In & Out Of Africa - Namibia 2002
This is an account of a trip that I took to Namibia, Africa, in 2002. It should be noted that this was originally posted on the message board belonging to musician Lori Carson, whose songwriting workshop I had attended a month previous. There are a couple of references to the workshop contained herein that would make little sense without this bit of information.
-In And Out Of Africa: My Travel Diary-
A few of my fellow October Workshoppers expressed an interest in my trip to Africa so to save myself from typing the details over and over, I'll be keeping a tour diary here. I put it in the community area so some other friends can follow along as well.
My buddy Carlos is also along on the trip. He is a fellow musician and we used to both be overnight volunteer deejays at the same college radio station (WNCW) a few years back. He got tired of hearing about my trips to London, where he had never been, and asked if he could tag along the next time I went. Since my trip to Namibia was routed through London, I mentioned my plans and he was very much into going. I scheduled three days in London so he could at least get a quick overview of this wonderful city.
We arrived in London yesterday morning and met up with my friend Cath, whom I met via a Judie Tzuke list. The two of us have met up with five or six others on two previous occasions to play Judie's music - once in a pub in Birmingham, England, and last year in Holland at a recording studio. Since Cath lives near London, we meet up in Hyde Park to play and sing music (especially Kate Bush songs) whenever I am in town. It was a bit chilly for that this time around but we still managed to play for a couple of hours and Carlos added vocals this time on some Eagles and Beatles tunes. Then we checked out and drooled over the overpriced instruments in the music department of Harrod's. After saying goodbye to Cath, Carlos and I walked by The Royal Albert Hall, where the George Harrison tribute concert was taking place but nobody was giving any tickets away so we headed to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Caught the 11:00 pm chiming of Big Ben before calling it a night.
Today, we did a tour of Tower Bridge, which was fascinating. You get to go up the towers and cross the upper span of the bridge. We did a bit of CD shopping and then met up with my friend Roy for dinner in Chinatown. We then popped into a few pubs so that Carlos could experience a typical Saturday night in London.
Tomorrow, we plan on visiting The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral and a quick visit to Abbey Road Studios to walk across the zebra crossing that The Beatles made famous. We leave for Africa at 9:00 PM. A total solar eclipse will be occurring on December 4th so wish us luck with the weather.
I'll post when I can but I don't know how easy it will be to find an internet cafe in Namibia once we leave the capital city of Windhoek. If I can't find any, I'll write something when I return on December 9th.
I'm going to get some sleep now. To be continued...
-I'm Back-
Well, my suspicions were confirmed as far as the difficulty of finding access to the internet while in Namibia. I got back from my trip late Monday night having not touched a computer for nine days, the longest I've been away from the internet since I first accessed it circa 1995. Anyway, the trip was amazing but it had more than its share of obstacles to overcome. Since I was not able to record my thoughts as they happened, I'll do a day by day summary of the trip from memory... starting later on today (I'm still dealing with the time zone change thing) and I'll post a few grabs from the videotapes I shot (4 hours worth).
More later.
-London to Africa-
The Sunday in London was pretty much spent at The Tower of London, where one can spend hours checking out the crown jewels, suits of armor and a wealth of other historical treasures. (I had visited on my first trip to London back in 1981 but did not see as much as I did this time around.) That was all we had time for so the rest of the plans were scrapped so that we could get to Heathrow in time for the flight to Africa.
Here's where the fun began. Not. Our flight to Johannesburg was delayed two hours. This was particularly disastrous as we had only a two hour layover before our connecting flight to Windhoek was to depart. The 11 hour flight landed at 11:45 AM, which did not leave enough time to collect our luggage, go through customs, check in and make our 12:00 PM flight. The next flight out was 7:00 PM so we were stuck in the airport for seven hours before we left on the two hour flight. This put us in Windhoek at 9:00 PM instead of 2:00 PM, as we had planned. We were facing spending the night at the airport since all of the camper vehicle places were closed. Our first call was met with instructions to call back at 7:45 AM. Our second call saved the day. The fellow from Windhoek Car Hire, Harry, told us he would come right out and pick us up as well as putting us up for the night in his guest house and he would have a 4X4 ready to go in the morning. The airport is in the middle of nowhere and it's about a 20 minute drive into the capital city of Windhoek. Harry treated us to drinks at his poolside bar (I had a Coke & Carlos had a lager) while he gave us tips for our trip after I told him what we had hoped to see while we were in Namibia. His hospitality helped to make up for what had been a horrible day. We had lost the first day of six we planned to spend here so Victoria Falls was out. (Virgin Atlantic Airlines will be hearing from me about this...)
-Day 1-
Harry packed up a 4X4 for us and took as to a local grocery store to stock up on food supplies before sending us on our way. We headed for Caprivi, where the next day's eclipse would take place. The whole day was spent making the drive northeast. The roads were better than we thought they might be and the traffic during the day was similar to what it is in the middle of the night here in the U.S. The towns were few and far between with mountains and desert brush filling the gaps. We hit a downpour in the mid afternoon, which we would find to be fairly common.
We were approaching the Caprivi Strip (Namibia's panhandle) as night fell and we were introduced to the insect life of Africa via the windscreen. We stopped at a gas station to refuel and its bright halogen lights were swarming with bugs. They looked like a fog. I was wearing all white and when I stepped out of the truck, the bugs were all over me. It was awful! We realized that a campfire would probably not be the best idea.
