I began my Namibia vacation right after leaving my mom at the Cape Town airport.
I met friend Sara (a former NYU cross country teammate of mine) in Durban. She’s been living in Lesotho for the past year-and-a-half teaching preschool. So, since we’re kinda, sorta in the same neighborhood, we decided to hook up as travel buddies for part of this summer break.
We spent two nights in Durban before embarking on our long journey to Namibia. From Durban, we took an eight hour bus ride to Johannesburg, where we got one glorious night of horizontal sleep before catching our 24+ hour bus ride to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.
The bus ride was pretty mundane, aside from the two bus breakdowns that extended our trip by about one hour each and the delay caused by the French-speaking African woman who allegedly tried to cross into Namibia using a doctored passport (we had to drive her back through No Man’s Land to the South African border, where we assume she had to spend the rest of the night).
The two Windhoek-bound buses pulled onto the side of the road in a barren-looking township. While several of those men thought the mere presence of their masculinity could help fix the other bus’s water pipe, they soon figured out that they’d be more productive just smoking cigarettes.
After 26 hours of riding uncomfortably through the desert in unairconditioned buses, Sara and I finally arrived in Windhoek’s central parking lot. We went straight to the hotel, where we tried to move around a bit (swimming and running) and fluctuated between standing vertically and lying down horizontally to try and get rid of our bus posture.
We were supposed to meet three of our four other travel partners that night, but two of them missed their flight from Johannesburg. By the time the sole arriver got to the hotel, Sara and I were completely zombied out and could hardly register what the new girl, Anila, was saying.
After a lovely run the next morning (Sara’s an even crazier runner than I am — she’s training for Comrades, South Africa’s biggest ultra-marathon!) and discovering that two more of Sara’s friends were staying at our hotel, our newly-formed group of five decided to make up a walking tour around the city.
Windhoek from the ant-infested lookout point we discovered.
I was endlessly fascinated by how similar Windhoek looks to Palm Springs, California. (I can just hear my dad saying triumphantly, “So, why go to Namibia when you can see a better version of Windhoek right here in Paaaaalllmm Spriiiiinngs?!”) There wasn’t much else to see besides the landscape — mostly because it was New Year’s Eve, but also because Windhoek doesn’t seem to be the most vibrant city. We did manage to get a private tour of Windhoek’s parliament building (nobody else was there besides the security guard we persuaded to lead us around) and see a small section of the national museum.
I didn’t know there was enough to do in Windhoek to warrant a double-decker tour bus...
Two more of our travel partners, Sim and Carrie, showed up that afternoon (the ones who’d missed their flight), and the seven of us had a low-key New Year’s celebration that night at hoppin’ Joe’s Pub, down the street from our hotel.
Our real Namibian adventure started the next morning. We’d rented a full-fledged camping vehicle — a bright blue Nissan truck with a cap over the bed — filled with all the camping gear you could ever need. We had propane tanks, extra tubs of gas, tents, a table, chairs, cooking supplies, and lots of car repair equipment. (Sara actually brought her own “almost not broken” tent for the two of us and I bummed a sleeping bag off of her friend from Lesotho, so we didn’t need the camping gear that came with the truck; we just needed the truck.)
Our toothpaste-blue camping truck.
We had to pick one more traveler up from the airport before heading on our adventure. So, Sim, Carrie, Anila, Sara, and I piled into the truck and headed to the airport. And therein laid our first problem: We would be traveling with six people in a five-person car for the first few days of the trip…and we were going to have to get past police checkpoints (to catch drunk drivers and whatnot) in every city.
We encountered our first police block leaving the city to get to the airport — a good thing, since we’d be able to see if they waved us on or stopped to chat. Well, the police officer spent quite a bit of time asking where we were from, where we were going, etc. Right before we pulled away, he noticed me in the backseat and informed everyone in the car that he thought I was “nice.” So, on our way back — with newly-arrived Ira in the car as well — I strategically placed myself on his side of the car so he would (hopefully!) be lenient toward our illegal-ish activity. I also separated all my money into different pockets for easy access in case we needed to bribe someone (hey, it happens). But neither of those plans had to be put into action because they just waved us right through this time. Whew! First police block down!
