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Swakopmund, Namibia

Once we had left Etosha and the national park area, the landscape vastly changed on us, again. Since arriving in Namibia we had been trekking along the edge of the Kalahari Desert, but not in it. It’s quite obvious to see when we entered into our first desert, the Namib Desert. The Namib Desert is 81,000sqkm long, very narrow and is the worlds oldest desert. Among many things, a desert is defined by a lack of water with no vegetation. What makes this desert so diverse is the Namib starts on the skeleton coastline and rises to an altitude of 1,000 m above sea level. Within ‘this’ desert, there are sand dunes, salt pans, mud flats, granite mountains and deep gorges.

After 9 hours on the road, we arrived in the wild lands around the mountain of Spitzkoppe – ‘the Matterhorn of Namibia’. The mountain, which is 700 million years old, is 1,987 metres (5,857 ft) high. I’m told Spitzkoppe has similarities to Uluru, Coober Pedy and the Arizona desert. In time for sunset, we climbed one of the smallish mountains, often on hands and knees. This was Dave’s or any rock climber’s dream. The granite mountains and ground soil gives beautiful red and orange colours at all hours of the day. It wasn’t that long ago someone fell to their death on this mountain. It’s not like western countries where there are handrails up the side of these mountains. We were free to climb wherever we pleased.
After a campfire dinner, we grabbed a bottle of red, our foam mattresses and sleeping bags and headed for a formation of rocks about 20 metres directly above our campsite. Our leader said if we were to sleep under the stars it had to be up on the rock mountain not the ground because of the scorpions. That freaked all but 4 of us out, but it was well worth forgoing our tents for a flat piece of granite. I was flipping out slightly about the scorpion issue but I didn’t want to miss out. My eyes and nose were the only things poking out of my tightly drawn sleeping bag cords. The stars from the top of these mountains, plonked in the desert, was something simply breathtaking. Within the first 20 minutes, 8 shooting starts zoomed across the already well lit sky. Dave feel asleep holding the bottle of red, but was rudely awakened when it tipped all over him. Before we knew it, it was sunrise. The bright orange sun rose from behind the granite rock formations and made the rocks shine bright with the colour red.

We’re on the road again. This time we’re on our way to Swakopmund. We drove along some of the 600 km Skeleton Coastline alongside the Atlantic Coast. The Skeleton Coast is a graveyard to thousands of ships. The last shipwreck was less than a year ago. The 6 hour drive was an interesting one as we were surrounded by the massive dune fields of the Namib Desert on three sides, and the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth. Further along the coast was home to 80,000 olive-coloured cape fur seals, bathing on the Cape Cross shores. As soon as we stepped out of the truck we could smell this god awful smell. There were so many seals that they stand on each other. The smell is the decomposition of seal. They sound like moaning goats. You could barely see the beach as it was so heavily populated, and the ocean had thousands of bobbing black dots. There is a management programme (culling) underway to keep the seal population as it is. The bull (male) seal mates with each cow (female) one week after giving birth. Therefore seals are pregnant all but one week of the year, every year. Im glad I’m not a cow!

