I (insert hyperbolic word for “very” here) LOVE NAMIBIA. I honestly would go back in a heartbeat. It is a beautiful country with really fun outdoor activities, like safaris, ATV-ing and patio breweries! Seriously. The people were all really friendly and eager to talk about their country and their experiences. While I was in full badass mode, riding my ATV down a giant sand dune in the Namib desert, the Atlantic to my left and endless sand to my right, I realized and subsequently screamed into my helmet- “This is my semester of college!” I have never loved college this much. Now on to the specifics about Namibia. I am going to paraphrase from my journal entries because otherwise I will forget things. This is gonna be a long one, children.
At the diplomatic briefing before debarkation in Walvis Bay, the attaché guy told us a sweet and gentle story about how someone broke into his b&b the night before and stabbed him in the arm with a screwdriver, obviously scaring us shitless. After Brasil, we were not in the mood for another country where you walked around fearing for your safety. He made it sound like that was an everyday occurrence. It is not. I guess the hyperbole was a good way to make sure our guard was up. We were also happy to be in a country where the national language is English, especially since after South Africa, English will be nowhere near the languages we’ll be hearing. We debarked at about 12, and started heading towards the bus stop for our 1pm bus to Windhoek. There were about 15 of us going on the safari, and we all made it to the bus stop on time and on the list. We got on the nice, chartery, comfy Intercape bus and started our magical journey!
As we drove out of Walvis Bay toward Swakopmund and then Windhoek (about four hours away), I got stunning views of the ocean right next to the massive Namib desert, a gorgeous juxtaposition of blue water and golden sand. After a few “refreshment stops”, which involved Namibia’s answer to Cheetos, Nik Naks-the mascot of which was, you guessed it, Nik Nak, who looked strangely like Lil Jon. Snap ya fangas.
Once we arrived in Windhoek, we got a free shuttle ride to our nightly accommodations, the Cardboard Box Backpacker’s Lodge, known simply as “The Box”. The rooms were named after Vegas Casinos (I stayed in the Luxor), and they were very simple, but clean and roomy. We had just enough time to throw our stuff down and check out the hostel bar- very cozy and open air, right next to the pool- before we got cabs to Joe’s Beerhouse, which was absolutely MAGICAL. I ate about 75% of what I was about to see on safari: Ostrich, oryx, crocodile, kudu, springbok, and zebra, along with delicious corn fritters and some kind of delightful white cheese dipping sauce. The decided favorite was the zebra steak, with the oryx and ostrich coming in close behind. Our entire dinner, including drinks, entrees and dessert, came to N92 each. Sounds painful, right? That’s just over $12. Like I said; magical. The place was safari-esque, with big ponds, gravel walkways and thatch roofs with long communal tables and barstools made from toilet seats. After dinner we headed back to The Box Bar for drinks and international socialization- there were people from Australia, Germany, Chicago and Boston. Even after only one night, the cheap food, nice people and lack of hassling from anyone made Namibia outstrip Brazil by a long shot.
The next morning we woke up bright and early for free pancakes- really they were cinnamon sugar crepes, hence the “pancrepe”-and tea. After breakfast, we were picked up by our safari company in the van that was essentially our home for three days. We drove to Etosha and set up camp in our nice little two-person tents, then watched our first incredible African sunset at the camp watering hole, where we saw both Jupiter and a family of rhinos.
After a simple dinner that still beat out ship food, we played some cards and went to bed. We woke up around six the next day and spent the day on various game drives throughout the park, ending at our next campsite, which had a pool and an outdoor bar cum bonfire, along with a cool enclosed atrium restaurant-bar-watering hole area. Game drives are super cool. We spent the morning searching for lions, because once it gets hot they go hide under cool shady trees. We didn’t see any until the last afternoon, when we found three lounging under trees rather far away, but my sexy digital zoom caught them pretty fantastically. We saw a plethora of zebras- there are mule zebras and horse zebras that hang out together- and a plethora and a half of springbok, which are super adorable (and delicious) little gazelles. We also saw gemsbok gazelles, called oryx, a herd of elephants, warthogs, mongeese (okay, mongoose, whatever pluralization), a meerkat, wildebeests, impala, a tiny antelope called a dik-dik (insert joke here), ostriches and giraffes! Giraffes are the cutest animals ever. They look super awkward when the bend down to drink at the watering hole, they have to splay their front legs out and bend their long necks down to reach the water.
