Hippo gas relief at night. My lovely Namibia-Botswana lullaby

For our last two days, we stayed at another awesome camp site (on par with Naukluft and Abiqua).  Mahangu/o camp was just outside the Namibia-Botswana border.  This border required you to venture through a small game drive in order to get there, how awesome is that? ‘What are you doing today?’ ‘Oh you know, just going to do the Mahango game drive on our way through to Botswana, might see an elephant croc or hippo. No biggy. What are you doing?’

 Mahangu/o camp was beautiful, right on the river, not facing Angola though, this time we had the privilege of seeing part of the Okavango and it’s inhabitants.  During our stay there we also saw the birth of the Merryl Peddie Hilton.  I have to say, as much as I was loving my sweet little pup tent from Fiver’s brother, Mark, the hobbit sized door had had it in for me since day one; I had experienced my fair share of temper tantrums whilst struggling to crawl out of it every single morning that it was time to change.  In order to get out of the tent required an enormous amount of skill you see.  I had to find the motivation every day to shimmy through the minute doorway and developed a technique for the days when I just couldn’t face it with strength. 

It was something like a hovering squat-walk.   Slash tripping over some string and tumbling out on top of my once clean but now dirty, dusted or damp pillow, sleeping bag and mattress.  Yeah yeah, I know- I could have just made 3 separate trips, taking each item out one at a time, but that would have been too productive, and I was trying to be efficient!  Anywho, this did get tiring after nearly 4weeks, so I have been temporarily  upgraded to what I like to call, the Merryl Peddie Hilton.  Actually, I should probably name it after the tent, ‘Coleman’s Hilton’, imported from NZ.  This was Five and Stuart’s ‘land tent’ for when we park up for a few days and they use instead of the roof tent, but since they like the roof tent so much more, I have been blessed with the big roomy dome – I can stand up in it and everything, what more could you want?

So easy to please… 

 My first night at the camp was a little bit restless.  For one I was far too excited about my fabric walled hotel that I couldn’t nod off as easily, I kept opening my eyes and seeing giant amounts of space around me, then I would smile and then attempt to fall asleep again. This was joined by another factor contributing to my interrupted sleep - the sounds of hippos at night.  Have you heard the noises they make? Good god, its loud!  I cannot type a bunch of random letters together that would even begin to give you an idea of what they sounded like, however it was kind of like (but nowhere near), a bunch of people who had serious flatulence issues, all letting rip at separate but consistent intervals on a megaphone, no wait… a delta sized sound system.  Whether or not that is what the hippos were doing, perhaps they were just cruising round on land making big whoppee cushion noises while they hung out, I’m not sure, but it was a very different noise to cars passing at night or a party going on down the road. 

I couldn’t help but lay there, in the early hours of the morning all wrapped up in my sleeping bag, and laugh.

Rundu Robbers

We arrived in the frantic town of Rundu after a late morning drive from Sachsenheim camp, just outside Etosha.  We had stopped at the Tsumeb museum on the way for a light history lesson (and some ab-fab mineral rock viewing) before heading into Rundu, which really was no more than a ‘border town’. Check me out with my traveller lingo ay.

Our camp was nice, yet slightly questionably empty.  What I mean is, it was on the river -  always lovely,  however the river was the border to Angola - hmmm.  Need I say more as we had a guard who sat by a fire near our site for the entire evening, on watch for illegal border crossers attempting to enter Namibia via our camp.

We watched another pleasant ‘African sunset’, saw a bushbaby in the trees, and the fantastic outline of an owl, had some dinner and were in bed by the average 7 year-old’s bedtime. Early.

Morning came and we were all up at funnily enough the same time any average 7year old would get up on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons. AKA sparrow fart.  We had to pack up and get ready for a big day at the internet café.  I was rummaging around in my tent as per usual; rolling up my mattress, shuvving the sleeping bag back into its bag with brute force, and being astonished at how much stuff I accumulated in my tent overnight. Fiver had briefly emerged from the roof tent to use the bathroom and Stuart was wandering around watching the sunrise while the water for the tea was boiling.  This was the tiny window of time when the roof tent was unattended, and robbed…quite possibly by a couple of tree swinging children.  That was the unanimous decision anyway.