The next three nights were spent on ‘holiday’ in Swakopmund. We are midway through the trip and were in need of a break from the road and planned activities . Like many, we had paid for a room upgrade. This meant our own chalet (BATHROOM &amp; A BED!!!), with a good shower which was needed after going a few days without.
Like all major settlements in Namibia, Swakopmund has a German culture /influence. What a fascinating town it was. It’s like all of the German Tudor style houses (and German street names) are plonked right on an English beach. It’s rather odd, and definitely not Namibian, or is it? It has this cold coastal town feel, a long way from the desert of that morning. It’s so cold you can see your breath.
Dave and I, like everyone else, escaped from our group for the night. We are on holiday. What does one do for a night? Go on a date of course! We headed down to the fanciest place in town, a tug boat shaped restaurant plonked right on the coastline. We were there prior to it opening and we took the only non booked table. If I had a yummy descriptive word to describe the meat Oryx, I would use it now. All I can say is Indians have got it right, cows are over rated – they should be eating the antelope, Oryx, as it’s a gazillion times tastier. I now have to find a way to farm them back in Australia. It did feel, just slightly, odd only admiring them in Etosha N.P yesterday and now chomping away on our four legged friend…but I got over that vegetarian thought as soon as I had the first bite!
Our only activity in Swakopmund was quad biking on the sand dunes. My experience was very different to Dave’s. Firstly, the dunes are freaking huge and go forever. Some would say we are in a desert! Dave grabbed the manual 250cc bike and I grabbed the auto 125cc. The group of 11 all headed off together with two guides. When on the dunes you have to really ‘go for it’ to be able to make it up the dune or otherwise you’ll end up stuck in the sand. Dave was fine, totally fearless and carefree. He went as fast as you could on the steepest of dunes. He got higher than all of the group. That was what I was like before I had my quad biking accident a few years back. Me and that bike went our separate ways, after flying off the side of the cliff. I didn’t realise it but as soon as I got back on (today) and up on the peak edge of the dune, all those memories came back. I was freaked out. I was brave and carried on but with caution, tears steaming down under the dark glasses. It wasn’t hard to tell my fear was holding me back from being able to keep up with the group, all varying levels of difficulty. Half way through, 1 hour in, I was ready to give it in but they split me up with my own leader. That made me feel like a right goose. But it was the right thing as he started me slow and built the confidence back up. It wasn’t long but at my own pace I got back up to driving on the side of the dune again. I graduated and before I knew it, I joined the rest of the group and was smiling again. I’m glad I jumped back in and gave it a go but I’m more grateful for the way they handled the situation. Dave was stoked with me too. He even gave in and let me buy the two, near life size, wooden giraffes from the market as a reward!!! To airmail them back it was to cost $400USD, we went with seamail.

“Observation #93: All the ‘lower paid workers’ anywhere in Zimbabwe, Botswana or Namibia are of the non white variety and that bothers me greatly. It bothers me as it would be like every time you went out and had someone serve you they were Aboriginal or Maori – it doesn’t seem very equal to me. I chatted to the scientist in our group about it, he said that these countries are relatively new. 20 years ago there may not have been the same equal rights to eduation, and to get a good job you would need better education. I might be completely off wicket with this one but it’s just an observation. I just hope that in years to come it becomes more equal.”

When Chris our leader gave his spiel on Namibia, I had my pen and paper with me so I have more on Namibia than I did on Botswana. Probably, the most important fact is that Namibia is a very stable country. Namibia split from South Africa and only came to be its own country in 1990/94. There are 11 tribes all over the country. There has only been 2 presidents and both are from the same tribe. The reason I mentioned the different tribes is they are so obviously different in their dress and customs. The average income is $300 USD per month, but only 50% of the country is employed. In 2006, 72,000 Namibians wor
ked in the tourism industry or 17.9% of employed people – by 2017 this will have risen by 8%. Those unemployed often live off the land and in the countryside where you can grow your own food.
Education is free for children from grade 1 to grade 7. Heath care is free however the queues are extraordinarily long. 15% of Namibians have HIV. The country spans over 825 sqkm, 66% of it is desert (part Kalahari but mostly Namib desert). About 1.5 people per sq km and 1 in 4 people live in urban areas. A lot of produce is imported from South Africa due to the fact most of the country is desert. Both currencies (S.A &amp; Namib) are always 1 to 1.
It has a stable economy because of diamond and gold mining. 23% of the GDP is mining followed by tourism at 14%. Namibia has said to have the “best diamonds in the world”. There were once so many diamonds you could literally ‘pick’ them. Believe it or not, those sites are now protected. In 2010 a famous travel magazine voted Namibia “the best country to visit”. The year following 2.7 million tourists visited and there are only 2.1 million people who live here.
Well that’s slightly more knowledge than a few days ago, when the extent of what I knew was Jolie giving birth to her daugther in the little city we are in now, Swakopmund. Are you thinking who the hell cares? me too!

We are particularly enjoying our time in Namibia because of the country’s diverse landscape. Sadly there are only 5 more days to go.

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