Namibia

Into Namibia and another simple and quick border crossing. Our destination was the capital, Windhoek and a hotel stay. We did not have a meal provided tonight and all decided to go to Joe's Beerhouse, that served a lot of game meats. I decided to be a bit adventurous and had Bushman Sosatie which was a skewer of loin cuts from zebra, kudu, oryx, springbok and chicken. Except for the chicken it was all red meats, the springbok being the palest and the nicest. None of it was 'gamey’ and it came with a nice mango chilli sauce. Tracy had game strips with pasta, though she isn't sure exactly what the meat was. Lauren went vegetarian.

We caught taxis to the restaurant (3 of them because there were 10 of us) but when we were leaving Tracy recognised a tour guide that she had seen in our hotel walking towards a bus. I ran after him and asked if he was going to the Safari Hotel. He said yes, so I asked if we could get a lift with him - and he said yes!  There were some very confused faces on the bus when 10 of us piled in but there were plenty of spare seats. Some chatted to us on the way back and others either stared or simply ignored us. It saved us a few dollars but mostly the hassle of finding three taxis to take us home.

Next morning we had a walking tour of Windhoek that lasted about 1 1\2 hours. We went to the Parliament buildings, a few museums (outside only) and finally a church. Namibia was ruled by the Germans up until 1912, then the British, before becoming independent in 1994. Many of the streets and suburbs still have German names and there is a strong German feel to the city. Namibia mines diamonds and uranium and as a result appears quite wealthy. There are many new car showrooms so there are a lot more newer cars on the streets than we have seen. When fighting through the UN for independence, Namibia wrote to many countries requesting assistance. One of those that helped was North Korea and they also provided assistance by building 7 buildings around the capital city. One of the museum's we stopped us was built by them and was quite spectacular. The 7th building is incomplete because Namibia was forced to cut ties with Nth Korea in recent years.

From Windhoek we went to Etosha National Park and completed a game drive in our truck, Cash. I wondered how this would work as the truck is quite noisy, but the animals really don't seem too bothered - and we stop to let zebras (and giraffes and elephants etc) cross the road or if looking at an animal will turn off the engine. The height of our truck came in handy when we saw a rhinoceros in the bushes about 4 metres from the road. Other cars had stopped to look and we parked next to them as we could see over their roofs. Rhino’s had proved quite elusive during our trip as our previous sightings had been so far away we weren't even sure what we were looking at or were from a plane. Etosha proved to be the Rhino capital though as we saw 12 rhino’s during our stay here, some very very clearly and quite close. At the camp there is a waterhole which they floodlight at night. We went there after dinner and saw a huge elephant, some hyenas and then two rhino’s.

Our trip out of the park was basically a game drive where we saw another rhino (one of the 12) giraffes and antelope. We also stopped at a waterhole where there were hundreds of animals, springbok, oryx, zebras, ostrich and more. The oryx were a bit aggressive and kept charging the springbok. They would scatter, but not far and eventually regroup and try to get back to the water. Then a herd of 20 elephants arrived and everybody else cleared out. The elephants came in and some drank, others splashed in the water kicking up mud and covering themselves. This keeps the heat and insects off. The elephants stayed about 20 minutes, then sauntered off - as did we.

Our next stay include a visit to a local Himba tribe where we were taken around by a guide, then had the obligatory market of home made goods. The visit was controversial as some in our group really didn’t like it.  The reason was the treatment of women, who all walked around topless - though some did have various jewellery hanging down in front of their breasts - never showered, raise the children and perform all the cooking cleaning etc. Instead of showering the women cover themselves in crushed Ochre and use various herbs and flowers as perfume. They also have a daily smoke 'bath’ to clean their genital region. The men meanwhile do shower, wear western clothes and leave the village to work in the nearby town.  The kids in the village were very cute though and both mother's and children wanted to view all the photos that were taken. The Himba tribe are a strange mix of modern and ancient though as they do have mobile phones and, as I said, the men go out to work as they need money for things they don’t grow/farm themselves.

We had two nights in the coastal town of Swakopmund and beat of all we stayed in a B&B, meaning an actual room and beds - no tent. The wind was very cold when we arrived, though the sky was blue and of course we are still in Africa. It was a little strange.  On our way here we stopped at Spitzkoppe, a mountainous region about 2 hours away. There are rock paintings there that day back as far as 27,000 years ago - though most are 2-4000 years old.  The paintings are of Zebras, Lions, Giraffes and people. After looking at these walked to a natural arch and had a bit of a climb around.  The are is volcanic and was quite beautiful.

We had a free day here and we chose to do a 2 hour quad bike ride over the sand dunes and an hour of sand boarding.  I chose a manual bike even though I hadn't ridden a motorbike for about 15 years. I stalled once because the bike was idling too low (yes the guide came and made an adjustment, so it wasn't me) and stalled another time going up a steep dune because I was too slow changing down gears. Otherwise I had a ball as we drove up the side of dunes before turning near the top and speeding back down again . Trace was really enjoying herself, though Lauren took a while to become comfortable enough to enjoy it. She got there eventually. The sandblasting was fun and the slope we went down was pretty big. The video we watched before booking said you could get up to 80kph, though I think you needed to really launch yourself to go that fast. In any case we got up some serious speed. The only problem was walking back up the dune each time.