We drove down south to Sossusvlei that day. (We encountered one more police block leaving Windhoek, where I pretended to be intently reading a magazine because I don’t deal with disciplinary action very well and had “guilty” written all over my face.) It seems that the whole country of Namibia only has a few paved roads because we were on dirt “highways” the whole way there. Not very comfortable when you spend 5-6 hours at one stretch squeezed into the back seat of a truck with three other people, bouncing around at every pothole and sharp turn.
The view for miles and miles and miles and miles...
We hadn’t prepared for forging into the desert very well because we hardly had any food or water with us (genius, we know). I think we were all surprised at the lack of amenities along the way. We assumed there’d be at least one gas station at some point, but the only semblance of life we saw the entire time was a house next to the road with an abandoned-looking petrol station across the street. (So that’s why they gave us the extra gas containers, huh?) The rest of the time we were looking out onto barren desert-scapes, varying from flat, empty, sandy surfaces to majestic, Mars-red, rocky mountains in the distance. Roughing-It Fail #1.
After such a long, hot, amenity-free ride, we were thankful to find that the campsite at Sossusvlei had a restaurant/bar, a convenience store, bathrooms, and a pool. We ate an unsurprisingly insipid meal (that unsurprisingly hit the spot) right when we got there, and then decided to set up camp.
We’d been assigned to Campsite 15, so we drove from the main building toward some of the furthest campsites. Sim was driving, and he managed to get us stuck in a shallow pile of sand — right in front of a family of four sitting in their campsite, enjoying the hot afternoon sun. It took him several tries and several minutes to get us un-stuck, and the whole process required an on-the-fly 4-wheel-drive tutorial courtesy of the back of the sun flap. And when he finally got us out, the dad of the family remarked to Carrie (who was outside the car trying to guide us) how that pile of sand wasn’t actually that deep. Uhhh, yeah. Roughing-It Fail #2.
When we got to Campsite 15, we saw that it was already occupied by a large family with several tents and laundry drying on a line. It looked like they’d been there for days. So, we commandeered empty Campsite 16, and I was sent to inform the front desk while everyone else started setting up.
Well, changing campsites ended up being a drawn out, confusing ordeal, so we ended up being reassigned to Campsite 2. I ran to tell the others, hoping they wouldn’t be too far into setting up. But by the time I got there, Sara had our tent almost all the way set up and the others had just gotten their larger tent expanded to its full form. We decided it would be more efficient to just carry the two tents to Campsite 2 (provided they didn’t blow out of our hands) instead of packing them up and unpacking them again. So, Sara and I ventured past the family who’d watched us get stuck in the sand — Sara carrying the tent while I was packed down with sleeping bags and backpacks — followed by Carrie, Anila, and Ira carrying their tent. I’m sure, after seeing that, some people took bets on whether or not we’d make it through the night. Roughing-It Fail #3.
Once we were finally set up, we decided to go to a nearby sunset viewpoint. We drove around a rocky mountain to this flat-looking area. We got out to explore a bit before sunset, and we went straight over to a large-looking ditch in front of the car. Well, that was no ditch; it was a narrow, deep canyon made of holey rock formations! And it looked so cool! So we went for a little trek down in the canyon. The rock formations were so intricate. I really wanted to climb all over them, but I was wearing flip flops, the sun was getting close to setting, and I’m not actually an experienced rock climber, so it just didn’t work out. But the sunset we saw when we emerged from the ditch was definitely one of the most beautiful African sunsets I’ve seen since I’ve been here. (Err, sorry…I didn’t have my camera. Just use your imagine!)
The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 a.m. Sossusvlei is famous for its enormous, red-orange sand dunes. We wanted to watch the sunrise on Dune #45 (creative name for a pile of sand, huh?), so we were at the park’s gate right when it opened at 5 a.m. It was an hour-long drive to the dune and I had to battle to stay awake, since my rocky “mattress” didn’t let me sleep very well the night before and my out-of-control coffee addiction hadn’t been satiated for the day.
When we got to the dune, there were already a couple of small tour bus groups heading up the sand. So, we followed suit. In true CiCi form, I passed every single person in front of me and ended up at the furthest end of the dune, where it split in three directions, to watch the sun crest the mountains in the distance. Nobody else ventured out to join me, so I sat alone, snapping photos Japanese tourist-style, envisioning magic carpets zooming around, and letting the song “Prince Ali” from the Disney movie Aladdin play on and on in my head.
