Swakopmund, Namibia

The last few weeks of our African adventure has become a true adventure. The insulation of the overland truck is already a distant and not too fond memory. We have been on our own for three weeks now and it has become a whole different trip. The first week we spent busing and, when necessary, hitchhiking our way across Botswana and Namibia. The buses were fine and not too overcrowded and the hitchhiking some of the best and easiest of my life. Not since we hitched with Katie and Ian over the alps in Italy have I attempted to hitchhike with such a large amount of baggage….four large packs and suitcases, two day bags, a jug of water and a bag of food. We were picked up rapidly and had incredible rides; one of over 300 miles that took us from Ghanzi, Botswana all the way to Windhoek, Namibia. We had to pay a little for that one but it was still less than the cost of a bus…had there been one.

We have found the Africa that everyone imagines. It has been hot; too hot. It has been dry and dusty. Our little Kia Picanto looks like someone stuck it in a big bag of dirt with the doors and windows open and shook it like it was a piece of chicken in a paper bag full of flour. (My southern roots are showing). Some days Deb and I looked like we had been in that same bag. We have traveled nearly 1000 miles on dirt and gravel roads, driven our car like it was a 4x4 complete with an unsuccessful river crossing.

(We made it across the river but got stuck in the sand on the other side.)

We have been up close and personal with more wild animals than I ever imagined. The most memorable were:

Being charged by a bull elephant while paddling by in a dugout canoe; nearly being gored by three terrified warthogs while walking past their hole. ( Our guide said they thought we were elephants.);

getting a dust bath from a bathing elephant;

seeing 19 giraffes drinking from a water hole no more than 100’ from us; seeing 8 rhinos drinking from the same water hole;


getting close enough to a lion and her cubs to count the whiskers on her nose;



seeing hundreds of zebra and gazelle milling in a watering hole very close to us.

The people of Botswana and Namibia have generally been very friendly and helpful. However, there have been a few instances where our smile and friendly greeting have not been reciprocated. We hope this was because they may have thought we were South Africans because of our rental car’s registration. Almost universally, once people learned we are Americans they were friendly…unlike other parts of the world we have visited.

While most of the scenery in Botswana and the north of Namibia has been scrub desert and Mopane trees,as we have started to move south in Namibia things have improved. Over the past few days we drove through landscapes that would not be out of place in the American southwest with flat topped buttes surrounded by grasslands and shrubs.

Not sure what this sign means but Deb and I had several exclamatory remarks over the next 12km

Yesterday we visited the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, so called because of the countless shipwrecks. Like the west coast of Chile, the west coast of Namibia’s climate is affected by a cold current coming out of Antarctica that condenses all of the moisture in the atmosphere into fog before it has a chance to form into rain. Invariably, the Namibian coast is foggy and windy and one of the driest deserts found on the planet. The relentless winds drive the sand into huge dunes rising 600 feet above the adjacent sea.

Tomorrow, we are off to explore these dunes and further test the 4x4 capability of our two wheel drive Kia.

Hwange National park or the lion sleeps tonight...thank god.

The Landrover bounces down the rough washboard track through a landscape of scrub, barren trees and grass that glows gold in the light of the setting sun. The crescent moon ascends in the east seeming to push the sun in the west below the horizon. We are on safari in Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe. We have just left one of the few remaining waterholes in this desolate place where we observed hundreds of elephants bathing, drinking and just seeming to have a good time.







A pair of giraffes nervously drink nearby. I say nervously because the only way they can drink is to splay their front legs to get their heads low enough to drink. However, they are remarkably agile in drawing their legs together in a snapping motion to be fully upright in a split second in order to flee any potential predator. A few crocodiles laze on the bank of the water hole only moving when an elephant tromps by.




Our Landrover accelerates, rattling our brains and backsides. Our guide, Andy, promises a treat we will not forget. After about ten miles of this bone rattling ride the sun sets and the sky turns a dusky gold. I catch a whiff of rotting flesh which soon turns to a full on assault on my olfactory nerve. Andy excitedly yells over the rattling of the Landrover, “Smell that? It’s a dead elephant!” I think to myself, “Great! We went all this way to see and smell a dead elephant.” Andy stops the truck and points through the dimming light through the brush at the carcass of a dead elephant. In the dying light the gray mass is barely visible. Then I look over to the other side of the truck and notice a lion lying in the dirt. Andy has seen it too and cautions us to move slowly and not stand up as we are in an open truck and just a small leap away from the lion.




Deb notices several other lions lying a little further back in the brush. In a soft voice Andy tells us that the seven lions have been feeding for the past two days on this elephant. It is unknown if they brought it down or if the elephant died in some other way.

We sit and watch the lions watching us for a few minutes and as the sky begins to darken, Andy says it is time to go. He turns the key in the ignition and only gets the tell tale click of a dead battery. We are miles from camp, it is getting dark, we are in an open vehicle and we are surrounded by lions. What could be better than this? I became even more nervous when Andy pulled out his 416 rifle and cautiously walked around the truck. I wondered what he was doing then saw him pull out the front seat to inspect the battery. Keeping one eye on the lion a few feet away, he removed the battery cables and cleaned them. He reached over to try the ignition and we heard, “click, click,click.” Now I was getting very nervous. Just then the other truck in our safari pulled up.

Note the lion just past the outstretched hand

The other truck had jumper cables and I breathed a sigh of relief, but our battery was so dead it would not start. “Oh, s%^$!,“ I thought. Then, Peter, an Australian on our tour, suggested swapping batteries. (If you remove the battery of a running car, you can put it in the car with the dead battery and start it without the running car dying. This is a good note to remember if you are ever in a similar situation.) When they pulled the battery out of the running car it died. I thought now we are really screwed. Fortunately, the second try was successful. Andy put the two trucks back together, re-sheathed the 416 and as the last light of day faded from the sky, we roared off leaving the seven lions to sleep off their big meal of which, thankfully, we were not a part of.

I hold the guide's gun while he works on the truck...is this a scary picture or what?

Yes, those elephants are as close as they look

Zanzibar

Deb flies the boat to Zanzibar

After leaving the Serengeti we spent a night in the shadow of Kiliminjaro...at least there would have been a shadow if it were not enveloped in its usual cloud cover. The next day we had a long hot drive down to Dar Es Salam to catch the ferry to Zanzibar. Zanzibar has long been one of those exotic sounding locations that has intrigued me. While it has become largely dependent on the tourist trade, it still derives a large portion of its income from the spice trade for which it was originally so famous. It has shrugged off the darker side of the slave trade and is now a pleasant place to visit for a day... week......... or month.................

The ferry ride to Zanzibar is over the deepest of deep blue seas. On a high speed catamaran it only takes a few hours to go from mainland Africa to this tropical isle. The boat docks at Stonetown which is an old Arab city and the architecture is a mix of Indian and Arabic buildings lining narrow streets.

The other side of Zanzibar contains numerous white coral sand beaches lined with restaurants and hotels to entice the sun and sea worshipers. Other than Stonetown, one could be almost anywhere in the world.

Food is some of the best in Africa with freshly caught sea food available in every restaurant. There is not a lot else to say about it so I will let Deb's pictures tell the story of what we liked about Zanzibar.

Nice doors

Arab flavor

Interesting architecture

Sunset at Africa House in Stonetown

Deb gets ready for a blast

We share a local brew

It's what's for dinner

Banana crepes with chocolate syrup for desert

Local attitudes

Seascapes

Great fruit

Sunset at the beach