Take a Hike

Hike: A ride back to the village from town with whomever you can find that's willing to take you.

I'm going to take you on an adventure. This is a fairly typical Saturday hike back to the village after morning errands. Ready?

You get in the taxi and tell the driver to take you to Okamini, which someone told you is the nickname of the hike point that everyone knows. Of course the driver has no idea what you're saying. You struggle to explain where you mean until one of the other passengers takes pity on you and chuckles while telling the driver, "she means oka-meenie". Oh, ok. You pull up to the mini-market and haul all of your bags on your shoulder while fumbling for change for the taxi fare. The driver takes off and you amble awkwardly up to the tree outside the market that is the official hike point for your village.
"Wa uhala po" you say to no one in particular, butchering the local greeting.
"Eehh" someone says back, the typical response.
"Anyone going to Onamutai?" you ask the group gathered around the tree.
At this point, usually one of the small boys (any unmarried male) that runs one of the fruit carts will sympathetically tell you that no one is going.

You drop your bags because you know it'll probably be a long wait. You stand there awkwardly, hoping that one of the two bakkies you recognize will pull up soon. They don't. You keep your ears peeled, hoping to hear the word 'Onamutai' amongst all the unfamiliar Oshiwambo chatter, but you don't. People are staring. Some whisper (or shout) "oshilumbu!", the not-exactly-PC word for 'white person', at you. You ignore them.

After about 45 minutes, one of the fruit vendor guys tells you that "that tate is going to Onamutai" while pointing in the general direction of about 3 bakkies. You finally figure out which one and walk over to it.
"Wa uhala po, tate" you greet him "You are going to Onamutai?" "Eehh" "Can I come?" "Eehh" "Thank you."
No one seems to be getting in, so you continue standing there with all your stuff until someone tells you otherwise. Finally people begin piling in and you hop in the back. This is where the fun begins. At first, there are only a few people in the back and their assorted belongings, but this quickly changes. Foodstuffs are being added by the second: a rack of frozen fish, 3 10kg bags of mahangu flour, a giant plastic bag of snack bags, 10 cases of Tafel, grocery bags, and more people. 'We must be going soon, we can't possibly fit anymore in the back of this truck' you think to yourself each time something else is added. And each time, someone shuffles things around to add more while directing you in Oshiwambo. You give them your best apologetic look and try your best not to look like an idiot while everyone else performs this well choreographed dance of rearranging.

Finally, 45 minutes after you first climbed in the back of the truck, with the sun beating down on your pale Irish arms and the bag of cold food tucked somewhere under your legs, the driver gets in the truck and precariously makes his way onto the road. You assume he's taking the new gravel road, since that's the fastest way back, but to your chagrin, he turns down a side street and you know you'll be taking the alternate, longer, sand road home. At the end of the road, you pull into the bar where the driver stops for what he promises will be a "small beer". For a reason unbeknownst to you, he makes you get out of the truck to wait while the others stay in the back and then proceeds to order a 750mL Tafel which he shares with a friend. When he finishes, he motions for you to get back in. You do as you're told.

You take off down the sand road, stopping every 15 or so minutes to let other passengers off. You and the others dig around for a while to find everyone's belongings before setting off again. Eventually you are the last person left, and you realize that the driver probably lived in the last village, and only is taking you all the way to Onamutai because you're white. That also means he'll charge N$15 instead of N$10. He tells you to come sit in the front now that you're the only one left, and you gear up for what is likely to be an awkward last 10 minutes. Sure enough, you're only in the truck for about a minute before the driver, who is old enough to be your father, starts hitting on you. It starts out innocently enough: he asks where you're from, then responds that he's always wanted to go to America, but it soon turns into him asking to come back to America with you, and if you don't have a boyfriend, can he be your boyfriend? You reject his proposal several times and avoid answering his questions of "why not?" You know he's harmless, but it's still slightly uncomfortable. He drives you to your door (even though you never told him where you live-- everyone just knows where the white girl lives) and you thank him for the ride, pay him the fare, haul all of your belongings out of the bakkie once more, and go inside where you promptly collapse from exhaustion. All you did was grocery shop and go to the bank, but it's already 3:30 (despite leaving at 8AM) and you're exhausted. You decide it's time for a nap.

Swakop-- aka "Is this still Africa?"