Footprints in the dune.
The point where the dune split in three.
Sara after sunrise.
A little while after the sun came over the mountains, I left my spot and joined Sara for our walk down. Some people ran down the face of the dune, but we did not. It seemed almost sacrilegious to mess up its smooth, orangey downward slope (even though the wind fixes those blemishes right up). I did take off my shoes, though, and walk down barefoot. It felt so nice to have the silky, cool sand between my toes!
Pre-shoe removal; post-sunscreen application...
We decided to explore a bit more of the park, since it was still early in the day. So we drove further in. We thought about decreasing the air in our tires — something the car rental people told us to do when driving in sand — but we figured we’d just use the 4WD until we needed to make other adjustments.
Yeah, famous last words.
Not far into our sand-laden drive, we got stuck. And I mean stuck! Our front-left and back-right tires were halfway submerged in the “road,” which was made entirely of sand. So, the six of us piled out of the car to try and get ourselves out of there. First, we tried digging the tires out — something we soon found out is the wrong thing to do. Then, we tried putting a pile of weeds under the tires to use as traction. That didn’t work, either. A few truckloads full of tourists drove past, not really acknowledging us. I’m sure the tour guides were thinking, “Just another bunch of idiots who thought they could tackle the sand on their own.”
Our buried blue beast.
Only one man asked if we were okay as he drove past, and I gave him an automatic “Yup!” in answer. Except we clearly weren’t alright. Oops. The guy was definitely conscious of that, though, because he turned around just ahead and came back to help us. He was a large Afrikaner from Windhoek, visiting the park with his wife and daughter. Apparently he’s gotten stuck in the sand a lot, and he could tell we had no idea what we were doing. So, he got down and dirty to help us out.
First, he tried to tow us out. But we broke his 4 ton-capacity tow rope on the first thrust. Oops. Then, he took his spare tire and used it as solid ground to prop up our truck so we could throw sand under the tires and raise it up out of the holes we’d made. As we were working at this, Land Rovers full of tourists kept passing us, with people snapping photos and taking videos of the idiots who thought they could tackle the sand on their own. Roughing-It Fail #4.
The blue beast busting a 4 ton-capacity tow rope. Guess we did a pretty thorough job digging ourselves in.
After over an hour of work — raising the truck, pushing sand under the tires, raising the truck, pushing sand under the tires, over and over, until we could finally deflate them — it looked like the truck was finally ready to be pulled out of the sand. A Land Rover full of tourists stopped next to us and the guide offered to drive our truck out, since he was a qualified sand driver and all. (Yeah, I had no idea there was such a thing either…) With some crafty maneuvering of the steering wheel and some jerky forward movements, he managed to get it out on the first try!
After a few rounds of thank-you’s, we continued our journey deeper into the park…this time with deflated tires and new sand-driving skills.
We parked the truck and followed the crowd on foot into a flat, barren valley that seemed like it had been plopped into the middle of a circle of sand dunes. The ground was white and cracked, and there were tree carcasses standing everywhere. I felt like I was on the moon or Mars or another foreign planet in another foreign galaxy. I’d never seen anything like it before!
“Don’t step on a crack or you’ll fall and break your back!”
The six of us wandered around the valley for a while. By that time, it was starting to get pretty hot, so we didn’t stay long. I tried to walk barefoot on the sand once more because I’d enjoyed it so much earlier in the day, but the sand had gotten so hot it felt like I was giving myself second-degree burns on the bottoms of my feet!
After that, we went back to camp, packed up, and started our drive to Swakopmund. None of us showered, so we just reveled in our sandiness. We spent practically the whole rest of the day driving, squished again into the backseat, watching the incredible, changing landscape go by. We passed the Tropic of Capricorn mid-trip, so we piled out, stretched, and took some obviously necessary pictures. (I don’t remember exactly what the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer lines are for, but I do remember learning about them in middle school or junior high. It’s funny how those vague memories can incite such excitement.)
Sara and me at the Tropic of Capricorn!
We arrived in Swakopmund in the evening. It’s a very German town, believe it or not. Apparently, Namibia is one of the few places in Africa the Germans succeeded in colonizing during Europe’s race for colonies, so it remains a German holiday destination today. Those Germans really don’t know how to pick a vacation place, if you ask me, because it was cloudy and chilly much of the time we were there (and we heard that’s the norm)!
