Tag Archives: Swakopmund

1,001 Namibian Nights

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Tomorrow we drive into Kgalagadi, a nature park in Botswana and South Africa. That means we’ll be officially leaving Namibia, but not entering South Africa.

Namibia was our home for 26 nights. We stayed eight places, the longest being in Swakopmund (nine nights). Our shortest stay in one place was at Onguma Bush Camp, right outside of Etosha. We celebrated three major milestones in Namibia: Day 100 (September 28), my thirteenth birthday (October 14), and One-Third of the Way Through (October 20).

We visited two major places of interest: Etosha National Park and Sossusvlei. Cape Cross, where the Cape fur seals are, is also a major landmark. It’s on the Skeleton Coast.

Our first place to stay was Weaver’s Rock. Ethan finally had friends in the form of Dominick and his older brother after being little boy-deprived for three-and-a-quarter months. There were five dogs: Choc, Nala, Lilly, Tasso, and Bonzo. (Those were my favorites, from first to fifth.) The food was good, and our showers, like here at Kalahari Farmstall, were fire-heated.

The next night was spent at on Onguma, a kilometer or so from Etosha, and there I went on my first night game drive. We saw bush babies, kori bustards, a bat-eared fox, springbok, and zebras.

In Etosha we saw the first leopard for any of us. It was promptly a female in the minds of Mom and me. She had killed a kudu and was eating it by the Nuamses waterhole. We also saw 134 elephants, 90 giraffes, 17 lions, 12 rhinos, and five spotted hyenas, along with many, many springbok, black-faced impala, gemsbok, ostriches, kudu, zebras, blue wildebeeste, and red hartebeest. We found one dead snake on the road.

Next we stayed at Dinosaur Tracks Guest Farm (the farm’s official name is Otjihaenamaparero). We visited the tracks multiple times, mainly because of the cell service. The dog, Bella, was sweet but fat.

After stopping at AiAiba and playing with the meerkat, Mitjie, we arrived in chilly Swakopmund. There I had my birthday and we lived in a real house, perfect in every way except for the need of a heater and quieter neighbors.

Two nights ago, we were enjoying the good food and company of Wilheim, Hannetjie, Olf, and the three dogs (Coco, thirteen-year-old Polly, and three-year-old Lucky), and enjoying the not so good company of the cold-shouldered meerkat.

Finally, we stayed at Kalahari Farmstall. This stay was mostly to get near the Kgalagadi border and to rest up for the long, long days ahead. So I need to get some sleep.

Ciao!

Falling Flat

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We bid good-bye to Swakopmund, the ducks, the male cat, and Nala, the female cat, today.

We took the C14, which www.rtw4four.com listed as the worst road in Namibia. We drove past mountains and river beds, cliffs and grasslands to the sign that said TROPIC OF CAPRICORN. We stopped and took pictures, naturally, and then got back in the car. For being in one of the hottest parts of Namibia, it wasn’t that bad. It was in the seventies and sunny, bringing welcome warmth after  week in chilly Swakopmund.

And then it happened: the near-inevitable sound of a tire hitting a rock wrong. It was the back left tire, and it was killed. It hit another rock, and Dad eased the car off the center of the road. We emptied the trunk, putting the suitcases in the front seats and the 20 liters of water in the middle. Dad got the temporary tire (it had pink stripes on it) from the back and put it on.

Four cars drove by, three passing us and one going the other way. Half the cars stopped, and both were passed us.

We finally got going again and dug into the focaccia bread and read about what to do with Budget in the event of a flat tire. Once in Solitaire, we got a new tire and petrol and continued on our way to Barchan Dunes Retreat. Once there, we were greeted by two dogs nad a meerkat who is scared of people. Wilheim and Hennetjie own the place (although Wilheim jokes that he’s the servant), plus there  are horses and game (zebra, springbok, kudu, gemsbok [oryx]).

Our rooms are 500m from the main building, but it’s no problem.

Hennetjie made supper, and it was delicious: for the appetizer, an asparagus casserole with pickles and grape tomatoes; for the main course, a small side salad and green beans, carrot, and potato wedges; and, for dessert, cake that was sooo good, even though I don’t know what it was, and rooibos tea.

Ciao!

An “Africana” Adventure

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Because I had so many Namibian dollars left (each is worth about US$0.13), we needed to go shopping today because, unlike rands, Namibian dollars are useless over the border (rands are pretty much equal to Namibian dollars, so here they’re interchanged. Yesterday I got change back in Namibian coins and a 20-rand note).

We started out going to a shop, but we stopped to look at the people selling “Africana” on the side of the road. They were selling everything from trinkets to baubles to textiles to fabrics. One of my favorite things (though I didn’t buy it) was the hippo with its mouth open. There were many, many carvings of it on the curb.