We left the gas station, crossed a bridge and came to the entrance to Caprivi Game Park, which was closed for the night. There were a few others who were denied entrance to the road and we all set up camp there since we had nowhere else to go. We ended up chatting with a German couple, Tom and Kristina, who had a camper and offered us spaghetti for dinner, which was quite good. Tom has a business flying tourists around in an ultralight to get aerial views of Namibia's natural wonders (www.scenic-flight.com) and was planning on meeting with a film crew to shoot the eclipse but the closed gate would not allow him time to set up his ultralight the next day. I had previously thought the eclipse would occur at 6:08 AM but luckily I was mistaken. The listing on my eclipse map was Universal time (Greenwich Mean Time) so we had until 8:08 to make our destination, two hours plus from the gate. We were told the gate would be opened at 4:30 AM so I was relieved to discover my error. I was thinking we had come all this way only to miss the eclipse.
We talked with our new friends for a couple of hours under the most amazing star filled sky before calling it a night. We would only have about 4 hours before we would have to wake and get moving.
-Day 2-
The day started early in order to reach the target area in time for the eclipse. We were on the road by 5:00 AM and it was still somewhat dark so the bug problem was still at hand. One unfortunate difference was that now birds were after the illuminated bugs and there were a couple of unavoidable casualties. We reached a spot on the road that was dead center in the moon's path and pulled off to wait. We had about an hour to spare and we could view the moon starting to cross the sun using some special cardboard glasses that we obtained from Tom & Kristina which looked like those old 3-D glasses, only with tinfoil where the red and blue lenses would be.
The clouds started to set in, of course, but they were patchy and we could view the moon's progress nicely with the glasses when the sun peaked through and we could see the sun through the cloud cover without them occasionally. This was the point where I started taking video of the event, which the grabs I posted are from. Playing on the truck's CD player was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which is my preferred soundtrack when I view lunar eclipses and the obvious choice for this viewing. I must have been an curious sight to the locals as I leaned against the truck playing my Backpacker guitar along with The Floyd while staring at the sky wearing those crazy glasses.
It didn't get as dark as I had expected (an eclipse that I viewed at my parents' house in '85 was darker and had the martins flying back to the gourds in the back yard to call it a day) and it suddenly got brighter and I thought "oh, that was it." My watch must have been 4 or 5 minutes slow because I was still waiting for totality to occur. We couldn't see much of the sun through the clouds at that point so we weren't sure what point the eclipse had reached. From what I heard later, the moon was further than the earth than necessary to block 100% of the sun which is why it wasn't as dark as I had expected.
All in all, the eclipse was pretty cool but I was glad there was more ahead on the trip to see. It was a bit of a letdown but I have been wanting to visit Namibia for 5 or 6 years and the eclipse was just incentive to go ahead and make the trip now. It ended up being like mediocre frosting - even though it wasn't spectacular, it was still pretty good.
After the light show, we hit the road again for another long day of driving. The wildlife was non-existent along the Caprivi Strip (apart from the kamikaze birds) when we drove through it in both directions. There is supposed to be much to see here but we didn't have time to stop and get a guide so we witnessed none of it. We tried to find some caves that contained cave paintings but we were unsuccessful as the information on the map gave little details and the lack of signs did nothing to help the situation. We pulled up to the entrance gate of Etosha National Game Park at nightfall and set up camp there. The bugs seemed to be less of a problem here so we decided to try lighting a fire. Proving us wrong, the bugs were swarming to the flames in no time so we hopped into the cab and settled for bread and butter for dinner and the meat we had in the cooler remained untouched.
-Day 3-
Woke up at sunrise. Spent the full morning in Etosha National Game Park. This is a huge preserve that includes the Etosha Pan, a flat salt bed that is filled with water during certain months. Not December, apparently. It was flat cracked ground for miles.
It was in this park that most of these wildlife video images were taken. The zebras were the first things to grab our attention, walking along the side of the road. Then the giraffes. They were particularly fascinating to watch, especially when they ran. It looked like they were moving in slow motion! Also on view were kudu, oryx, springbok, wildebeest, ostriches and a lone elephant. We had started too late to catch the morning gatherings at one of the many watering holes and we had to leave well before the afternoon gatherings were to take place but it was a real treat to witness these fascinating creatures from just a few feet away! No big cats but then you can't have everything.
Took off around noon since there was much driving to do, as usual. I should note that rather large termite mounds (several feet tall) were a common site on the roadside. They look like chimineas. Some encircled trees that were still not dead, looking rather like some freakish dirt tree.
We hit another good downpour on this stretch of road heading to the northwestern portion of the country. Workshop cohorts Kristin & Mische received air time on the CD player during this leg of the journey. Reached the end of the paved road at nightfall and found the Hippo Pool Camp Site on the Kunene River. Upon entering the gate, we found it abandoned so we had the entire place to ourselves. Best of all, there were showers with running water! I had not bathed in three days, the longest I've gone without a shower since I was hooked up to an IV unit in the hospital with strep throat back when I was a senior in high school. You do what you can, though, applying a new layer of deodorant, donning a fresh set of clothes and washing your hair with a small kettle. I'm not too keen on this camping thing.
The rain was good and bad. Good in that the insect population was held at bay and we could finally turn on the lantern without being swarmed a la that expedia.com commercial. Bad in that it's tough to grill burgers while standing over the fire with an umbrella.
-Day 4-
When we awoke, the rain was gone, the sun was up and the flies were out. Taking a proper shower was a treat, even if the water was a little cold. We packed the truck and headed off the paved road into the Kaokoland region, truly 4X4 territory. The roads were bumpy as hell and the previous night's rain left the occasional muddy pool in the road to drive through or around, if that option was available. There were also a few tributaries to drive through but they weren't too deep. To give you an idea of how rough the roads were, it took close to two hours to drive 30 miles to The Kunene River Lodge, where Harry had told us we could hire a guide to take us to visit the Himba people.