 

This was our wake up call.  Now we are much more cautious of leaving the car and belongings unattended for more than one minute at a time.  Hmm.  Luckily, the only items that Stuart and Fiver are now less of, are; a couple of pieces of dirty washing, 2 empty bags and Stuart’s recently extracted tooth from Windhoek.  Too many lollies at the Swakopmund movie theatre, I think.

We thanked our lucky stars this was all, and I pretty much kissed my passport after finding it was still in its original place.  My question is though, who robs a bloody roof tent when the back doors are almost screaming out ‘please, someone, anyone, take these three conveniently charging laptops from this wide open and unlocked car’? 

Whoever they were, we were glad they preferred empty bags, dead teeth and dirty washing to apple technology and cloning identities

Etosha salt pan and national wildlife reserve TOP 5, with Merryl Peddie.

My first rather large (absolute understatement) wildlife reserve experience; far too overwhelming, far too many animals and far too many photos, so I have decided to make a top 5.

 

Top animal encounter:

Watching a very brainless vehicle turn its engine off in the middle of the road to watch the ‘cute’ and ‘lovely’ elephants cross it.  The photo says it better than I ever could. O and I can’t wait to see the footage.

Top animal blooper:

Lions and the warthog. Watching two lions chilling out by the waterhole.  A warthog comes sprinting in for some water only thinking ‘one lion, ha, I can handle him, if it means I get a sip of water’.  We know he only saw one because soon enough he slammed on the brakes, skidded a metre or two and just bolted in the opposite direction. If you have seen a warthog run, you would be laughing right now.  Very short stick-like stumps for legs, running along the ground as fast as they can whilst trying to support a large log for a body, and a pathetically thin tail as stiff as 10 pieces of number 8 taped together; so bolt up-right in the air you could hang a surrender flag on it.  No disagreement there.

 

Top animal defence mechanism – denial of the Kudu

While we watched the male lions rule the waterhole with absolute ease and the warthog flocking about like a headless chook, we spotted a Kudu in the trees, which had also just spotted the two lions.  The only thing that gave this animal statue away was the sunlight hitting his horns – he would have been cursing those horns if we were game hunters you know.  While the warthog was creating his own doom, the Kudu was trying his absolute hardest to do the opposite – he just stood there, so dead still it was incredible.  All I could picture was this Kudu, talking between his teeth managing no lip movement what-so-ever telling himself, and us “you can’t see me. I swear, I am invisible….I am NOT here”.  It was like you had just been spotted in a game of spotlight and you’re trying to tell your friend ‘don’t you dare give me away you bastard’ without movement of any kind, it was classic.

 

Top animal pun:

Seeing a zebra crossing. The first time we saw one I think I took about a hundred photos. By the end of the day we had seen so many I wouldn’t even bother to reach for my camera. How spoilt.

 

Worst animal camouflage:

Giraffes, without a doubt hands down no arguments.  They look like a bloody skyscraper in a grassy 8-hectare paddock.  Or, a teacher standing at the side in a primary school class photo the equivalent height to three rows of staggered primary students. 

 

Hakuna Matata in my head for 1month straight now. I swear to god every time I see a warthog I want to short-circuit my brain

Camping confusion

Our campsite in Swakopmund was rather fancy, yet absolutely unnecessary. It started off with reception. The lady at reception wasn’t just the standard one lady at one little desk. She was three ladies, two desks and one of those ear tearing ‘yappie’ dogs that fit into your handbag. All three very white ladies were immaculately dressed, presented themselves at only the highest standard and spoke with perfectly posh South African accents. I could have sworn I was walking into a ritzy hotel or enquiring about my some day house mortgage at the bank. They were still very lovely and helpful and issued us with our very own numbered bathroom key. Fiver and I thought this was rather unusual.

We arrived at our grassy site and wondered why it had a front door. The front door had the number 8 on it, which funnily enough matched our bathroom key – no way! Then we took a proper look around the area.

Each campsite was so perfectly laid out that it looked liked we were camping on someone’s front lawn down a perfect suburban street. It looked like a whole group of protestors (who had all managed to lose their signs, have top of the line camping equipment and were all happy) had raided a pretty little street and pitched their tents on every front lawn. It was classic.