We also visited the Etosha Pan, which is just a gigantic expanse of crusty salty deserty earth that extends in all directions. We used the amazing scene to take a huge group jump shot- there’s a pretty fab picture of me doing a leap in mid-air. There’s also an amazing picture of what looks like Kate holding me in her hand. Oh, perspective. You’ll see them eventually, I promise.
That night, we had an amazing dinner of lamb, squash with cinnamon and Tafel, Namibia’s beer of choice. After dinner me and my friend Katey hung out by the bonfire and made friends with Lazizi, the bartender, who taught us to say “I love you” (!Namserega) and “I love Namibia” (Dideke Namibia ba a!nam) in !Nara, his native language- the !’s are clicks, which are crazy to listen to. We took pictures with our guides, Elias and Jason- it was Elias’s birthday the next night, so we celebrated and wished him happy birthday in !Nara, but I don’t remember how to say that one. He told us how he was actually turning 43, but his ID and all his papers say 39 because when his parents divorced, they had to do all sorts of paperwork and his dad put down the wrong age, but that’s the one the government took- he had to do all sorts of extra paperwork to get it fixed.
Elias was hilarious- he definitely did not look 43, and he was really jovial and vivacious- every time he wanted to make an announcement to the group, he would say, “Ding dong, attention please!” which we all thought was the best thing ever, and said it on a regular basis. I used my airline stewardess voice to say “ding dong attention please”, and Elias liked it so much he made me use that voice to give an entire fake airline spiel to the whole bus the next morning, complete with putting tray tables in the full upright position and pointing out the exits. We have a really great picture of me, Kate, Elias and Lazizi hugging a tree because Kate’s shirt said “treehugger” and Elias thought it was funny. Elias would also make hilarious animal noises, including hyena, zebra (woopwoop), and leopard (reowrREOWR, we made this noise the entire way home), although we stumped him with giraffe because they really don’t make noise.
After our bonfire party, Kate and I went up on the roof of the safari bus to stargaze- the stars looked amazing; you can see Jupiter and Mars along with totally different constellations from home, as we’re in the Southern Hemisphere. That reminds me- if you were under the impression that crossing the equator makes the water in the toilet flush in the other direction, it is FALSE! The pull of gravity is not strong enough to affect the direction of the water, it always goes the same way, no matter where you are…I was a little disappointed to learn that upon our Equator crossing. But that’s old news.
The next morning, we woke up around 6:30, ate a quick breakfast, and got in the vans for 8am. We then proceeded to drive until 5pm, stopping only for snack breaks, lunch, and a wood carving slash craft market where I bought way too much stuff that I am going to keep a secret because most of it involves presents. At 5pm, we arrived in Windhoek (still four hours away from Walvis Bay, mind you- somuchdriving) and left our safari guides at the tour place. We went back to Joe’s Beerhouse, which was just as magical as the first time (oryx and zebra and springbok, oh my!). We had a big group, and we got the “meter of beer”, which is just 12 beers in a giant wooden trough- hilarious. After another delightful dinner, we got back into yet another van (with yet another 6-song CD on repeat, just like the Amazon) to drive back to Walvis Bay, getting back around 1am. It was such a fabulous three days, but it felt really fabulous to take a looooong shower and get into my shipboard bed.
Our final (and only) day in Walvis Bay, a few of us from the safari took a cab into Swakopmund, a completely adorable Germanic town about 15 minutes outside WB. We decided to go ATV-ing, which was the GREATEST DECISION EVER. It was so much fun! We went with Desert Xplorers, which was a great choice because you know who else did? Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and their kidlets! There was a picture of the famous fam playing, and the bikes they used are named after them. We rode our sweet ATVs around the desert for an hour and a half, flooring it (well, thumbing it, there was no foot pedal) up and down the dunes like a self-driven roller coaster. Our ATV guide, Erwen, very generously too us back into Swakopmund proper in his Desert Xplorer van for lunch at an awesome German brewery, the Swakopmund Brauhaus. I had a delightful pork snitzel with bread dumplings, complemented by their signature beer. After lunch, we haggled our way into a cab back to the ship, to embark and head for South Africa.
We reach SA tomorrow, and are there for six full days. This is the first port where I don’t have any big trips planned, and I’m excited to explore all that Cape Town has to offer. I’m definitely going to Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was kept, the Stellenbosch Winelands, and out to a township for Operation Hunger, where I’m going to weigh and assess the nutrition of (read: play with) little South African kidlets. Cape Town is a major world tourist destination, so I can’t wait to discover it! Thanks to all of you who have sent me emails thus far, they really make my days, and to those of you who haven’t? Email me! I would love to hear from you! I’ll have another (probably even longer) post in about a week when we leave SA for our 12-day journey to India.
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