The Himba are a tribe of nomadic pastoral people who still live as they have for centuries, raising cattle & goats and growing crops. The tour guide took us to meet a local Himba family, who were at work plowing in a nearby field. The father was out but the mother and her children took a break and welcomed us inside the fence of branches to see their home. They showed us how they used stones to grind for food as well as the ochre powder used with animal fat to cover the skin for both beauty and protection from the elements. We were allowed to see the interior of one of the mud & dung cone shaped huts, which was fascinating. There is a good diagram of a typical Himba village here: (www.eia.com.na/dune/Tribes/himba.htm)
The children were mesmerized by the video camera, on which the foldout viewing screen can be flipped 180 degrees to allow the subject to see themselves. Curiously, one child couldn't stop smiling while another had the saddest look imaginable. As we prepared to leave, we gave the family gifts of cigars for the husband (which Carlos had brought along) and a giant candy bar for the rest of the family. (I had bought a Nestle's Milky Bar, which is like a white chocolate Crunch bar. They don't sell them in the U.S. and I've loved them since I first discovered them in Ecuador in 1978, only to go 21 years without having one until I found them again in London. This was a sacrifice of epic proportions as I don't get my hands on these things very often!)
We returned to the lodge and then made the trip back across those treacherous 30 miles to where we had begun that morning. It was early afternoon by this point and the rest of the day would once again be spent driving a great distance. The roads were primarily gravel for this leg of the journey but they were in excellent shape, save a bumpy stretch in the middle. We saw a few baobab trees, which are big enough to carve a home in. I understand that this has been done before but the ones we saw were spared domestication. Late afternoon and evening brought magnificent views of plateaus (the first I've ever seen) and mountains with the added bonus of a spectacular sunset followed closely by a crescent moonset. There were scores of springboks, kudu and oryx along this stretch of road. Luckily, we didn't see any after nightfall because they can lead to disaster when driving at night, as we were forced to do in order to reach our destination near the coast. CDs by workshop cohort Kevin and mentor Lori got airplay during this stretch of road. Lori's words "as we drive and we drive in the middle of nowhere" rang true and drew a chuckle from Carlos.
We were forced to stop for the night at the gates of Skeleton Coast Park. We pulled off the road to set up camp. I heard Carlos say "Oh, shit" as he looked into the back of the truck. The cooler had overturned and the ice water (formerly ice) had spilled out along with all the contents of the cooler. To my horror, I remembered that I had put my bag of dirty clothes in the back of the truck and tucked into one of the end compartments were the booklets from several CD box sets (including Genesis, Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, Steely Dan, The Byrds & The Who) that I had brought along on the trip to read during the airport layovers. The bottom half of each book was completely soaked. Carlos started a fire and cooked chicken while I began what would be a three hour process of wiping off each individual page of all six books with napkins, then taking folded notebook paper and computer printouts and sticking them in between every page of each book. This process would end up salvaging all of the books to where I can at least read them, even though they now look like crap. The glossy pages would have literally cemented together and torn had they been allowed to dry without doing all of this. Carlos had gone to bed by the time I completed the rescue effort and I ate the cold chicken and stared at the stars, which were dazzling. I spent the next two days constantly flipping through the books to help them dry a bit faster when we were on the road. Needless to say, this particular night, I was not a happy camper.
-Day 5-
Sunrise gave the first true glimpse of our surroundings since we had arrived in the black of night. We obtained a permit to enter Skeleton Coast Park and headed west towards The Atlantic Ocean. Along the road, we saw the occasional Welwitschia Mirabilis, a plant that can grow to be 1,500 years of age. They survive in the desert by absorbing moisture from the morning fog and the rigid leaves near the ground prevent wind erosion. Once the ocean was within sight, large dunes could be seen to the north, but we had to hang a left and head south. The northern portion of The Skeleton Coast is only accessible with yet another permit and by air with special tours. I'll get there one day.
The road running parallel to the coast is a salt road, which is in excellent shape and made for a smooth drive although we had been warned that it could be treacherous to drive on if slick with moisture. A sunny morning kept us from such danger. There was only the occasional glimpse of the Atlantic as we traveled this road. To the east lie barren expanses of ever shifting terrain with a mountainous backdrop. A movie set on Mars could easily be filmed here, I thought. Between the road and the ocean were signs warning Keep Out: Mining Area.
I was disappointed that the road was not closer to the beach but there were a couple of spots where public access was allowed, both of which included shipwrecks. The first was a wooden hull fishing boat that met its demise in June of 1976, the S.W. Seal. The second was actually just outside of the southern entrance to Skeleton Coast Park, an iron bow called The Winston, which ran aground in 1970. When we drove towards the beach to see this one, there was a guy standing by a car who seemed happy to see us. He turned out to be a fellow American (Iowa) whose car was stuck in the sand and he was hoping for some help to get out. I found a large flat rock nearby, which I lodged under the front wheel and it worked perfectly...until he got about five feet and then sunk into the soft sand once again. The same trick failed to work a second time and he eventually hitched a ride with some local fisherfolk who were driving down the beach to a service station a couple of miles down to arrange for a tow.
Fortunately for us, our 4x4 had no trouble with the sand and we were soon back on the road. We soon arrived at Cape Cross, where in 1486 Diego Cao became the first European to set foot on the coast of South West Africa. He erected a cross in honor of John I of Portugal, hence the name. Currently residing at Cape Cross are between 80,000 and 100,000 cape fur seals. The smell was atrocious but it was fun to watch them wobbling about on the rocks and sand. The barking of thousands of fur seals is something to hear. Just as with humans, you could spot a trouble maker, striking out at others as he worked his way across the busy beach. There's one in every crowd.