Our sixth traveler, Anila, left that morning, so we had more butt space in the back of the truck. We drove to Walvis Bay, just a bit down the coast, to see some flamingoes and a salt refinery. The beaches are lined with sand dunes (well, the dunes are actually across the road from the beach), so it was an interesting landscape to look at. Then we went to a 4×4 rental place where Carrie, Sim, and Ira spent an hour “tearing up” the dunes. Sara and I opted out of 4×4-ing, though, and went for a walk on the beach instead.
Sara and Ira after they ran to scare the flamingoes into flying so we could see the pinkness underneath their white wings.
The following day, we we met a dude named Wayne at Dune #7 at 9:30 a.m. for some sandboarding. I figured I should try it out since I’ll be missing the northern hemisphere’s snowboarding season. Wayne booted us up, gave us boards (which are actually old, broken down snowboards), and drove us up to the top one-by-one.
Snowboarding boots and shorts? Yup!
Sandboarding ended up being far less than exhilarating, but it was fun enough and definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime activities. Sara was pretty nervous about the whole ordeal, but after her first slow and funny runs, she was fine. At first, I reveled in being warm while boarding down a mountain rather than freezing cold (no gloves needed!); but, once I fell, the novelty wore off when I realized that, instead of getting sweet-tasting snow in my mouth and soon-to-melt ice down my pants, I had sand in those unpleasant spots! Turns out, I’d definitely trade the warm weather of sandboarding for the soft snow (or ice…or anything, really, as long as it’s not sand) of snowboarding.
Such a hardcore group of sandboarders!
We each did four or five runs, and then we had to rush off to begin our drive for the day. We were heading to the Skeleton Coast, and the entrance gates closed at 3 p.m. This time, we thought ahead and bought groceries in Swakop before leaving, since we knew we’d be driving through the middle of the Namib Desert. (Check out that learning curve!)
Out in the barren coastal desert, this can be a pretty freaky introduction to the Skeleton Coast.
We reached the ominous entrance gate at 2:30 p.m. (whew!), so we took it easy on the rest of our drive to that night’s campsite. We found one of many shipwrecks along the way and enjoyed exploring the dark dune-filled landscape. I kept imagining what it would be like to wreck your ship on a foreign coast back in the day, only to see endless desert in the distance. Apparently that’s how the coastline got its name: shipwrecked sailors knew their skeletal fate was sealed.
Shipwreck! Looks like it was a small one, but still interesting!
Our accommodations that night were in a makeshift fishing village (i.e. campsite). When we arrived, we were a bit intimidated by the massive camps these people had set up. They had huge tents with tons of fishing supplies and generators, and here we pulled up to our oceanfront plot with two itty-bitty tents and not much else.
Our camp was the only thing we saw along the coastline for hours...
For dinner, we started cooking up some pasta we’d bought back in Swakop. As we were setting up our cooking equipment, though, we got the bright idea that some of the fishermen might be willing to sell us an extra catch of the day. I mean, we were in a fishing village; no sense in just having pasta! After asking around, a giant German-Namibian man kindly gave us two large fish he said would just go to waste in his camp, since they would be eating an even larger catch.
Well, it appeared that we’d asked for the fish before really thinking the situation through. Turns out, none of us knew what to do with freshly-caught fish. Thankfully, the fish were already gutted and scaled, but they were still attached to their heads and contained bones and blood and stuff. Ewww.
Uhhh, so what do we do with all this stuff inside?
Sim took the first crack at disassembling one of the fish (who we named Sinclair). Our two serrated knives really sucked at cutting, though, so after Sim dubbed his attempts futile, Sara (a former vegan!) started peeling meat off the bones with her fingers. Carrie and I served as a wall around the table so that none of the fishermen could see how abominably we were treating our dinner. Roughing-It Fail #5.
Sara puckering up to her dinner.