Because Namibia is a very religious country, Good Friday and Easter Monday are official holidays, which for us meant no school! We decided this would be a perfect time to visit Swakopmund, a cute little city on the coast. We had heard it can be a bit of a money pit, so by giving ourselves three days there, we would limit the amount of money we could spend. We met up after school on Thursday in Ondangwa and after a bit of confusion, managed to get a combi that would take us all the way to Swakop that night. It was supposed to leave at 3:30, and given an 8 hour drive, we figured we'd be in around midnight. A little late, but at least we would have all of Friday to spend in Swakop and not on the road. Well as with most things here, things did not go exactly as planned. We didn't leave Ondangwa until about 6:30, and with all the pit stops we made along the way, we didn't get in until about four in the morning. Yup. You did that math right, nine and a half hours in a combi. Woof. The seats were about 3/4 as wide as a normal seat should be which made for a very tight squeeze. Add to this the Oshiwambo hip hop that was playing at ear splitting volume the whole ride, and what you have is pretty akin to torture. Oh well- all part of the adventure. We made it to Swakop at 4 AM and someone said, "well at least we made it here!" We shushed her, saying that we weren't done yet, we still had to find two taxis to take us to the hostel, and at 4 in the morning, Swakop wasn't exactly bustling. We managed to find two taxis to take us pretty quickly, but moments after pulling out of the petrol station, our drivers announced that although they had just told us they knew where the hostel was, they in fact didn't. We had an address, but knowing nothing about the city, we were all pretty lost. After an eventful cab ride which almost included a roadside baby delivery, we made it to the Skeleton Coast Backpakers. The woman there was extremely sweet and met us at the door despite the fact that we woke her up in the middle of the night. We were let into our room where we climbed into our beds and snuggled under the down comforters. Yes, in Swakop, it was actually cold enough for a comforter. My New England heart was happy!

Wait, is this Maine?

State house

We awoke the next morning after only 5 hours of sleep excited to explore the new city. After a nice breakfast, we headed out to walk around and enjoy the gorgeous weather. Swakopmund is a small city on the coast where the German influence is still very strong.
The architecture is a fascinating juxtaposition of modern, geometric homes, and old Bavarian style architecture. The coastline is pretty rocky, and very reminiscent of the Maine coastline I am so accustomed to, but then the streets are lined with cement brick pathways and palm trees that looks much more like what I would expect to see in Venice Beach. Our eyes were constantly beholding new sights and I greatly enjoyed all the juxtapositions. We could hardly believe that this surreal little town was located in the same country as our homes in the north. There were some times when I would have to stop and consciously remind myself that I was still in Africa and had not Apparated to a seaside European village.

...no, it's Germany!

Looking down the pier

We walked along the beach to the center of town and enjoyed the smell of the ocean air-- I had forgotten how much I missed that smell. It was amazing to put my feet in the water and know that it was the same body of water that I swim in back home, except this time, instead of knowing that the Spanish shore lay far over the horizon, it was the Brazilian shore that was on the other side.

Market

Could have come from Maine

After getting our beach fix, we made our way to the Swakopmund Museum, which had lots of cool artifacts showcasing the history of the city. Once again, the German influence was extremely evident. Most of the exhibits featured the history of the German colonists, and any mention of the "native peoples" were in separate exhibits. We checked out the gift shop and purchased a few postcards to send back home (I even managed to find one single postcard of Ovamboland-- two palm trees next to an oshana. We got a kick out of this, so I of course bought it.) We left the museum and after a bit more exploring, found a cute little cafe to eat lunch in where I had a Hawaiian Quesadilla. Mmmm, Mexican, how I've missed you. Downtown Swakop was exactly like a little German village complete with shops and cafes (even a Starbucks impostor) but at the end of the street, you could see out to the sand dunes in the desert beyond.

You're not fooling us, fake Starbucks!

We walked to the end of long pier to get a clearer view of the sand dunes and go into full tourist mode and take more pictures. We were stopped by a bunch of random people who wanted to take their picture with us. We almost expect this in Oshakati where we are pretty much the only white people, but it was a surprise to get it here too where not only are there a lot of white Afrikaners, but a lot of tourists too.

Dunes from the pier.

After stopping in a restaurant to make dinner reservations, we headed back to the hostel and grabbed a blanket and some speakers to go lay out on the beach for a while. It was the perfect temperature in the sun and none of us wanted to get up, but we had a reservation to make.

Oh wait, no, it's Venice Beach.

We got a little dressed up and headed to dinner, where I had the largest plate of BBQ ribs I have ever seen (I needed quite a bit of help to finish it!) and then we did a little bar hopping. I think the strangest part of the whole evening was the sheer amount of white people we were surrounded by. We're used to being the only white people around in the north, but here, we were back in the majority again. It was nice going out in the city, and we met up with a few of the other volunteers from the Kunene Region that we hadn't seen since our Epupa trip. We headed back around midnight to once again snuggle in our beds and get a good night's sleep before our early morning harbor cruise the next morning!