We worked our way down the shoreline through Swakopmund, a very German coastal town. Here is where the grand sand dunes of the Namib Desert began to appear. It was a short drive to Walvis Bay, which would be as far south as we would get on this trip. After reaching Walvis Bay, we hung a left and soon arrived at Dune 7, a large area of dunes which are popular with dune surfers and four wheelers. These are massive dunes, reaching several hundred feet in height. I gained a new respect for nomads as I scaled the dune, which was not unlike climbing up a down escalator. I stopped to rest 4 or 5 times before reaching the summit. Once I reached the top, the view was spectacular. I hung out for a while, watching as the winds blew the sand over the crest, continuing the process that formed these magnificent dunes. Eventually, I made my way down the opposite side, which was less steep and visually more interesting. The waves of sand were beautiful, particularly with the sun on its way down leaving interesting shadows and accenting the windswept ridges in the sand. When I got to the bottom, I spent a while rock hunting, which turned up some fine samples to add to the ones that I picked up on the Skeleton Coast. After walking around to the other side, I saw somebody skiing down the side of the dune, zigzagging back and forth just like on the slopes. That was bizarre!
As night fell, we backtracked to Walvis Bay up to Swakopmund and started on the road to Windhoek. More night driving eventually lead us back to insect territory and the windscreen was once again caked in bug. When we pulled off at a rest spot to camp for the evening, it was clear that a campfire was a no go. Earlier in the day, I had bought a loaf of bread to snack on during the day. Carlos questioned this action at the time, asking why I was buying a whole loaf when we were going to be leaving the next day. After he realized that beef sushi was the only item on the menu for the evening, his question quickly changed to "Can I have some of that bread?" He he.
I did some star gazing, since this would be the last time I'd have that good a view for quite some time. In the space of two minutes, I saw two shooting stars. Every time a vehicle would make its way down the road, I jumped in the cab. As the lights drew nearer to the campsite, a multitude of bugs would rise from the brush and head toward the oncoming vehicle. I preferred to watch the madness from a safe place. After my daily bread, I went to sleep.
-Day 6-
Woke up just after sunrise. Packed up the gear and made the short drive into Okahandja, where we had been told there was a wood carver's market. We stopped to check out the goods of a roadside vendor before we reached town and bought a few things before heading on to the market. There were quite a few vendors with a nice selection of carvings. I had limited luggage space to work with so I had to think small. I would have loved to have brought back one of the large animal skin drums that were available but there was no way and I had to settle for a double gourd maraca. I also bought some animal carvings for the family and a bunch of smaller elephants to give to friends. I felt bad not being able to buy something from each of the vendors but I had a limited amount of Namibian money left and the aforementioned baggage space limitation. Just about all of them offered me "the Sunday price" and if you didn't counter their initial offer, they kindly reminded you that you were supposed to negotiate. After a couple of hours, it was back on the road to Windhoek.
We pulled in to Harry's place right around noon and took showers and repacked our bags with our newly acquired goods. While we were waiting for Carlos to finish repacking, Harry, his wife and the taxi driver inquired as to what was in the long black bag that I had with me. I told them it was a guitar, which drew looks of disbelief so I unzipped the case and showed them the Martin Backpacker. This also drew looks of disbelief as it is a most unusual looking guitar, close in shape to a boat oar. They asked me to play something so I played one of my fingerpicking instrumentals that is currently called "Hillbilly Wombats," which they liked. It's always easy to impress non-musicians.
Once Carlos emerged, we said our goodbyes to Harry and headed for the airport. This was the start of the 38 hour journey home. The flight from Windhoek to Johannesburg was 2 hours and we had about 4 hours to kill at the airport there, which gave me time to write a few postcards and send them off before leaving the continent. The 11 hour flight to London departed on time and before catching six or so hours of sleep, I watched an excellent in-flight movie called "The Salton Sea."
Once we arrived at Heathrow, the plan was to make one last jaunt into London since our flight was not for another 7 hours. The beauty of Heathrow is that you can take the subway right into the heart of London so after a quick wash of the hair in the sink of the airport restroom, I headed into town. I hopped into a couple of book shops and then made my way to The Knightsbridge Express Deli for one last chicken mozzarella baguette before heading back to The States.
The flight to Chicago was about 8 hours and I may have gotten an hour of two of sleep. The in-flight movies were lame so I listened to an interesting retrospective of Stevie Wonder's career on the music menu. Once in Chicago, there was a 3 or 4 hour layover until the flight for Charlotte. I managed to read a good chunk of my newly damaged Genesis Archive 1967-75 box set booklet while waiting for the flight. I must say that Chicago looks incredible at night from the air.
We got into Charlotte around 10:30 PM and the journey came to an end. I got back to my house just before midnight and had to work the next day. While in Chicago, I had seen something on CNN about the call for disaster relief in North Carolina so I was a little concerned but I found nothing unusual upon returning home. The next day I learned that thousands were without power for several days the previous week after a huge ice storm that swept through the area. So it seems that I am not the only one who was roughing it.
Anyway, to sum everything up, it was a great trip. It was wonderful to be able to spend time in a place that has not been paved over and still remains much as it has for centuries. The people were also amazing. Very friendly and gracious. Namibia is referred to as Africa's Hidden Jewel. Six days was way too short a trip to be able to take everything in fully but we managed to pack a lot into that time. Certainly enough for me to know that I want to return in the future when I can stay longer and take things in at a more relaxed pace. I highly recommend it to anyone who can find their way to this piece of the rock.