The man from whom I bought stone giraffes said that his name was Robert, he was from the Caprivi Strip (in the north-east corner of Namibia), and that he had carved the giraffes by hand. In reality, his name probably wasn’t Robert, he probably wasn’t from the Caprivi, and he most definitely didn’t carve the stone because he got all his things from the trailers behind all the other sellers, and the stuff was most likely imported from Zimbabwe.

Ethan bought a kudu leather bracelet and a stone leopard, too, before we moved on, passing a primary school. One of the kids said to Ethan, “Cool hair, dude!” (That’s because he’s gelled his hair up in a spike.)

Ciao!

The Little ATV That Could

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NEVER drive this ATV under 16 years of age.

That’s what the ATV that I drove today over the sand dunes said.

Apparently we went so slow that our guide, Gideon, didn’t take us on the whole 90-minute route (but it took us 90 minutes anyways). Halfway through (45 minutes, naturally), we stopped after Ethan and Dad were rescued from the sand.

Gideon took first Ethan, and then me, up the steep dune and around and down and just about every preposition except through. Once we were done, he took Dad, except Dad rode on his own ATV.

We all had blue ATVs because we’re not experienced drivers. Gideon’s, naturally, was red (for experienced riders). I didn’t really want to go fast, but you have to go to get up some steep hills, where the sand loose and deep. But my ATV never got stuck. It could always get over the dunes.

Ciao!

A High Hike

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Dune 7 is 388 meters tall and the tallest sand dune in the world. We climbed Dune 7 today.

Of course, it was Walvis Bay’s Dune 7, not Soussusvlei’s, which is the real Dune 7. The one we climbed today was much, much shorter.

The first fifteen feet of the dune were covered in glass shards and bottle caps. After that, it was clean, sparkly sand up to the very tip-top, which only Ethan visited. (Well, there were things like socks and toilet paper strewn across the dune, but other than that it was clean.) The climb was long, and each of us stopped every so often to rest and catch our breath.

At the top, however, if you wanted to catch a breath, you caught that and a lungful of sand. Mom finally finally finally caught up with us at the top and exclaimed, “Whew! What a hike!”

She was the first one to go down, too, after she convinced Dad to give her the car keys so she could get the camera out of the car and take pictures of us coming down the dune. Dad and I jump-walked down like normal people, but Ethan got covered in sand because he rolled.

After we finished teasing my brother about the cute girl in the pink shirt and he finished begging to go quad riding on the dunes, we left for home and stopped only to take pictures of flamingoes. For supper we had cake and ice cream for my 13th birthday.

Ciao!

A Day in the Life…

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Of a Cape fur seal living at Cape Cross:

0:13- Hunger overtakes reasoning and I slide down to the water for a midnight snack.

1:01- I’m shamed as my friends discover me in the water without them.

1:34- After some good-natured fighting, we climb back onto shore and fall asleep to the sound of our fellow species bark-bark-barking.

6:27- The sun rises, bringing light back to our little world.

6:30- After some more stretching and scratching, my friends and I maneuver around big bad bulls and piles of females to the Atlantic Ocean.

6:41- We finally arrive in the ocean. The waves are hard, but I love it. A big wave comes and I’m knocked back a meter. (I am, after all, a metric seal, being born and raised in Namibia.)

6:43- We find a big school of fish- breakfast for all!

7:59- The cold isn’t what causes us to drag our wet bodies out of the water; it’s fatigue. After all, we haven’t even slept five hours today!

9:16- After an hour of sleeping, I’m bored. I go stir up trouble in the big meanie’s territory, and he chases me up the sandy hill to the boardwalk where those nasty two-legs are. I hide under the walkway and finally go to sleep.

14:48- That’s more like it! After a good nap, I yawn, and those things the two-legs carry- shutterflies, I call them- start click-clacking. There is one small two-leg with brown hair above me and she aims an especially large shutterfly at me. I hear the two-legs around her call her “Eryn,” but the way they say it- at such a low tone- makes me believe it’s an insult. I see my buddies down on the beach and head toward them, avoiding the bull that sent me up in the first place.

14:55- Friends are finally reunited, and we all go in the ocean and try to find the school of fish that we found this morning. Well, we can’t find it, but we do ride some pretty impressive waves (and look pretty impressive ourselves, if I dare say so myself).

15:26- We’re exhausted and flop down on the rocks. We’re cooled off every 10 seconds or so by the pounding surf.

18:44- The light around me is dimming, and it seeps into my dreams. I’m surrounded by water, deep, dark, and cold, and I know that out there is a shark that wants to eat m-

18:45- I’m jolted into reality by a wave breaking on my face and one of my friends hitting me with a flipper. I lie on my back and observe my fellow animals. Some two-legs up on the boardwalk have covered what are, I think, their faces. I can’t think why- the stench maybe? But we smell like roses!

19:02- The sun finally sets. I splash around in the water a bit and then slowly, tiredly, make my way up the hill, passing skeletons and warm hairy bodies as I go.

19:09- I get my last glimpse of October 13. It was a good day, as days go.

Ciao!

