Namibia, I LOVE YOU!!!!

Where: Namibia

Currency: Namibian Dollar (Roughly 10:1USD)

Weather: 85 degrees F inland, 75 on the coast

Population: 2.1M

Language: Officially English, but there are up to 8 different Bantu languages spoken as well as Afrikaans, Oshiwambo, Khoekhoe (click), Kwangali, Herero and German

Fun Fact: We learned some click from our Damara driver while hitchhiking to Dune 7.  The words for "kill" "hug" and "Whistle" are the same but only differ by the click sound you lead off with. (There are 4 different clicks that can be used)

Namibia will forever hold a special place in my heart.  Its funny, Namibia wasn’t even on my list of places to go.  This trip was built on happenstance from meeting a friend of a friend’s friend in a craft market on a trip to Swaziland (that I also hadn’t intended on).  I met Rina for approximately 5 minutes while chatting with other friends and she had mentioned she wanted to go to Namibia but was a little nervous about traveling there alone, so I threw my hands in the air and said, “I’ll go to Namibia”. 

When I arrived in South Africa, I looked up flights and they were $600, holy crap!  I started to bail out of the trip but minimal persuasion from Rina set the ball in motion again– we were going to Namibia!  And, I am so glad we did.

Emily and Rina, strangers turned friends!

I arrived in Windhoek to find that there were a couple of hiccups.

First, Rina lost her phone.  Apparently, while she was taking photos in the park, her phone fell out of her pocket along with a pen that she had stolen from the hotel.  A very nice German woman, Gunhild and her daughter, Almut found it, did a little sleuthing on Facebook, and then returned the phone to Rina at the Hilton in Windhoek.  It was a very clever treasure hunt that they conquered and we were very fortunate that they were so honest and helpful.  We offered to treat them to dinner or coffee when we returned and they happily agreed.

The second hiccup was a bit more troublesome and crushed the hopes and execution of our original plan of renting a car and driving all over the country. Rina didn’t drive a stick and there were no automatics at the rental company. (And, there was no way I was going to do 18 hours of driving by myself.)  So, she found a tour that we could go on to the sand dunes in Sossusvlei, but it was N3950!  Ouch $400 USD for 3 days was going to b tight, but we had to do something, as our options were limited.

The tour picked us up 10 hours later and we were on the road with 7 other passengers on a 9-hour journey to the dunes.  A self-drive would have only taken 4-5 hours, but the luxury of having a guide turned out to be quite nice, plus we met some really awesome people from Germany, Switzerland, Angola via Columbia and Tokyo.

Surprise…. we’re camping!  Ugh, I sent my sleeping bag home from Germany as it had gone unused for 3 months. So I had to use on that was provided (gross in theory, but not so bad in reality)…but I did get to use my safari scope, headlamp, camping towel and hurricane jacket!  It was actually quite cold in Sesrium at night.

Our new home for 3 days

Chillin at the campsite

The dunes were incredible! In Sossusvlei, they are bright reddish-orange because there is oxidized iron in the sand.  Therefore, a compass will not work there.  We didn’t need a compass because the only way we were going was UP, UP, UP!

Karen, Emily, Rina

Made it to the top....exhausted

Rina, chillin on top of her first dune

Scenic trek up.  That's Rina and Karen checking out the view

Ian and Job, our guides

When we got back to the campsite, Ian our guide, asked us about a rumor he had heard from his assistant, Job, that we wanted to be left behind.  We were under the understanding that the tour company had arranged for a shuttle for us to drive to Swakopmund.  However, she claimed that they had intended to drive us 5 hours back to Windhoek so that we could take a 5-hour shuttle to Swakopmund…. NOT HAPPENING.

So, Ian suggested we find someone on the dune going that way and hitchhike there.  Rina and I established some ground rules for safety.

• No riding with young guys, no matter how cute they are (Hello? Ted Bundy)
• Its okay to hitch a ride with a “mature” couple (65+)
• Its okay to hitch a ride with a tour bus
• The most we’d pay for the ride is N300 ($30) each

The next morning, we got up at 5:15AM to climb Dune 45, the most photographed dune in the world.  It was totally worth the early morning hike.  The sunrise was incredible, the dune was a fairly light climb and we found a ride!

Halfway there, get it gurrrrrl!