-Fin-
-In And Out Of Africa: My Travel Diary-
A few of my fellow October Workshoppers expressed an interest in my trip to Africa so to save myself from typing the details over and over, I'll be keeping a tour diary here. I put it in the community area so some other friends can follow along as well.
My buddy Carlos is also along on the trip. He is a fellow musician and we used to both be overnight volunteer deejays at the same college radio station (WNCW) a few years back. He got tired of hearing about my trips to London, where he had never been, and asked if he could tag along the next time I went. Since my trip to Namibia was routed through London, I mentioned my plans and he was very much into going. I scheduled three days in London so he could at least get a quick overview of this wonderful city.
We arrived in London yesterday morning and met up with my friend Cath, whom I met via a Judie Tzuke list. The two of us have met up with five or six others on two previous occasions to play Judie's music - once in a pub in Birmingham, England, and last year in Holland at a recording studio. Since Cath lives near London, we meet up in Hyde Park to play and sing music (especially Kate Bush songs) whenever I am in town. It was a bit chilly for that this time around but we still managed to play for a couple of hours and Carlos added vocals this time on some Eagles and Beatles tunes. Then we checked out and drooled over the overpriced instruments in the music department of Harrod's. After saying goodbye to Cath, Carlos and I walked by The Royal Albert Hall, where the George Harrison tribute concert was taking place but nobody was giving any tickets away so we headed to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Caught the 11:00 pm chiming of Big Ben before calling it a night.
Today, we did a tour of Tower Bridge, which was fascinating. You get to go up the towers and cross the upper span of the bridge. We did a bit of CD shopping and then met up with my friend Roy for dinner in Chinatown. We then popped into a few pubs so that Carlos could experience a typical Saturday night in London.
Tomorrow, we plan on visiting The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral and a quick visit to Abbey Road Studios to walk across the zebra crossing that The Beatles made famous. We leave for Africa at 9:00 PM. A total solar eclipse will be occurring on December 4th so wish us luck with the weather.
I'll post when I can but I don't know how easy it will be to find an internet cafe in Namibia once we leave the capital city of Windhoek. If I can't find any, I'll write something when I return on December 9th.
I'm going to get some sleep now. To be continued...
-I'm Back-
Well, my suspicions were confirmed as far as the difficulty of finding access to the internet while in Namibia. I got back from my trip late Monday night having not touched a computer for nine days, the longest I've been away from the internet since I first accessed it circa 1995. Anyway, the trip was amazing but it had more than its share of obstacles to overcome. Since I was not able to record my thoughts as they happened, I'll do a day by day summary of the trip from memory... starting later on today (I'm still dealing with the time zone change thing) and I'll post a few grabs from the videotapes I shot (4 hours worth).
More later.
-London to Africa-
The Sunday in London was pretty much spent at The Tower of London, where one can spend hours checking out the crown jewels, suits of armor and a wealth of other historical treasures. (I had visited on my first trip to London back in 1981 but did not see as much as I did this time around.) That was all we had time for so the rest of the plans were scrapped so that we could get to Heathrow in time for the flight to Africa.
Here's where the fun began. Not. Our flight to Johannesburg was delayed two hours. This was particularly disastrous as we had only a two hour layover before our connecting flight to Windhoek was to depart. The 11 hour flight landed at 11:45 AM, which did not leave enough time to collect our luggage, go through customs, check in and make our 12:00 PM flight. The next flight out was 7:00 PM so we were stuck in the airport for seven hours before we left on the two hour flight. This put us in Windhoek at 9:00 PM instead of 2:00 PM, as we had planned. We were facing spending the night at the airport since all of the camper vehicle places were closed. Our first call was met with instructions to call back at 7:45 AM. Our second call saved the day. The fellow from Windhoek Car Hire, Harry, told us he would come right out and pick us up as well as putting us up for the night in his guest house and he would have a 4X4 ready to go in the morning. The airport is in the middle of nowhere and it's about a 20 minute drive into the capital city of Windhoek. Harry treated us to drinks at his poolside bar (I had a Coke & Carlos had a lager) while he gave us tips for our trip after I told him what we had hoped to see while we were in Namibia. His hospitality helped to make up for what had been a horrible day. We had lost the first day of six we planned to spend here so Victoria Falls was out. (Virgin Atlantic Airlines will be hearing from me about this...)
-Day 1-
Harry packed up a 4X4 for us and took as to a local grocery store to stock up on food supplies before sending us on our way. We headed for Caprivi, where the next day's eclipse would take place. The whole day was spent making the drive northeast. The roads were better than we thought they might be and the traffic during the day was similar to what it is in the middle of the night here in the U.S. The towns were few and far between with mountains and desert brush filling the gaps. We hit a downpour in the mid afternoon, which we would find to be fairly common.
We were approaching the Caprivi Strip (Namibia's panhandle) as night fell and we were introduced to the insect life of Africa via the windscreen. We stopped at a gas station to refuel and its bright halogen lights were swarming with bugs. They looked like a fog. I was wearing all white and when I stepped out of the truck, the bugs were all over me. It was awful! We realized that a campfire would probably not be the best idea.