We decided to leave the second fish whole. Ira bought foil, spices, and white wine at the general store to season our two fish. So, we spiced up the second Sinclair (we mixed them up and both ended up being called Sinclair) with fish spice and peri-peri sauce, wrapped him up in foil, and stuck him straight into our fire pit. We put the remnants of the first Sinclair in some foil with the wine and stuck that in the fire as well. Our dinner ended up taking forever to cook, but when we finally ate, we were pleased that our disastrous dinner preparations turned into a meal with at least some flavor. (I give credit to the fresh fish, not our cooking abilities.)
The fisherman came back to our camp while we were making s’mores to have us try his fish. It was AMAZING! He said he just wanted to brag because he figured his meal would be far better than ours. Errrr, yeah…
We left the fishing village the following morning to head inland. We drove past more beach dunes into Namibia’s rocky, mountainous center. We stayed at a place called Palmwag, which is another national wildlife park of sorts. After setting up camp in our secluded, bush-side campsite, we went for a makeshift game drive. We saw giraffes, zebras, lots of springbok, kudu, and two elephants — all on the side of the road!
The following day, we headed further inland and north to Etosha, Namibia’s main game park. The drive should have been short and uninteresting, but, not long after starting out, we heard an unusual amount of gravel being sucked into the left-back side of the truck. So, we pulled over to see what the issue was, and we’d totally busted a tire. It had several large holes in it and was emitting a nasty stench to go along with the heat that was emanating from its innards. Roughing-It Fail #6.
Apparently, we stopped right in front of a farm because two large African men emerged from the trees to help us out. Now, I’m sure we could have managed a tire change ourselves, but these two muscley men did the job in under 10 minutes. It was amazing!
There wasn’t much time to snap this photo because the two of them finished the job in a flash!
After stocking up on groceries midway, we arrived at Etosha late in the afternoon. We set up our tents right away and took ourselves on a game drive. We saw lots of zebras, springbok, wildebeests, and ostriches.
When we got back to the campsite, we decided to check out the watering hole. All three camps inside Etosha are situated near watering holes, where patrons can watch animals drink up 24 hours a day. There wasn’t much action at sunset (besides a humongous lizard who was missing part of its tail ambling along the fence), so we decided to cook dinner and return for the reputable nighttime animal activities.
Gorgeous sunset over the African bush.
We put together a pasta-making assembly line (yes, we had pasta again), and figured dinner preps would be easy enough — especially after the fisherman camp fiasco.
And then the flying termites came out. Everywhere! They were flying into our backs, necks, hair; crawling on our feet and up the chairs; landing in our pots and bowls; and losing their wings all over the place.
Dinner preps went downhill from there. We had to be diligent about covering everything up so the termites wouldn’t get in our food; we couldn’t get the fire started because it was too windy; we tried turning off the light to get the termites to go away, but that didn’t work; and all of us were jumping up and down, flinching, and yelping every time we got hit by a termite. I looked around at one point and noticed that most of the other camps had turned off their lights and were cooking under these screens attached to their tents. We, on the other hand, were having to cower away from the termites — there were so many of them crawling on the ground that it looked like the earth was vibrating — and ended up eating our dinner dispersed into the few shady parts of our campsite, where the termites tended not to venture. It was decided then and there that we’d be eating in the camp’s restaurant the following night. Rough-It Fail #7.
After that hair-raising meal, we decided to see if anything was going on at the watering hole. The setup was like an amphitheater, where spectators sat on benches raised above the lit-up watering hole. There was fencing beneath us to keep the wild animals from taste testing the wide array of human samples available.
That was a good night at the watering hole, too, because lions showed up! First, three males came into sight. They made their way to the watering hole slowly, one-by-one, and drank for a long time before disappearing back into the darkness. They were accompanied by two jackals, and after about 10 minutes, the jackals started making lots of noise. Then, two lionesses and two cubs made their way to the watering hole — slowly, again, and one-by-one. They drank for a long time as well. Then one of the males came out of the darkness to galavant with the two lionesses. After about 45 minutes of quiet lion-watching, they all disappeared into the darkness. It seemed like they may have been on the hunt (yeah, ‘cause I’m a wildlife expert and all…). Just before I drifted off to sleep in the tent a little while later, I heard lion roars and another, unidentifiable animal sound. It sounded like they got a pretty good, post-drink dinner.