The money shot....Looking out from Dune 45 at Sunrise

Tom Foolery at the dunes with Rina, Julia, Mia and Roland

Obligatory douchebag shot!

Its a long way down

We did a 9k (6 mile) desert-hike. The group split up for a couple hours, Rina and Pablo climbed Big Daddy, the largest dune in Namibia while Ian and I sunbathed in the dead pan and the rest of the group hiked back to the bus.  There was a communication error about the meet-up point that left portions of the group pretty frustrated (especially me), but it passed with time, a dip in the pool at the campsite, a hike through the 2^nd largest canyon in the world, and a good meal.

Canyon hike

We ended up hitchhiking with a tour bus full of Germans and Austrians.  There were about 20 of them and the bus was nearly full except for 2 shotgun seats positioned at the front hitch of the cab…. aka the bumpiest seats on the bus.

Our favorite Germans on the hitched bus, Mia and Julia

It was the most petrifying, hectic ride of our lives.  The driver was going about 120 kph on a 60-kph dirt road.  When I looked into the cab from the seated area, I saw that his speedometer was broken and he was just driving like a maniac.  So, I went to sleep and willed us not to crash.

On the road again...

Stopped in Solitaire for apple pie

About 2 hours into the ride, they decided to stop for a desert tour.  Rina and I put on our sunscreen and readied ourselves for a tour through the desert – oh wait, we weren’t invited since we were hitchhikers and hadn’t actually paid for the tour.  So, we walked through the desert for about 30 minutes ourselves then retreated to the cooking hut where we chatted with the maniac driver and played with beetles crawling on the ground.  After about an hour, we decided to take a nap in the bus and were awakened when the tourists came back for lunch.  Since we weren’t invited for lunch either, we snacked on our pre-packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hopped back on the bus.

What the hell did they really think they were going to see?

Rina tormented my friend, Ringo, for about 30 minutes making him run back and forth to avoid a dirt bath

This tour bus stopped a bazillion times for nonsense to fill the time like scaling giant rocks, stopping at the Tropic of Capricorn (which was actually cool) and for the Germans to photograph a dust storm.  9-hours later, we finally arrived sans lodging.  We were grateful for the ride, but it was exhausting, scary and took twice as long as it should have.

Emily rockin' it somewhere in Namibia

Rina getting her rocks off!

Rina, Mia, Em and Julia 

The lodge they were staying at, Dunedin only had vacancy for one night so we went over to the guesthouse across the street.  They had 2 beds available in a dorm and Rina agreed to a hostel based on the affirmation of its quality from a cute British boy in the lobby (first mistake), paid (second mistake), then walked up to the room to see it.  The room was dusty, but well lit.  It had 5 beds and a vaulted ceiling.  It was architecturally beautiful and the bar we passed on the way up to the room seemed lively and adequate.  Honestly, the room was dusty but tolerable.  The bathroom, however, was the deal breaker.  It was tiny, disgusting and had a giant hairball in the center of the floor.  NO FUCKING WAY.  Rina looked like she was going to die and I was honestly pretty skeeved.  It was pretty gross so we decided to abort and take one night at Dunedin and splurge on night #2 at a 4-star in the center of the city.

We needed to get the N530 refunded, so we solicited walk-in tourists to take our room in exchange for cash.  We got about 75% back, which I felt like it was a win.  Dunedin was nice.  The room was a lot nicer than I had expected, however there was only 1 geezer for 3 rooms, which left Rina and I with cold showers before dinner.

For dinner, we went to a cute little restaurant on a beached tugboat on the coast appropriately named, The Tug.  While waiting at the bar for a table, Rina ran into some acquaintances from the grody hotel we checked out of and we joined this sibling duo for a lovely dinner filled with stories, laughter and warmth.  Vanessa and Alex, from Bonn, Germany were awesome and we were sorry to see them leave for the Etosha Game Preserve, we would have loved another day with them.

 The next morning, Rina and I checked out of Dunedin and into a fancy pants hotel called Hansa Hotel, then parted ways for the day.  She went for a massage and shopping in town and I decided to jump out of a plane.  That’s right, I went skydiving with Ground Rush Adventures (www.skydiveswakop.com.na).  I actually skydived with one of the girls from the bus we hitchhiked on, Kerstin from Austria.  We were both super excited and a little nervous…in a good way.  It was amazing.  Kerstin jumped with a video man, David and her tandem partner, Dries.  I jumped with Alfred.  So fun.

