lot of backpackers don't allow South Africans to stay at their establishments, as was the case with our own. Apparently, a lot of rif raf comes through and owners don't want any trouble, so they just say, No admission. I sort of see their angle but how else is a person supposed to travel in their own country on a limited budget? We were told to leave it to our own discretion as to who to allow in or not. We let everyone we saw come in and at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, I think that Lizzy and I are pretty good judges of character. So, add another friend to the ever growing list of people we want to keep in touch with. Yay! While chilling out on Sunday, we went to Kirstenbosch, a botanical garden. It was full of beautiful indigenous plants and we hung out just soaking up the green. We spent a little while chasing this little honeyeater bird with our camera and I swear, it was taunting us. Whenever we got ready to push the shutter button, it would fly off or go behind some obstructing branch. Whenever we gave up and put the camera away, they were right there twittering away as if to say, nyah, nayh, nun nyah nayh! Little bastards. Monday morning and 485 Rand later, we were on an Intercape bus and on our way to Windhoek, Namibia. Despite being restricted to a bus it was still exciting to see the Kalahari Desert landscape go by. Bare rock, sand and gravel with a smattering of shrubs, trees and the intriguing quiver tree. It kind of looks like a small tree with aloe leaves coming out the top of the crown. After receiving our surprise three month visa for Namibia (we were expecting one month) at the border crossing, our bus broke down. Frankly, I was glad for it. It was nighttime and we were out in the desert far away from any civilisation other than the road we were parked on. Above us was almost a 360°-domed view of the bluish-black sky and bright twinkling stars, spreading nearly the entire span of the horizon. While the bus drivers fiddled with the fan belt, I lay down on the barren road looking up at the sky. To the distant east, lightning displayed its jagged bolts, frequently illuminating the clouds from whence it came. Except for the occasional grunt or muttering of the bus drivers, there was absolute silence. The magnitude of the silent, desert surroundings and sky must have affected the rest of the passengers too, for they barely spoke a word. A slight, warm breeze touched my cheek. I looked to the north and saw two curious lights, disappear and reappear on the horizon. For a time I watched, then came to realize that they were headlights making their way towards us. Certain that they would arrive at any minute, I casually moved off the road. It was a full 20 minutes at least before we even heard the sound of the truck, as it was that far away. Eventually, it roared by us and was quickly swallowed up by the surrounding silence. Awesome. I would've liked to pitch a tent right there and then but sadly, it was not to be. It was determined that we needed a new bus and we would join another group at the next town. When we arrived, tired and bleary-eyed passengers gazed at us, perhaps even disapprovingly for making them wait an hour and a half for us, as we tried to find a new seat to squeeze into. Not having the luxury of having two seats to ourselves, we now found ourselves jammed in with the rest of the crew. Lizzy and I split up, sat across from each other and we tried to fool ourselves into sleep by closing our eyes. It was no use. Unless I am horizontal, I will NOT sleep. Lizzy didn't have much luck either and started conversing with the passenger next to her. This passenger had been working in South Africa and was on her way home near the Angolan border to bury her three-month old child. The child had died from an overdose of penicillin. The mother was still in shock as she told Lizzy that she had not yet cried, and went on to describe a bit of the burial ceremony. It involved slathering the mother's skin with mud and then pouring goat's blood on her, among other things. It was a long ride in the darkness to the capital of Windhoek. We arrived at six in the morning and promptly took a cab to Rhino Park to catch our minibus to Swakopmund. Minibuses almost never leave until they are full, so it can be hours before you finally depart. An hour and a half later, we were on our way. The drive through the Kalahari again was pretty nice. The landscape was all desert scrub and some tall bushes. Peppercorn trees housed tens of birds' nests that looked like a hanging ball of straw with a hole on the bottom. In the distance, pink mountains with dwindling ranges broke the flat surface of the desert. Four hours later we arrived in Swakopmund. We first had to travel to a township on the outskirts to drop off people. It was another reminder that poverty and apartheid wasn't just restricted to South Africa. We were dropped off at Dunes Lodge and put our stuff down, finally to rest after a total of 25 hours on the bus. Dunes Lodge was surprisingly devoid of people despite the overland tour trucks coming through. We had a ten-bed dorm room to ourselves. Happily, this backpacker's didn't have any bed bugs like the one in SA. After washing up, we went exploring. Right away we felt that there was less of a security issue here in Namibia. We didn't see the usual electric fences and rabid dogs patrolling the yards. Swakopmund is a wide-open town on the west coast with some German architecture left over from the colonial days. At the south end of town you can see the dunes, a 20-minute walk away, creeping ever closer to the town limits. The desert is surprisingly beautiful despite not having any plants around. On some parts of the ground there are beautiful stones of varying colours, each one worth picking up and having a marvel at. Namibia is rich in minerals and quite often you see people on the street selling pink and blue crystals and green malachite just to make a few bucks. In fact, Namibia is so rich in minerals that it has a huge diamond area completely