Our last full day in Etosha was pretty quiet. We took ourselves on an early-morning game drive, where we saw more giraffes, wildebeest, springbok, and zebras. We hung out at the pool for quite a while and drove to another campsite about 75 kilometers away to get a taste of a different section of the park. We hung out at that pool, too (it was hot!) and, as decided the night before, had a lovely, termite-free dinner at the camp’s restaurant.
Oh, you know, just a giraffe hangin’ out on the road.
We had to leave pretty early the following morning to make it back to Windhoek by the time our truck rental was due. We drove another 75 kilometers through the park, where we saw the same wild animals as we’d seen the previous two days, and headed south towards Namibia’s capital.
After a full-day’s drive, we made it back to Windhoek. We dropped off our beloved, dirt-filled truck, Sara and I stretched our legs, and then the two of us parted with the rest of the crew to embark on our 24-hour bus ride back to Johannesburg.
We took the same route back that we’d taken in about two weeks earlier. There was a scheduled bus switch about half way to Johannesburg in a little South African town called Upington. I decided to be proactive and reserve Sara and me the front two seats on the top deck of the bus, since they had the most legroom. So, while she dealt with our bags, I checked us in and ran up to the top deck of the bus to put some stuff down on the seats. I left my book (The Fountainhead), journal, and our groceries as spot savers, and then I went back outside to wait while they finished straightening up the inside of the bus.
All the passengers waited and waited on the sidewalk to be let back onto the bus. And then, all of a sudden, the bus closed its doors and drove away…with my stuff inside! My travel journal, in particular! I had thought twice about leaving that on the seat, but the check-in guy had told me we were taking the same bus and was standing right behind me when I put my seat-savers down, so I figured it was okay.
In a moment of panic, I ran to the check-in guy and asked him where the bus was going. He said they were taking it to fuel up and that it would be back in a while. I asked him again if the same bus would be returning, and he assured me that it would. So I was put at ease and waited some more, calmly, on the sidewalk.
When the bus finally came back about 45 minutes later, it looked suspiciously cleaner. I went right upstairs to make sure my stuff was still there. Everything was gone.
I left my sweater and water bottle on the front seats this time (a little less personal than my journal) and ran to the ticket counter to ask the lady what had happened. She told me they’d switched buses (!) and that my stuff was probably at the bus depot. I told her I didn’t care about the book or the groceries, just my journal. (I accidentally left one travel journal under my pillow in a hostel in Budapest a few years ago; I didn’t want to lose another one!) She called the depot to see if they could look for it, and they said they’d call back if they found anything.
So, I checked my backpack under the bus and went back to the ticket counter to wait. After badgering the lady behind the desk a bit more, she called the depot back and the guys said they’d found my stuff. I asked how it would be possible to get it to Durban, and she told me that they were actually driving over to our departure point to give it to me before we left. She even said that our bus (which was already an hour-and-a-half behind schedule) would wait. Whew!
I turned around to make sure this information was being relayed to the bus operators. And that’s when I saw that the doors were shut and the bus was pulling out. I raced outside and started running next to the driver’s door, trying to signal to him that I was supposed to be on that bus. I could see Sara above me, who had a look of panicked shock on her face. It took the driver an uncomfortably long time to decide to stop and let me on.
I raced inside the bus and told the check-in guy what the lady at the ticket counter had told me about waiting. He got out to walk back and confer with her. I went to my seat and decided that whatever happened, I was staying on that bus and would call the lady at the ticket counter to work everything out. About a minute later, the bus started driving away again, and I didn’t have my journal.
I called the woman at the ticket counter right away and asked her how I should go about getting my stuff. She laughed and told me not to worry; the bus was going to meet the guys from the depot at a gas station on the outskirts of town to do the exchange.
Sure enough, we pulled alongside a gas station about five minutes later. A man got out of a white car carrying my journal, book, and even our groceries! (I’m guessing the bus depot guys weren’t keen on having rice cakes and apples for lunch, which is why they decided to return the food to us.) Whewwwwww!
The rest of the ride was far less exciting. But I did have ample time to think about what I’d learned on the Namibia trip:
- Being proactive does not work in Africa; just go with the flow.
- I need to figure out how to align myself with some who actually has survival skills because if the apocalypse happens anytime soon, I’m doomed.
- Maybe NYU, Stanford, BU, and Harvard should consider incorporating basic survival courses into their curriculums because our university educations sure didn’t hold up to roughing it in the wild!