We left the gas station, crossed a bridge and came to the entrance to Caprivi Game Park, which was closed for the night. There were a few others who were denied entrance to the road and we all set up camp there since we had nowhere else to go. We ended up chatting with a German couple, Tom and Kristina, who had a camper and offered us spaghetti for dinner, which was quite good. Tom has a business flying tourists around in an ultralight to get aerial views of Namibia's natural wonders (www.scenic-flight.com) and was planning on meeting with a film crew to shoot the eclipse but the closed gate would not allow him time to set up his ultralight the next day. I had previously thought the eclipse would occur at 6:08 AM but luckily I was mistaken. The listing on my eclipse map was Universal time (Greenwich Mean Time) so we had until 8:08 to make our destination, two hours plus from the gate. We were told the gate would be opened at 4:30 AM so I was relieved to discover my error. I was thinking we had come all this way only to miss the eclipse.
We talked with our new friends for a couple of hours under the most amazing star filled sky before calling it a night. We would only have about 4 hours before we would have to wake and get moving.
-Day 2-
The day started early in order to reach the target area in time for the eclipse. We were on the road by 5:00 AM and it was still somewhat dark so the bug problem was still at hand. One unfortunate difference was that now birds were after the illuminated bugs and there were a couple of unavoidable casualties. We reached a spot on the road that was dead center in the moon's path and pulled off to wait. We had about an hour to spare and we could view the moon starting to cross the sun using some special cardboard glasses that we obtained from Tom & Kristina which looked like those old 3-D glasses, only with tinfoil where the red and blue lenses would be.
The clouds started to set in, of course, but they were patchy and we could view the moon's progress nicely with the glasses when the sun peaked through and we could see the sun through the cloud cover without them occasionally. This was the point where I started taking video of the event, which the grabs I posted are from. Playing on the truck's CD player was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which is my preferred soundtrack when I view lunar eclipses and the obvious choice for this viewing. I must have been an curious sight to the locals as I leaned against the truck playing my Backpacker guitar along with The Floyd while staring at the sky wearing those crazy glasses.
It didn't get as dark as I had expected (an eclipse that I viewed at my parents' house in '85 was darker and had the martins flying back to the gourds in the back yard to call it a day) and it suddenly got brighter and I thought "oh, that was it." My watch must have been 4 or 5 minutes slow because I was still waiting for totality to occur. We couldn't see much of the sun through the clouds at that point so we weren't sure what point the eclipse had reached. From what I heard later, the moon was further than the earth than necessary to block 100% of the sun which is why it wasn't as dark as I had expected.
All in all, the eclipse was pretty cool but I was glad there was more ahead on the trip to see. It was a bit of a letdown but I have been wanting to visit Namibia for 5 or 6 years and the eclipse was just incentive to go ahead and make the trip now. It ended up being like mediocre frosting - even though it wasn't spectacular, it was still pretty good.
After the light show, we hit the road again for another long day of driving. The wildlife was non-existent along the Caprivi Strip (apart from the kamikaze birds) when we drove through it in both directions. There is supposed to be much to see here but we didn't have time to stop and get a guide so we witnessed none of it. We tried to find some caves that contained cave paintings but we were unsuccessful as the information on the map gave little details and the lack of signs did nothing to help the situation. We pulled up to the entrance gate of Etosha National Game Park at nightfall and set up camp there. The bugs seemed to be less of a problem here so we decided to try lighting a fire. Proving us wrong, the bugs were swarming to the flames in no time so we hopped into the cab and settled for bread and butter for dinner and the meat we had in the cooler remained untouched.
-Day 3-
Woke up at sunrise. Spent the full morning in Etosha National Game Park. This is a huge preserve that includes the Etosha Pan, a flat salt bed that is filled with water during certain months. Not December, apparently. It was flat cracked ground for miles.
It was in this park that most of these wildlife video images were taken. The zebras were the first things to grab our attention, walking along the side of the road. Then the giraffes. They were particularly fascinating to watch, especially when they ran. It looked like they were moving in slow motion! Also on view were kudu, oryx, springbok, wildebeest, ostriches and a lone elephant. We had started too late to catch the morning gatherings at one of the many watering holes and we had to leave well before the afternoon gatherings were to take place but it was a real treat to witness these fascinating creatures from just a few feet away! No big cats but then you can't have everything.
Took off around noon since there was much driving to do, as usual. I should note that rather large termite mounds (several feet tall) were a common site on the roadside. They look like chimineas. Some encircled trees that were still not dead, looking rather like some freakish dirt tree.
We hit another good downpour on this stretch of road heading to the northwestern portion of the country. Workshop cohorts Kristin & Mische received air time on the CD player during this leg of the journey. Reached the end of the paved road at nightfall and found the Hippo Pool Camp Site on the Kunene River. Upon entering the gate, we found it abandoned so we had the entire place to ourselves. Best of all, there were showers with running water! I had not bathed in three days, the longest I've gone without a shower since I was hooked up to an IV unit in the hospital with strep throat back when I was a senior in high school. You do what you can, though, applying a new layer of deodorant, donning a fresh set of clothes and washing your hair with a small kettle. I'm not too keen on this camping thing.
The rain was good and bad. Good in that the insect population was held at bay and we could finally turn on the lantern without being swarmed a la that expedia.com commercial. Bad in that it's tough to grill burgers while standing over the fire with an umbrella.
-Day 4-
When we awoke, the rain was gone, the sun was up and the flies were out. Taking a proper shower was a treat, even if the water was a little cold. We packed the truck and headed off the paved road into the Kaokoland region, truly 4X4 territory. The roads were bumpy as hell and the previous night's rain left the occasional muddy pool in the road to drive through or around, if that option was available. There were also a few tributaries to drive through but they weren't too deep. To give you an idea of how rough the roads were, it took close to two hours to drive 30 miles to The Kunene River Lodge, where Harry had told us we could hire a guide to take us to visit the Himba people.