Flamingo Fun

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We finally finally finally went to the river to see the flamingoes. We think at there were two types (greater and lesser) because there were the big white birds and the smaller pinker birds.
To get to the mouth of the river (coincidentally, “mund” means mouth, and the river is the Swakop. So “Swakopmund” means “mouth of Swakop”) we had to park at the aquarium and walk past the Tiger Reef Bar and along the beach. We watched the cormorants, seagulls, and blacksmith lapwings wade/dive in the water. The flamingoes spent most of he time with their heads submerged.
There were at least two dead flamingoes at the edge of the river, which has turned into a lake because it doesn’t have enough water to reach the ocean. Apparently a favorite Namibian pastime is racing the water from Windhoek to the ocean along the Swakop river after the first big rains.
We also got to see the flamingoes fly a bit, too, and the undersides of their wings are pinker than their bodies.
After that, we got more groceries, dropped those off at home, played on the playground, and finally had supper at 22° South, which is the restaurant in what used to be the lighthouse-keeper’s house. No one is allowed to go up to the top of the lighthouse because it is still used by Walvis Bay. We couldn’t eat in the building, either, but that was because we hadn’t made reservations.
Ciao!

A Downtown Day

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We did another part of the Swakopmund Triangle today: the lighthouse. It is, in fact, a pizza and gelato place (22 Degrees South) that we will visit in the future.

We were going to do another part of the triangle- the river with the flamingoes- but Mom and Dad took too long shopping. So instead we had a Cadbury bar, supper, and walked down to the beach where we found the other end of the crayfish exoskeleton (we found the head yesterday).

We also checked out the Hansa Backerei, where Dad bought two black forest tortes, which were so good. After the seeing what the lighthouse was all about and playing on the playground right beside it, we visited the Kristall Galerie. It’s home to the largest crystal in the world and lots and lots of amethysts. There was also a ‘rock garden,’ where Ethan and I selected polished stones to stick in a small bag.

Then we went to Karakulia Weavers after browsing through the leather shop next door. We saw people making yarn, weaving rugs with things like elephants, footprints, and leopards on them, and making the finished product perfect. Ethan tried to make yarn too, but he wasn’t that good. (Of course, he was better than me, since I didn’t try to.)

We returned home where we did homework and sorted pictures until supper.

Ciao!

Food’s Our Friend

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Now that we’re in our own little house, we had to go grocery shopping. Well, we couldn’t find any good fruits or vegetables at the Spar, so after visiting the jetty and river in Swakopmund, we stopped by Food Center- Fruit & Veg City on our way home. They had rows and rows of gummies and Jelly Bellies and dried fruits and nuts and popcorn and chocolates… it all looked delicious. The cheapest thing was sesame seeds, at N$3.99 per 100 grams.

We also looked at the cake and baked goods. I decided that the chocolate mousse cake looks good. We’ll probably be having that on Sunday. There were also US$0.50 brownies! And cookies and breads and pies and cupcakes and all sorts of wonderful things. And all of it was (almost) dirt cheap. So we think we got a good deal.

(Besides the good looking stuff, there were also some disgusting things, like grapefruit [which we had to get] and crème soda milk. Ew.)

Not to say we bought so much ‘junk’ food. We only got a few Tangy Toppers (sour gummies), a handful of Jelly Bellies, a twist, a big flaky cookie, a brownie, and a slice of apple pie. And we’re sharing that between four people. So don’t get the wrong impression! We’re not getting fat.

Ciao!

Mitjie Mouse

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Mitjie (pronounced MIC-key) is the name of the meerkat who ‘owns’ AiAiba lodge where the Bushman paintings are. He was lying on the floor next to Cecilia, our waitress, when we arrived. When Ethan squatted down and said, “Hey! Meerkat!” the meerkat ran over with its mouth wide open.

Mom was worried that Mitjie would break skin, giving Dad, Ethan, or I rabies or something, but he never did. His mouth can’t open very wide, and his teeth aren’t very sharp.

Besides a meerkat, which made Dad’s life worth it, we also saw Bushman paintings of giraffes, springbok, kudu, mountains, and people. Once back at the lodge, we ordered ‘lunch:’ a Greek salad, four servings of ice cream, and juice. Dad got grapefruit vitamin-flavored juice, I got apple, Ethan ordered juice with ‘A Touch of Lemon,’ and Mom got orange juice. Dad, Ethan, and I had chocolate ice cream with canned peaches while Mom had plain old vanilla with chocolate sauce.

And then, out of nowhere, Mitjie reappeared! There were three little boys there, two who ran screaming to their mom (one climbed on to the table) and one who tried to approach Mitjie but ran away. Mitjie gave chase, and it was hilarious.

We then drove on another rocky road to the soundtrack of “Oh mercy! Jerry! Whoa!”

We’re now in Swakopmund, which is on the coast. We had pizza, salad, and part of a Cadbury bar for dessert.

Ciao!