Whirlwind

Dear reader,

My travel companions!

How are you? It's been awhile, huh? Whoops, sorry 'bout that. I fully intended on giving you the blow-by-blow of my month long trek around south western Africa, but it was a long time ago, the details are getting fuzzy, and the thought of sitting down to write six more posts has kept me from doing just that. So instead I'm going write one more highlights-only posts of my trip. I'm sure you'll hear more of the details later. So here goes nothing.

Poling on the Delta

Day 3: Maun- mokoro trip. Peaceful, beautiful, nice to be on water again. Went on a game walk and saw a heard of zebras. After lunch, I tried my hand at poling and actually wasn't terrible (Ben-- I think I could take you on at paddle boarding!). Oh, and we almost hit a hippo on the way back. Note to self: hippos are really big. Like *really* big.

Sunset cruise on the Zambezi River

Day 4: To Livingstone- super lucky travel day. Hardly had to wait for anything, and we also managed to negotiate the exact right price for a taxi, despite not knowing the exchange rate. Score one for the Americans.

Day 5: Vic Falls- Zambian side. Words can't describe how gorgeous it is, you'll just have to wait for pictures (and even those don't do it justice. You should probably just book your trip and see for yourself...) We got drenched, but it was totally worth it.








Day 6: Vic Falls- Zimbabwe side. is it possible for the falls to be even more spectacular? Yes, yes it is. Also, got to handle American money again, it was weird. Got photographed for a Zimbabwe tourism website at lunch, and I ate crocodile skewers (all for you, Sean).





(I now take a break from the highlights-only post to go into detail about the craziest thing I did all trip: jump into the Batoka Gorge.)The restaurant was in a lodge, and the lodge (like most in the area) had a booking center where you can book all sorts of adventures and outings. I had wanted to try a zipline sort of thing, so we went over to check it out. I must have been feeling pretty brave, because I ended up signing up for the gorge swing...hey, once in a lifetime, right? Basically, they drove us out to the gorge right below the falls, strapped me into a harness (actually two), brought me out to the edge of the platform and told me to jump. Ok, it was a little more organized than that, but that was the gist. The guy who was on the platform with me told me that after I jumped, I would free fall 70m in 3 seconds, then drop into a pendulum swing. He had heard me say earlier that I was a math teacher and right before nudging me off, he said "quick, what speed will you fall at?" Uh, what?! Sorry sir, I'm slightly preoccupied by the 200m jump I'm about to take, can you repeat that? He told me to think about on the way down and report back. Yeah, ok. Then he gave me a nudge. I had a split second of "oh shit. what did I just do?" before the rush took over and all I could do was grin the rest of the way down. There I was, swinging in a harness with the roaring waters of the Zambezi river swirling 3 meters below me, and what did I do? Start thinking about that math problem of course! Well it was much easier to think about at the bottom of the gorge than it was at the top, and I quickly calculated an average speed of 23.333... m/s (this, of course, is based off of 70m in 3 seconds, which isn't entirely accurate if you actually calculate the acceleration due to gravity, which I did as I was being pulled up...yes, I'm a nerd, I know). When I was safely back on the ground, I was greeted by the impressed looking faces of Matt and Jenn, who handed me a Hunter's. They know me well.

So this happened. (Major photo props to Matt!)

On the crossing back into Zambia, we encountered the worst negotiator in all of Africa. When hyperinflation had reached it's peak in 2009, you could find Zimbabwean bank notes in hilariously high amounts, such as 500 million dollars. Now, they've scraped the Zimbabwean dollar, and are using American currency, but you people still sell the old (now worthless) bank notes as souvenirs. After I refused to pay $10 for 5 worthless pieces of paper, this man tried to haggle with me, but I kept refusing. Finally he said he would just give me one if I wished him luck. Uh, ok! Then another guy on the bridge offered to trade me a one billion dollar note for my shirt. Um, no thanks.

Breakfast view of "the Smoke that Thunders"
from the deck at the lodge.

Day 7: to Ngepi Camp. Took the Intercape Bus back into Namibia. Lots of religious/super melodramatic, awful acted movies blaring right above my head. Awesome. Got to the camp pretty late, but the staff re-opened the bar for us, then we all sat around a campfire while a hippie in dreads played the guitar. Reminded me of my theatre days...

Day 8: Ngepi- basically we relaxed all day and just hung around the camp. It was exactly what we needed.

Day 9: More travel. We were hoping to make it to Grootfontein, but we got a slow start and had to wait awhile for a hike out of Divundu. We finally found one in the back of an open bakki, and the guy was booking it. My ears hurt a little... When we got to Rundu, we discovered it was too late in the day to get anything out, so we decided to stay the night. Makeshift dinner of cold focaccia bread from Spar and milkshakes from the bar for desert while we finally figured out what we all owed each other for money. Early bed.

Day 10: Back to Windhoek. I awoke early in the morning on our last day to the sound of birds chirping. I realized that I wasn't cold for the first night of the whole trip, and closed my eyes to sleep for another hour before we had to get up. As I started to fall back asleep, I hear a rustling noise in my tent. Uhhhh. I look down, and see a swarm of fire ants right under my sleeping bag. Yup. I had slept on an acacia thorn that had poked holes in the bottom of my tent, which provided the perfect doorway for a couple hundred fire ants to make their way in. Needless to say, I leaped out of my tent, trying (and failing) to make as little noise as possible. Pulled all my belongings out, spent a half hour brushing everything off, threw out the tent, and took a shower.

Combi to Windhoek. Back to Chameleon. Dinner at Joe's Beer Garden (too kitschy for my taste, super unimpressed with the beer selection), then early bed. Up at 4am for my 7am flight to Cape Town.

So that pretty much sums up the first half of my trip. Sorry for the super abridged version, but I promise to share the full version with everyone when I see you again. I'll post again soon about Cape Town and Etosha with mom.

Till then,
Jamie

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.