The Himba are a tribe of nomadic pastoral people who still live as they have for centuries, raising cattle & goats and growing crops. The tour guide took us to meet a local Himba family, who were at work plowing in a nearby field. The father was out but the mother and her children took a break and welcomed us inside the fence of branches to see their home. They showed us how they used stones to grind for food as well as the ochre powder used with animal fat to cover the skin for both beauty and protection from the elements. We were allowed to see the interior of one of the mud & dung cone shaped huts, which was fascinating. There is a good diagram of a typical Himba village here: (www.eia.com.na/dune/Tribes/himba.htm)
The children were mesmerized by the video camera, on which the foldout viewing screen can be flipped 180 degrees to allow the subject to see themselves. Curiously, one child couldn't stop smiling while another had the saddest look imaginable. As we prepared to leave, we gave the family gifts of cigars for the husband (which Carlos had brought along) and a giant candy bar for the rest of the family. (I had bought a Nestle's Milky Bar, which is like a white chocolate Crunch bar. They don't sell them in the U.S. and I've loved them since I first discovered them in Ecuador in 1978, only to go 21 years without having one until I found them again in London. This was a sacrifice of epic proportions as I don't get my hands on these things very often!)
We returned to the lodge and then made the trip back across those treacherous 30 miles to where we had begun that morning. It was early afternoon by this point and the rest of the day would once again be spent driving a great distance. The roads were primarily gravel for this leg of the journey but they were in excellent shape, save a bumpy stretch in the middle. We saw a few baobab trees, which are big enough to carve a home in. I understand that this has been done before but the ones we saw were spared domestication. Late afternoon and evening brought magnificent views of plateaus (the first I've ever seen) and mountains with the added bonus of a spectacular sunset followed closely by a crescent moonset. There were scores of springboks, kudu and oryx along this stretch of road. Luckily, we didn't see any after nightfall because they can lead to disaster when driving at night, as we were forced to do in order to reach our destination near the coast. CDs by workshop cohort Kevin and mentor Lori got airplay during this stretch of road. Lori's words "as we drive and we drive in the middle of nowhere" rang true and drew a chuckle from Carlos.
We were forced to stop for the night at the gates of Skeleton Coast Park. We pulled off the road to set up camp. I heard Carlos say "Oh, shit" as he looked into the back of the truck. The cooler had overturned and the ice water (formerly ice) had spilled out along with all the contents of the cooler. To my horror, I remembered that I had put my bag of dirty clothes in the back of the truck and tucked into one of the end compartments were the booklets from several CD box sets (including Genesis, Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, Steely Dan, The Byrds & The Who) that I had brought along on the trip to read during the airport layovers. The bottom half of each book was completely soaked. Carlos started a fire and cooked chicken while I began what would be a three hour process of wiping off each individual page of all six books with napkins, then taking folded notebook paper and computer printouts and sticking them in between every page of each book. This process would end up salvaging all of the books to where I can at least read them, even though they now look like crap. The glossy pages would have literally cemented together and torn had they been allowed to dry without doing all of this. Carlos had gone to bed by the time I completed the rescue effort and I ate the cold chicken and stared at the stars, which were dazzling. I spent the next two days constantly flipping through the books to help them dry a bit faster when we were on the road. Needless to say, this particular night, I was not a happy camper.
-Day 5-
Sunrise gave the first true glimpse of our surroundings since we had arrived in the black of night. We obtained a permit to enter Skeleton Coast Park and headed west towards The Atlantic Ocean. Along the road, we saw the occasional Welwitschia Mirabilis, a plant that can grow to be 1,500 years of age. They survive in the desert by absorbing moisture from the morning fog and the rigid leaves near the ground prevent wind erosion. Once the ocean was within sight, large dunes could be seen to the north, but we had to hang a left and head south. The northern portion of The Skeleton Coast is only accessible with yet another permit and by air with special tours. I'll get there one day.
The road running parallel to the coast is a salt road, which is in excellent shape and made for a smooth drive although we had been warned that it could be treacherous to drive on if slick with moisture. A sunny morning kept us from such danger. There was only the occasional glimpse of the Atlantic as we traveled this road. To the east lie barren expanses of ever shifting terrain with a mountainous backdrop. A movie set on Mars could easily be filmed here, I thought. Between the road and the ocean were signs warning Keep Out: Mining Area.
I was disappointed that the road was not closer to the beach but there were a couple of spots where public access was allowed, both of which included shipwrecks. The first was a wooden hull fishing boat that met its demise in June of 1976, the S.W. Seal. The second was actually just outside of the southern entrance to Skeleton Coast Park, an iron bow called The Winston, which ran aground in 1970. When we drove towards the beach to see this one, there was a guy standing by a car who seemed happy to see us. He turned out to be a fellow American (Iowa) whose car was stuck in the sand and he was hoping for some help to get out. I found a large flat rock nearby, which I lodged under the front wheel and it worked perfectly...until he got about five feet and then sunk into the soft sand once again. The same trick failed to work a second time and he eventually hitched a ride with some local fisherfolk who were driving down the beach to a service station a couple of miles down to arrange for a tow.
Fortunately for us, our 4x4 had no trouble with the sand and we were soon back on the road. We soon arrived at Cape Cross, where in 1486 Diego Cao became the first European to set foot on the coast of South West Africa. He erected a cross in honor of John I of Portugal, hence the name. Currently residing at Cape Cross are between 80,000 and 100,000 cape fur seals. The smell was atrocious but it was fun to watch them wobbling about on the rocks and sand. The barking of thousands of fur seals is something to hear. Just as with humans, you could spot a trouble maker, striking out at others as he worked his way across the busy beach. There's one in every crowd.