shut off to the public. The boundaries (not the diamonds, eh) are about 300 km long by 100 km wide. It would be a fun place to go prospecting but obviously, nobody is allowed around and if you are dumb enough to get close and happen to drop something on the ground, you would most likely be shot for attempted theft of a mineral. The road to the German town of Luderitz runs along the edge. You probably wouldn't be allowed to stop for a leak. Anywho, Lizzy and I walked over to the dunes and had them all to ourselves without anybody around or noticing our departure. The colours and massive expanses of sand are amazing. We climbed, ran down, rolled and played around in the dunes. It was like a never-ending sand box. A child's dream! The sheer mass of sand dune after sand dune made me want to take off my clothes for some reason. So I did. I have seen satellite images of Namibia and they are quite impressive. Especially the west coast because all you see on the picture are yellow ripples like the sand under the water at the beach. It's huge! Actually the sand in the dunes themselves have those same small ripples created by the swirling, passing wind. We took a walk along the water and came across some curious shadows in the water. It turns out that they were rays starting to gather. In the end there were about 7 gliding, like shifting sand, on the bottom of the ocean. We hung out in Swakopmund for four days. There isn't much to do unless you want to fork out some dough for 4-wheeling all terrain vehicles or some dune sand boarding. I considered the latter but decided against it and figured I would get another chance elsewhere. Perhaps Egypt. I wonder if I should've done it now. Oh well, anyway, we hung out and frequented a bar on the beach called the Tiger Reef Beach Bar. It was ideally located as you could stagger out of the water, town and even the desert into a beach bar selling pure draft beer for about $1.30 a stein. Lizzy was in heaven. I say pure because Tafel and Hansa beer make their frosty brew according to the German purity laws of 1516 right there in the Swakopmund brewery. The bar is pretty cool with all the sand for a floor and old fishing boat junk hanging everywhere but set up in a nice way. Bring a sweater, as it gets cold at night there. On Friday the 18^th of March, we left Dunes Lodge and their fabulous breakfast (all you can eat breakfast is included in the 80 Rand a night fee) and hopped back on the minibus for an excruciatingly long drive back to Windhoek. (The nation's capital if you ever get that for a quiz question.) Long because we stopped so many times to round up more people to fill up the bus and because we were jammed in the back seat where the boombox is. We arrived in Klein Windhoek, a suburb of Windhoek, and met our German hosts, Helgard and Manfred. Manfred is a law professor at the University of Namibia and Helgard used to work for the minister of education. We met them through a friend of my sister's. They have been here in Namibia just prior to the independence in 1990, helping to build up the university, and working towards a united community. They're from Germany, and felt compelled to come here and try to make a more positive contribution than their 'forefathers' who colonised Namibia. In return for free accommodation and some other benefits, we edit about 23 papers (not including this email) from a conference on Traditional Governance and Customary Law-Southern African Perspectives, which are to be published in a journal at the end of this year. It is actually quite interesting reading about the conflict between, and the pros and cons of, European law and traditional law. Imagine how they coexist in a legally pluralistic constitution. It can cause great headaches as I have read. Anyway, we spent more time formatting, I think, than proofreading. Windhoek is kind of boring so we're not missing anything. Windhoek is small for a capital city. It has about 200,000 inhabitants. The country itself has about 1.8 million people. Anyway, it's small and when it's five o'clock, it's like a ghost town. It's worse on the weekends. Saturdays it closes at about 1:00. No shops are open and the streets are fairly empty save for a few bored souls. As for tourists, they only pass through here. Much to our delight, the Franco Namibian Cultural Centre has put on a film festival and we are seeing some decent international films at night, for free! It's a good place to hang out as they usually have something going on whether it be classes or some other cultural event or advertising for it elsewhere. The work is fairly relaxed and we often go out shopping for food or one of us has something to do in town (usually me) so we go to and from the flat fairly often. We live in an upper class neighbourhood where there are dignitaries and ministers of government who live nearby in their mansions. Unlike Swakopmund, every house has an automated sliding gate that leads into their driveway and home. On top of the 5-to-12 foot high walls are electrical wires strung along the perimeter of the property like a cattle fence only the purpose is reversed. Everyone has dogs. Rarely do you see anybody with one dog. There are at least two. Quite often we hear dogs barking all day and at length during the night. Sometimes I think they are 'talking' amongst themselves, never mind if no one is there, especially when they start howling. It just goes on and on. Then again, they are pretty sharp. They run to the gate or fence in a flash and display some fierce barking skills at the slightest disturbance in their setting. Sometimes we see 911 security force cars patrolling the area or some armed (AK 47?) Namibian police in combat fatigues walking down the road, keeping an eye out for any funny business so close to one of the minister's houses nearby. So, it was with a comfortable feeling that we left the house Saturday afternoon on Easter weekend to do some shopping at a supermarket 15 minutes away. A perfect day for a mugging.


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