Driving Namibia: Three women, two weeks, one country

Once again, I'm a few weeks late with the updates. Sorry. That being said, I have no idea what format this is going to come out in. Certainly it won't be a detailed, descriptive narrative. More likely a stream of consciousness, story-telling style. Let's see where this goes. Ready? Ok, deep breath:

Wake up super early on a Saturday, hike into Ondangwa. Find a taxi to Tsumeb, wait three hours for it to leave. Get to Tsumeb, Rachel is running late. Wait for her in a cafe, drink iced coffee (iced coffee here=coffee+ice cream+chocolate sauce). Meet Rachel, get car, drive, pick up hikers, drive, meet Jenn in Omaruru, drive. Night at Jenn's place in Omajete. Dinner and playlist making, sleep. Up early, drive. Brandberg-Namibia's highest mountain. Hike to the famous "White Lady" rock painting. Lunch at the base (apples/carrots/peanut butter/crackers/cheese: our staples for this trip, also known as "delectables"). Drive. Spitzkoppe for the night. Hot shower. Climbing on rocks, watching the sunset with a bottle of wine. Bed. Wind so strong it literally blows our tent away when we get out of it. Breakfast, more climbing. Pictures. Drive. Swakopmund. Water. In the air. (My hair was not happy). Mexican, Margaritas, and dark beer. (My tummy was very happy). Drive. Drive. Drive. Terrible, long, washboard-y gravel road. Cross the Tropic of Capricorn. Stop in Solitare for some pie at a bakery. Almost passed the campground (luckily the American flag alerted us!) Swim in the pool (cold). Simultaneous sunset/moon rise from the deck. Breathtaking. Dinner, shower, bed. Up early. Drive to Soussevlei. Climb some dunes. Take a million photos. Explore the vleis. Ice cream treat on the way back, more dark beer. Wake up, happy birthday to me. Drive. Breakfast pie at the bakery again (called Moose McGregors, very fitting). Drive. Drive. Drive. Lunch in Walvis Bay. Jelly fish the size of a hubcap. Flamingos. More coffee/desserts (we dubbed my birthday the "day of desserts", but it's ok, because we had real salads with lettuces for lunch, so clearly it balances out, right?). Walk back to the car. Dead battery. Lucky for us a Botswanan middle school cricket team was in the parking lot and gave us a push. Drive to Swakop. Rare sunset on the surreal road with ocean on side and dunes on the other. Food shop, get some treats (pesto, gnocchi, and chocolate covered almonds!) Also Amarula. And ice cream. Crash on our GIANT bed. Decide we're too tired to cook and fully embrace the day of desserts by eating ice cream with Amarula while snuggling in bed and watching Stardust. Birthday=success. Lazy next morning. Drive to Henties Bay for the fish festival, which in true Namibian fashion had more meat than fish. More iced coffee. Browsed the vendors. Bought hummus! And more pesto. Back to Swakop. Pizza and more dark beer. Early(ish) bed. Wake up at 3:30, drive. Drive. Drive. Oh, did I say drive? 12 hours to Luderitz. (Bravo, Rachel, bravo). Arrive at the same time as Mariella, Taylor, Kristin and Emily. Check into the hostel. Search for dinner. We heard Luderitz is dead after the sun goes down but we're determined to find a dance party. Dinner at a quiet cafe, then we search for the Yacht Club which we heard was a popular hangout for the "young folks". Can't find it. Wait, guys, might it be that building that's shaped like a boat and has a Heineken sign out front? Yup. Drinks, meet some really cool locals who invite us to a braai the next night. More drinks, random pizza, dancing (yes, we managed to find dancing. Only us). Bed. Kolmanskope Ghost Town, lots of sand. In the houses. Like filling the houses. So cool. Back to the hostel. Braai is starting now, so we still have a few hours to nap first. Braai with new friends, more drinks, more dancing. Good times. Learned the "Cups" thing. Out till wee hours. Sleep. Till 1. Yeah..."Breakfast" at a cafe, more iced coffee (So. Much. Iced Coffee. I'll seriously miss this.) Drive to Diaz Point, aka "Imperialist Point". Ocean, catch on the beach with a crazy dog and my tennis ball (and they laughed at me for bringing it...), exploring the awesome campsite, where you can actually sleep in an old boat (really, Lonely Planet, you're not going to include this?!). Snacks at the cafe. Amazing sunset (and the dubbing of me as the photomonger in addition to being the keymonger, and the gatemonger). Early bed. More driving. Drive to Windhoek. Meet up with Bret for Indian food. Crash on his floor. Jenn and I run errands in Windhoek while Rachel picks up her friend from the airport. Drama. Where's Hannah? We don't know. Cancelled flight. Will we miss Etosha? Finally get Hannah, decided to try to make it to the gate before sunset. Perfect timing, 30 mins to spare. Lady at Etosha remembers me. Gnocci and pesto for dinner.  Meet up with Abby and co. Wine and watering hole. Lions! And rhinos! Bed. Drive through Etosha. So many animals. WE SAW A LEOPARD! And an adorable elephant family. And got THIS close to a rhino One more night. Early bed. One more watering hole. Narrating the lives of some animals. Drive to 'Kati. Zebros for lunch (duh!) Urbock (rare winter-only beer). Up to Onamutai. Home at last, but this vaca isn't over yet! Homemade hummus and some Dr. Who. Crash for the night. Off the the trade fair with Kristy! Busy, but fun. Lots of things to buy, but I manage to exercise some serious self control (until December at least...). Back home, then out for the night to Paulson's. So. Many. Men. Paulson let us stay behind the bar. (Thanks, dude!) Home, bed. The trio leave early the next morning and I attempt to prepare for school the following day.

Phew. It was a crazy, adventure-filled two weeks that I will never forget. Thanks for a fabulous time L^3 feat. Hannah Montana =) 

Here, enjoy some pics! To see the the full facebook album (even if you don't have facebook), click here.

"White Lady" whose actually a man...

Spitzkoppe

I swear I actually took this

Hanging out under the rock bridge.

An dessert oasis in the desert

Sunset on the deck.

Moonrise

Deadveli

Kolmanskope-- inside an abandoned house

Sunset over Diaz Point

LEOPARD!!

We were THAT close! And this boy was huge!

So may squees.

Peace out

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