We worked our way down the shoreline through Swakopmund, a very German coastal town. Here is where the grand sand dunes of the Namib Desert began to appear. It was a short drive to Walvis Bay, which would be as far south as we would get on this trip. After reaching Walvis Bay, we hung a left and soon arrived at Dune 7, a large area of dunes which are popular with dune surfers and four wheelers. These are massive dunes, reaching several hundred feet in height. I gained a new respect for nomads as I scaled the dune, which was not unlike climbing up a down escalator. I stopped to rest 4 or 5 times before reaching the summit. Once I reached the top, the view was spectacular. I hung out for a while, watching as the winds blew the sand over the crest, continuing the process that formed these magnificent dunes. Eventually, I made my way down the opposite side, which was less steep and visually more interesting. The waves of sand were beautiful, particularly with the sun on its way down leaving interesting shadows and accenting the windswept ridges in the sand. When I got to the bottom, I spent a while rock hunting, which turned up some fine samples to add to the ones that I picked up on the Skeleton Coast. After walking around to the other side, I saw somebody skiing down the side of the dune, zigzagging back and forth just like on the slopes. That was bizarre!
As night fell, we backtracked to Walvis Bay up to Swakopmund and started on the road to Windhoek. More night driving eventually lead us back to insect territory and the windscreen was once again caked in bug. When we pulled off at a rest spot to camp for the evening, it was clear that a campfire was a no go. Earlier in the day, I had bought a loaf of bread to snack on during the day. Carlos questioned this action at the time, asking why I was buying a whole loaf when we were going to be leaving the next day. After he realized that beef sushi was the only item on the menu for the evening, his question quickly changed to "Can I have some of that bread?" He he.
I did some star gazing, since this would be the last time I'd have that good a view for quite some time. In the space of two minutes, I saw two shooting stars. Every time a vehicle would make its way down the road, I jumped in the cab. As the lights drew nearer to the campsite, a multitude of bugs would rise from the brush and head toward the oncoming vehicle. I preferred to watch the madness from a safe place. After my daily bread, I went to sleep.
-Day 6-
Woke up just after sunrise. Packed up the gear and made the short drive into Okahandja, where we had been told there was a wood carver's market. We stopped to check out the goods of a roadside vendor before we reached town and bought a few things before heading on to the market. There were quite a few vendors with a nice selection of carvings. I had limited luggage space to work with so I had to think small. I would have loved to have brought back one of the large animal skin drums that were available but there was no way and I had to settle for a double gourd maraca. I also bought some animal carvings for the family and a bunch of smaller elephants to give to friends. I felt bad not being able to buy something from each of the vendors but I had a limited amount of Namibian money left and the aforementioned baggage space limitation. Just about all of them offered me "the Sunday price" and if you didn't counter their initial offer, they kindly reminded you that you were supposed to negotiate. After a couple of hours, it was back on the road to Windhoek.
We pulled in to Harry's place right around noon and took showers and repacked our bags with our newly acquired goods. While we were waiting for Carlos to finish repacking, Harry, his wife and the taxi driver inquired as to what was in the long black bag that I had with me. I told them it was a guitar, which drew looks of disbelief so I unzipped the case and showed them the Martin Backpacker. This also drew looks of disbelief as it is a most unusual looking guitar, close in shape to a boat oar. They asked me to play something so I played one of my fingerpicking instrumentals that is currently called "Hillbilly Wombats," which they liked. It's always easy to impress non-musicians.
Once Carlos emerged, we said our goodbyes to Harry and headed for the airport. This was the start of the 38 hour journey home. The flight from Windhoek to Johannesburg was 2 hours and we had about 4 hours to kill at the airport there, which gave me time to write a few postcards and send them off before leaving the continent. The 11 hour flight to London departed on time and before catching six or so hours of sleep, I watched an excellent in-flight movie called "The Salton Sea."
Once we arrived at Heathrow, the plan was to make one last jaunt into London since our flight was not for another 7 hours. The beauty of Heathrow is that you can take the subway right into the heart of London so after a quick wash of the hair in the sink of the airport restroom, I headed into town. I hopped into a couple of book shops and then made my way to The Knightsbridge Express Deli for one last chicken mozzarella baguette before heading back to The States.
The flight to Chicago was about 8 hours and I may have gotten an hour of two of sleep. The in-flight movies were lame so I listened to an interesting retrospective of Stevie Wonder's career on the music menu. Once in Chicago, there was a 3 or 4 hour layover until the flight for Charlotte. I managed to read a good chunk of my newly damaged Genesis Archive 1967-75 box set booklet while waiting for the flight. I must say that Chicago looks incredible at night from the air.
We got into Charlotte around 10:30 PM and the journey came to an end. I got back to my house just before midnight and had to work the next day. While in Chicago, I had seen something on CNN about the call for disaster relief in North Carolina so I was a little concerned but I found nothing unusual upon returning home. The next day I learned that thousands were without power for several days the previous week after a huge ice storm that swept through the area. So it seems that I am not the only one who was roughing it.
Anyway, to sum everything up, it was a great trip. It was wonderful to be able to spend time in a place that has not been paved over and still remains much as it has for centuries. The people were also amazing. Very friendly and gracious. Namibia is referred to as Africa's Hidden Jewel. Six days was way too short a trip to be able to take everything in fully but we managed to pack a lot into that time. Certainly enough for me to know that I want to return in the future when I can stay longer and take things in at a more relaxed pace. I highly recommend it to anyone who can find their way to this piece of the rock.
-Fin-