As you can probably see, I am really enjoying all the different camping experiences we are already having. They vary so much that a lot of the time I find myself thinking about the results of a lucky dip draw at calf club day – there is a list of the top prizes placed above the bin (camp site listings in the guide book), you give so and so’s mum your entire $2, (making a mental note that at last years calf club it was only $1), then you put your hand in the bin, have a feel around and finally pull out your prize just hoping you got the right one (making the decision and calling a camp site). The problem with lucky dips is that the prizes would vary drastically. Sometimes you’d get that awesome prize everyone was crossing his or her fingers for (highly recommended camp sites). Other times you got a really average prize whilst thinking you had your hands on the good one. You then gave so and so’s mum a long, drawn out and unenthusiastic ‘thaanks’ which was more an act of politeness and covering your butt rather than gratitude (sites we thought were going to be good that turned out to be…not so good). Other times there was just that straight up weird prize. The one that you couldn’t figure out - was it a really cool toy or a completely impractical household item? What did it do? After calf club day was over it would just kind of hang around the house until it finally ended up being biffed into the junk draw. That, or, a friend finds it amongst a heap of junk one day and is absolutely ecstatic about it but can’t understand why you don’t mind if they borrow it and never give it back.

I think the last prize was Alte Brücke camp site for us, I could see how some people would absolutely love it but we just saw no need for the extensive number of bathrooms (which means ridiculous amounts of plumbing in the desert!) and having our own set of ‘house keys’. A simple patch of grass, dirty or sand and a nearby ablution block is enough, and for many other campers too, I am sure.

Sandboarding with Konstantine

No joke, that was my instructor’s name. Konstantine with a K, very coool I thought. I booked my sandboarding experience the afternoon we arrived and luckily got to go the very next day; I was going to be picked up at a certain spot at a certain time.

That morning I walked out the gate of our camping ground and to my surprise saw a nicely sign-written van parked right outside with snow (sand) boots and boards piled up neatly in the back. Yusssss, no awkward waiting. Or so I thought. I took a longer look at the writing on the van, more like a leaning in stare really. The smartly dressed driver looked over at me as if to say ‘what do you want?’ and I realised it wasn’t the company I booked with. Gutted, I did have to wait awkwardly, and now I had to wait in front of the cool van in my sweet tramping outfit. I sat down on a fence and soon enough two scruffy non-uniformed guys came over and one asked me if I was going sandboarding today.

Fantastic! We got into the non sign-written taxi (that was parked in front of me, of course) and headed off for the dunes.

I never thought I would be wearing snow boots, track pants and a thermal on the sand dunes. Ever. It was hard work walking up the dunes every time, surprisingly not hot work though, quite the Atlantic breeze was flying over us. After a hell hike up, I found the actual ride down was more of a rest than anything, but it was still so much fun. What I didn’t like, was after a few runs we would head for the next steepest dune, which of course meant the next hike was twice as strenuous as the last. Good ol Konstantine only liked giving each dune two runs before moving on again. I gave him my two cents once I cottoned on to this behaviour don’t you worry. Ate my words (again) soon after though. There I was whinging and moaning every time we started our dune ascent. He would first take my board, then my bag, then we would have constant pit stops, and he would walk ahead so I could follow in the footstep groves, yet I was still praising chairlifts or escalators as if they were a godsend. I started joking around how chairlifts are such a better way to go and soon enough he told me he hadn’t ridden in snow before. Ugh! The guy hadn’t even seen snow before! I felt rubbish afterwards, absolutely rubbish. But he told me how in Swakopmund they still have sand boarding comps with slalom, jumps, and downhill blitzes and it all sounded like good times. It made a lot more sense afterwards though, thaaats why he wasn’t really responding to my comparisons of sand versus snow. Shot Merryl.

On our last dune slide we raced to the bottom. Kosta (nick name) let me beat him, but I didn’t let on I knew. I did a fake wee ‘yay I won’ parade and then downed a well-deserved Windhoek lager on the beach. Thanks Kosta, I had a ball on the dunes!

Next activity on the list – dune buggy thrashing! Or Vic falls bungee jump, rumours aside it doesn’t cost more than my entire student loan. Being that it thrives off such a tourist attraction though, I’m not holding my breath.

me and my mandatory helmet

3 days in one place – wow!