Kerstin and David, the camera guy

Obligatory last photo

Alfred and Emily

Potentially the last person I would ever hug...was a stranger

3000 meters up selfie trio

Directions from the captain

Yeah, we're sitting in the cockpit

Kerstin and Dries ready to jump

View from the top!

Carrying away my parachute....successful landing

Kerstin and Emily, Winning

Emily and Alfred

Rina and I met back up around 4PM and asked the hotel reception if they could find us a shuttle to Dune 7 to watch the sunset.  They didn’t have one so she called a guy that owned a sand boarding company, Eban, to take us.  We negotiated a rate of N1000 ($100) and hopped in the car with a stranger…. again, to scale white sand dunes.

Dune 7 is remarkable in that from the top of the dune, you can actually see the Atlantic Ocean. It’s pretty magnificent.  We arrived at Dune 7 in Walvis Bay about 15 minutes before sunset and had to bust ass up the dune where we met some Kiwis that were attempting to sled down the dunes on cardboard boxes.  They were unsuccessful, but had fun trying.

Emily and Rina atop Dune 7 

Cardboard sled "race"

That night we had dinner with a friend from the first tour, Pablo and some of his new friends, MaryAnn and Richard.  MaryAnn offered some good tips on volunteering around the world and was on a similar adventure as I.  All in all, it was a busy, but lovely day.

The next day, we hopped on a shuttle back to Windhoek to meet the mother-daughter team from the start of our trip.  But first, lunch at Spur Steak Ranch.  (It's essentially the Bennigan's of Namibia)

Dinner with Anna and Lea at Spur Steak Ranch

Gunhild and Emily

Gunhild picked us up and showed us all around the city in a way that no tour company could ever replicate.  She was a truly fascinating woman.  She is a goldsmith by trade - award winning actually - and also a relative of one of the pioneer families of Windhoek.  Her robust knowledge of geology and family history armed her with a perspective and depth of the town that is unmatched.

She helped us collect lucky beans from the Erythrina tree, pointed out measurement stakes used to collect distances from the ocean to Windhoek in the early 1900s, local castles, a visible continental fault line in Windhoek and finally to Katutura. 

lucky beans

Rina, Almut and Gunhild

Katutura is a small town that was created when all of the black Africans were forced out of the city.  They were able to buy plots of land with a building on them containing 2 rooms, a sitting room and a kitchen. Over time, the various families built additional dwellings made of corrugated steel, cinderblocks and also legally drawn up structures to expand their dwellings as finances allowed. 

 

From the road, these “slums” look sad and epitomize poverty, but once inside, you see that they contain everything you could hope for.  Accommodations far exceeding expectations with refrigerators, microwaves, stoves, queen sized beds and televisions.  Although they look a bit tortured on the outside, they are quite adequate inside.  One of Gunhild’s friends, Hanna, allowed us inside to look around and learn how they live, it’s very family-centric.

The children in this area of town were my absolute favorite.  They warmed my heart instantly. I wanted to play with them, dance with them and had a strong desire to stay to volunteer at an after-school teaching program.  They were collectively, the most joyous people I have ever met.  They were excited for our unexpected arrival and danced and pushed their way through the streets to interact with us. 

Check out the future model on the left in the red shorts....she is totally a diva!

 I am forever changed having met Gunhild, Almut, Hanna, her family and the neighborhood kids.  I’m so thankful that Rina lost her phone on day one and that the power of attraction/fate/God/the stars or whatever brings good people in contact with other genuinely good people worked in our favor.

We closed out an amazing trip with an indulgent dinner paired with outstanding company, Pablo, Rina, Richard and Almut.  I had an amazing sampling plate of Ostrich, Springbok, Zebra, Kudu and Oryx. I am not skilled enough to describe how incredible my food was.  Each piece of meat was a mystery and I ate until I was full, full, full. I was a little nervous about the zebra, but it proved to taste very much like lean beef.  The whole thing was delicious, don’t judge this carnivore.

Namibia is amazing and I will be back.  We didn’t make it to the skeleton coast to see the shipwrecks, Etosha to safari, Aus to see the concentration camps or the south to see the wild horses.  Next time, next time…. who knew a week wouldn’t be enough?