Namibia... so far

We're now in Windhoek, Namibia and the rain has started to set in. It's been dry and hot up until about Sossusvlei when the dark clouds started rolling in and we had a bit of spitting rain. This has meant that areas of the desert that I remember being actual desert are now green and lush with growth. Even some of the famous sand dunes here are starting to sprout grasses. Great in some ways that here we are seeing something that not many other tourists get to see, but this also means it's harder to spot wildlife (the reason why tourists come to Namibia). Anyway, I'll give a bit of a run down on what we've seen and done so far.

We left Cape Town and drove to the Cederberg mountains some time over a week ago spotting meercats along the side of the road. Once we made it to the Orange River which defines the boarder between SA and Namibia my dreams of camping beside the river which is surrounded by a weird dry moon like landscape, were dashed when we discovered the river was in flood, basically swamping ALL the campgrounds. Left with nothing else to do we headed across the boarder to Namibia a day early and ended up in a flash as Cabana overlooking the swollen river drinking beers and watching all the rubbish from the eastern side of South Africa float past (where the rains were).

Since then we've been driving a lot of dirt roads which are slowly destroying our almost new beloved faux 4WD. Hot and dry landscapes with some life were replaced with deserts with almost no life. Fish River Canyon for my second time was a bit of a disappointment as it's hyped as one of Africa's greatest sights... it's not, the red dunes and pans around Sossusvlei are way more impressive. As Namibia was once under German control, a lot of the architecture is essentially German. German is still a popular language and we've spent time torturing ourselves with some of the worst music I've ever heard (all in German) due there being only one radio station we can pick up. We visited an old German diamond mining town that was abandoned in the desert called Kolmanskop just outside an old German town on the coast called Luderwitz. These houses are preserved in the dry desert air and make for an eire experience. Surrounded by German tourists we made our escape to campsite in the middle of no where by some old German castle just to meet some Swiss Germans (these guys were fantastic though and we ended up meeting up a few times).

 
 

After visiting the dunes and walking into some old dry pans we headed to Swakopmund to check out these crazy plants belonging to the genus Welwitschia. These plants live for thousands of years and are related to pine trees but only grow two leaves which get battered by the wind and shredded to make these long flax like leaves. Pretty exciting for me, I don't know how Dani truly felt.

Drivers in southern Africa are pretty shocking with in SA alone something like almost 2000 killed on the road over the holiday season. This is mainly due to, in my opinion, poor driver training. On the way to Swakopmund we came across a flash 4WD overturned on the side of the road with the whole front caved in. It had just happened and stuff was strewn all over the side of the road. Essentially this douch decided to hit all the puddles on the road as fast as he could only to loose control and flip across the road. Luckily neither he or his wife were hurt except for cuts and bruises. Some one else drove his wife to nearest town to get them towed. This sort of behaviour has so far been demonstrated in SA as well as Namibia with drivers never following the speed limits and passing on blind corners.... mostly flash fast cars.
  

Anyway, rant over. We hit Etosha NP a couple of days ago. Spotted a pride of about 6 lions with two males the first afternoon we were there. We had been warned that it would be hard to see animals due to the abundance of water. During the dry season the animals congregate around water holes making it predictable in where to find them. However, we saw plenty of animals with a close encounter with a big bull elephant, hundreds of zebra, wilderbeast, giraffe, jackal, mongoose, only one rhino but millions of springbok and other antelope species. The coolest were the ground squirrels that would hang around camp and you'd almost drive over. You just wanted to pick them up and take them home except for the rabies warning. Second night we had a badger come into camp scavenging from the bins. This was first time I feared for our lives... Badger from Wind in the Willows was never like this guy!

Anyway. That's all I can be bothered writing about. It'll take me an hour to get photo's on here now. We're spending a few days working in a school here in Windhoek so will post up about that later in the week. Dani's got a class of first graders who love my hairy legs.

PS. Sorry about the photos etc. This may be the last photo's we post due to the hours I\ve spent trying to make them work on blogspot.





It begins

Today we leave the comfort of clean sheets, swimming pool, free food and ironed underpants (care of Lydia, one of the house staff). To farewell us on our journey, Cape Town has started with a scorcher of a day and the neighbourhood water main has burst leaving Dani unshowered. Our plan after travelling Africa on scooters was shot down became buying a car in SA and selling in Kenya. This is rather tricky so we flagged that and lowered ourselves to buying a car, travelling as far as Malawi and selling it back in SA. After checking out some dodgy cars we flagged that idea and managed to get a great deal on hiring a car to drive around SA, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia before returning it to SA. Our "car" (Kia Soul) will cause great embarrassment in the camp grounds but at least we're covered if it breaks down in the middle of the desert.

So anyway, we're off to the Cederburg mountains which are about 300km's north for our first night and on Sunday will push on to the boarder between Namibia and South Africa in our faux SUV (photos to come). The Orange River is in flood so fingers crossed we make it across the boarder.

Cape Town has been great. Dad and Libby have been fantastic in showing us around, and trusting us in driving their cars. Too many highlights of this beautiful city (photos to come) but before I'm dragged away one little scare from the other night. Here's the back ground.... The house we are in is surrounded by an electric fence and sensors. The house it self has cages on the doors and windows that get locked at night. We are on a 2 acre block and there are few neighbours near by and there are armed security patrols. It's not actually that scary until you've just finished dinner, it's dark and the alarm suddenly goes off. Dani and I really didn't know what to do so I rushed around locking doors while Dad and Libby open them to wander outside and see what's happening. Long story short, I had a huge adrenaline rush from a gecko who had shorted the electric fence causing bolts of lightning to spark through it's crispy body. This is so far our experience of South Africa's obsession with security.

Cape Town

Cape Town has been an interesting experience thus far. Graeme (Karl's Dad) and Libby treat us very well and we are having a fabulous time with them. Sometimes when sitting eating breakfast on the stoop it makes me feel like I'm on some American tv programme about wealthy Californians (like Entourage except without the entourage!).
Cape Town is stunningly beautiful. Beautiful beaches, buildings, weather (although the 'Cape Doctor' wind has kept us cool some days). We've been for walks and climbed Lions Head which was a bit of a scramble at the end and required pauses on the way down to wait for the gusts to pass us by.

We visited a cheetah park where cheetahs are reared for breeding and education purposes. Wellington Zoo also help by sponsoring dogs which are trained there to protect sheep. Cheetahs annoy farmers by eating their sheep and so the farmers shoot the cheetahs. The dogs are trained to become part of the flock of sheep and scare away the cheetahs.

We spent the day today driving around the 'Winelands' visiting a number of 'wine farms'. These wine farms are huge and decadent affairs with a tremendous amount of money spent on the aesthetics of the restaurants and gardens etc let alone the vines themselves. There were spectacular views of the vineyards and mountains all along this area. We had a delicious meal at one of the vineyards. I had my first taste of African fare, springbok and a taste of Graeme's kudu.

All of this is in stark contrast to the lives of many around here. On our way to and from the Winelands we passed Khayelitsha. This is a massive township on the Cape Flats. Home to over 2 million people. The government has begun to build housing with water, electricity and sewage systems, however, there are still so many people living in shacks made of corrugated iron with roofs held down by tyres. Apparently, illegal immigration adds to the problem as people arrive faster than the government can even begin to build houses. In the 10 years that Graeme and Libby have been here, this township has increased in size tremendously.

Also difficult to come to terms with as we cruise the streets in Libby's beamer is the fact that any person walking along the street in the residential areas is black, every gardener, street seller, parking attendant is black. I can't help but wonder what their lives are actually like. And what will happen next in this country of extremes.