We worked out that Swakopmund was the first place we had stayed for 3 nights. Everywhere else had only been 1 or 2, so this was big for us. It ended up being the only place we stayed in for three nights during our entire visit to Namibia. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing at all, but it is impressive to show you how often we are moving, and are almost constantly on the go. To be honest, I never thought 3 days at one spot could seem nearly too long, but we are getting so good at settling in, relaxing, sorting shit out, doing some touristy stuff and heading off again that when we have any spare time after that we kind of get a little lost, and don’t really know what to do. Plus we all like to keep busy and keep on schedule so moving on always seems to be the appropriate thing to do next.

On the other hand, you may think 6 months seems like a long and luxurious time to do this trip, but really when we break it down to every country and the almost daily distance goals, it is only just enough.

Since we had a whopping 3 nights in the very german Swakopmund, Fiver, Stuart and I managed to get a lot of ‘stuff’ done – went to the movies where they handwrite your ticket and let you choose your seat from a laminated seating plan, (Angels and demons, terribly trashy don’t do it!). We dined out German style - I think I managed to fumble out three terribly pronounced words; “bitte, danke and…ja”, how shocking. We also finally found awesome travel mugs, squeezed in a morning jog, and sent some excess baggage to Germany. A near 30kg parcel to be precise, which has made packing the car an absolute dream compared to our old, vacuum packed, every cubic cm utilised, ways. This also meant my hair could now start growing again. Just the slight whisper of the words ‘pack’, ‘unload’, ‘find’ or ‘store’ were enough to send any one of our blood pressure levels soaring. All fixed now though, good work at the post office Five and Stuart!

We also sourced some Internet access during our stay in the bustling wee town. We located an internet café the day we arrived, scoped it out and then swooped for the kill the next day. For the following two days we absolutely bombarded the café’s bandwidth. Six hands typing frantically, posting blogs, emailing family/friends and uploading pictures.

I was completely unorganised and was more the frantic typist than anything else. I hadn’t completed a single blog let alone had any photos sorted to upload yet. Shit it was so stressful, I don’t think I breathed for at least an hour and was absolutely spent afterwards. I hope I’ll be ready next time, no promises though.

<>>

Gosh it was such a scene. I chuckle so much when I think back on it now. You can just picture 3 wired campers’ with scruffy hair, looking like something straight out of a tragic camping article, except we were all hovering over our different generation apple laptops, squinting anxiously at the screens for connection confirmation, and were oh so crammed onto one miniscule table (even though neighbouring tables were free). Backpacks were exploding with fire-wire, USB cables, external drives and cameras. Desperate power supplies were tangled all around us like hungry house pets, sucking the power from the café’s only available ‘cambrook’ whilst utilising every second of internet bliss till the bitter sweet, ‘timed out’ end.

It was the birth of the ‘Mac Squad’. Internet café’s of Africa beware!

Swakop success.

Driving into Swakopmund was a lot different to how I had pictured it was going to be, and I wasn’t really prepared for what I saw – sand dunes sifting their sandy volume across the roads by rather gusty winds which were also giving me and the steering wheel quite the jiggle around. The road was a high contrasting black against the orange sand and pretty ‘hotel like’ palm trees were planted all the way down the centre. The change was so abrupt too; one minute we were happily cruising along flat plains of desert and gravel with a gorgeous blue sky and then suddenly all visibility went from infinite to ‘oo I can only just make out the car 10 metres in front of me, I better slow right down’. The sand dunes were incredible how they just took over anything in their way, including the train tracks which, several men were trying to recover by shovelling mounds of sand aside that just inevitably blew straight back on the track again. I hoped they hadn’t been there all day. It was unreal.Then, I realised this was Walvis bay, 30km out of Swakopmund. It is the port Swakop never managed to get or beat. I guess I was a little ahead of myself and the GPS, so the drive continued a little more, down a very long road which ran nicely parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. The view of the ocean was much closer than at Lüderitz, however this did make it rather difficult for me to pay my full attention on the road. In the end though, I did manage to get us to our destination safely, and in one piece.

Here is the Swakop wharf and some nice waves crashing on the shore.

Some photos of Sossousvlei

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