Camping on the Kunene

Ok, it's been another busy couple of weeks so I'll post a few blogs about them, starting with two weekends ago when we went camping along the Kunene River on the Angolan boarder. So here goes:

View from the pool. How cool is that?!

A friend of the one of the volunteers has a house on the Kunene River up near Ruacana Falls, so on Friday, we all met in Ongwediva at their house there, packed up all our gear into their bakkies and headed out for the two hour drive to the river. It was a nice ride (we were in the king cab of the roomy, air conditioned truck-- luxury!) and the landscapes were beautiful. There was one moment where you go up a hill and on the other side, instantly, the entire landscape changes from mostly flat with the occasional tree to hills and hills of greenery. It was really quite spectacular.

Anyway, we got to Jan's house on the river and then drove up a very steep hill (making your driveway look like a bunny slope Christina!) the ridge of the mountain where we were able to enjoy the amazing view from the POOL! On the ledge. Wicked awesome. When it started to get cooler (and our stomachs started to grumble) we went back down to the house to start the braai. Of course, braaiing takes about 4 hours, so we didn't actually eat until almost midnight, but it was well worth the way because it was, as usual, delicious. We passed the time while the guys cooked by playing a travel version of Apples to Apples where you actually have to come up with the nouns/adjectives that start with the letter of the die that you rolled instead of getting them on cards. It was a lot harder than it sounds. We did help with dinner a little-- if you were ever wondering how many Americans it takes to make a Greek salad, the answer is 6. When dinner was over, we set up out mattresses out on the huge porch which overhangs the river, hunted for crocs in the water with a giant spotlight (we could see their eyes shining on the opposite bank, but no actually sightings) and then fell asleep under the stars.

I've decided to transport this
bathroom back home with me

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast, again cooked for us by the guys (they really do spoil us) and then we began to pack up our things and drive a little ways up the river to Johnny's camp where we would drop off some things, and pack up others for our hike. The camp was beautiful, and as odd as this sounds, I fell in love with the bathrooms. They had a really cool outdoor-shower-y feel (probably because they were...) and I took a picture because I sort of want the bathroom in my future home to look like it. There was also a really cool bar area made out of really large tree trunks. The area around the camp was a striking mix between desert and jungle.

Lots of tall trees with twisting branches and vines hosted a handful of monkeys that were swinging around the campsite, doing their best to hide from our view, yet the dry sand and thorny brambles were a vivid reminder of just how dry this country is. We relaxed for a bit at the camp, killing time until the hottest part of the day had passed. After divvying up the supplies, we hoisted our packs on our backs, were handed homemade walking sticks from Johnny's crew, and we embarked on our 4 hour hike along the river.


At first we were walking through lots of open fields in the hot sun, but eventually this gave way to more of a rocky gorge along the river. It was scorching hot, and the footing was a little precarious  but it felt sooo nice to be getting some exercise and enjoying the views that we didn't mind at all. Pretty soon our water bottles were empty, so we stopped at a place a long the river with some swift moving water to fill our bottles and take a dip without worrying about the crocodiles. We had to anchor ourselves on some rocks so as not to be swept away by the current, but the water was nice and refreshing, and I was reminded of swimming up at Livermore.

Our camp site.

We eventually had to get out, dry off, and move on so that we could make it to our camp site before sunset. After another couple of hours hiking, we found a little beach-y area along the river that we thought would make a perfect resting place. We filled up our water bottles again and began to gather firewood and set up our sleeping gear.

Mosquito nets + rope = perfect sleeping
under the stars

Instead of bringing tents, we each brought our mosquito nets and we tied a long piece of rope between two trees to hang them from. We cooked another delicious braai over the fire and then spent another night sleeping under the stars and listening to the rushing of the water over the rocks.



It was so cool to wake up the next morning, on a beach, looking out over river to the Angolan mountains on the other side.

This is what I woke up to.

After a nice breakfast of fruit, coffee, and left over meat, we packed up the campsite and headed out for the last (short) leg of the hike to where we would meet one of Johnny's workers who was bringing the truck to drive us back to the camp site.

Oh hai there little guy!

As much as we enjoyed the hike, we were all thankful not to have to hike back in the midday sun. We arrived back and Johnny's camp and explored a little while the guys cooked lunch. I got to snap some photos of the monkeys and Kristin decided to be adventurous and take the little kayak (with a broken rake as a paddle) into the croc infested waters.
After another amazing meal, we packed up the trucks one last time and drove back to Oshakati to prepare for the week ahead. Luckily, it was going to be a short week due to the long Easter weekend and we all had our Swakop adventure to look forward to. That's all for this post. Check back soon for "Swakopmund-- aka: "Is this still Africa""

Love from Namibz,
Jamie

Also, for more pictures, check out the whole album here.