Namibia

Windhoek

Outside of the cities and towns, there's no public transport system in Namibia, so to be able to see the sights it's either a self drive job or it's an organised tour. As we did the driving in South Africa, we decided to let someone else deal with the worsening road conditions, worry about the amount of fuel we have (or not have, remember Grahamstown??) and of course do the compulsory texting. So for 10 days we sat back, tried to relax (text,text text) and we saw the sights. The tour was great, the guide less so. The guide turned out to be more of a glorified taxi driver than a fountain of knowledge. His old fashioned communication skills were non-existant, i.e. vocally, he was a miser, very economical with the chat, a donkey could have talked off his hind legs, he suffered from an atrophic tongue.......you get the picture. However, his modern communication skills were impeccable, second to none, yes, you guessed it, he was a habitual texter. His thumb gymnastics were so great I gave him our mobile number so he could text us snippets of information instead of having to talk to us. U R NOW @ THE S& DUNES.

When he did speak he would tell us stuff we already knew. For example, one of the biggest attractions in Namibia is Etosha National Park, a huge salt pan famed for its abundance of animals (especially rhinos). People come to Namibia just to visit Etosha. We had driven past road marking for miles telling us we were getting closer to Etosha. A huge "Welcome to Etosha" sign welcomed us to Etosha. We stopped at the park entrance to pay our entry fee. The guide, who hadn't spoke for hours then turned around to us and came out with the classic statement of the obvious, "Now we are in Etosha" (as if we didn't know) "Here we will see the animals" and that was it, until an hour later, mid text he nearly hit a giraffe. "Ah" he said pointing out the window at one of the most recognizable creatures on the planet, "Giraffe". I don't think we necessarily needed to get so close to that one to identify it.

So to ease to uncomfortable silences we started providing our own obvious commentary. "You are now back in the bus", "You are now eating your lunch", " That man there has a head." Childish? Who, us?

Anyway, the tour was great, we saw the 50KM long Waterburg Plateau (U R now @ the Wtrbrg PL8O), Etosha was magical, we saw lion (lying), leopard (stalking), elephants (bathing in the mud), white and black rhino (drinking and generally rhinoing), and playing second fiddle were the hyena, jackal,zebra, mongeese, warthogs, heaps of antelope and not to mention the amazing birds, and I think I mentioned the giraffe.

Next we had the opportunity to get up close to a fascinating tribe, the Himba. The Himba are a semi-nomadic tribe who continue to live a traditional lifestyle. The women are famous for covering their skin and hair (resembling dreadlocks) with a fragrant mixture of ochre, butter and bush herbs, which dyes their skin a burnt-orange hue and serves as a natural sunblock and insect repellent. Instead of using water to wash, they perform a daily hour and a half smoke cleansing ritual on their skin and jewelry. The women also have their 4 lower front teeth removed when they are 11 yrs old so they resemble their cattle that they so admire! As their language is one of the sucky, clicky ones, the lack of these teeth also helps with the pronunciation of some of their words. It was a fascinating tour.

At Twyfelfontein we saw some 6000 yr old San rock engravings, one of the most extensive rock-art galleries on the continent. We then headed to the sea and the magnificently eerie Skeleton Coast with its constant heavy fog masking the usually brilliant blue sky. It's a graveyard for many early European vessels of discovery. Further south at Cape Cross is the nasally challenging home to 100,000 fur seals who either frolic in the cold waters of the Atlantic or lie on the beach and moan at each other like disgruntled tourists.

In Swakupmund, where civilization and the sand dunes meet, we had some great encounters with the beasts of the dunes, well, the so-called little 5. Burrowing skinks and beautifully coloured geckos, sidewinder snakes who can 'walk' up sand dunes, the amazing dancing white lady spider who makes a tunnel nest in the side of the dunes with a little trap door who can actually cartwheel (very quickly) down the slopes of the dunes to escape its predators and the awesome desert chameleon with it's 40cm projectile tongue which we saw in action. Well, we did the equivalent of hand feeding the chameleon with some tok-tokie beetles that we caught!

Namibia's other famous draw are the towering red sand dunes of Sossusvlei. We walked up the 150M high Dune 45 and watched a magnificent sunrise. Just for the record walking down a sand dune is a hell of a lot easier than walking up one in the dark. After the dune we headed to Deadvlei which is a old river bed that hasn't received water for eons but the remnants of life remain. Eerie looking trees sticking out of the cracked dry river-bed surrounded by red dunes sets the scene for a surreal, unique landscape.

Back in Windhoek we ummed and arghed what to do next - a long trip to Zambia or a shorter more expensive trip to get into Botswana which is renowned for being an expensive (African) country to visit. Stay tuned to find out what we'll do next........ Gripping isn't it???

Upington

This was our final stop in South Africa, nothing that special in this town. In fact the best thing to come out of Upington was the overnight bus we took to Windtoek, Namibia.

So there you go, before we knew it we had already finished one big country. OK, we did race through a few areas and missed others out, but I think you tend to move pretty fast especially with a hire car, no point in dilly-dallying. Plus there's always the "save it up for the next time we visit" factor.

So with the car gone and back on to public transport it felt like the 'holiday' was over and now the real ' traveling' was about to begin. This, of course has many implications, some good, some not so good. It was now time to realize how heavy our backpacks actually were. It doesn't matter how many times you go on holiday or go traveling, I think most people, no matter how good their intentions, are guilty of over-packing. These days the main culprit of the over-packing beast is the demon charger. Well, I wish it was only one, but it seems like a quarter of things in my bag are chargers for powering certain electrical equipment. Don't get me wrong, technology is great and makes some things a lot easier and smaller (i.e. I no longer have to pack a little case full of CDs and a CD player), but if the technology is so advanced these days, why not have just 1 charger that will work for everything. Forget world peace, forget global famine, forget about environmental issues how about a big push for a universal charger. Surely everyone will feel the benefit and I'm certain that vendors in bus stations around the world will find something else to sell.

Apart from the amount of chargers in my bag, the other huge difference I've noticed in Africa is the amount of mobile phones. A phenomenal amount of people out here have them, it's unreal. They are so cheap to buy, so cheap to run, 'airtime' top up vendors are as common as Coca-Cola outlets and there are antennas everywhere, which means you can get a signal virtually everywhere except in a certain national park just south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe - more about that one in good time. You see shepherds in the middle of nowhere texting. Ladies, not only carrying huge sacks of onions on their heads but also texting (I thought the balancing thing was hard enough). But the most scary one, and the one you seem to witness the most are the guys driving and texting. Most Africa roads ( and vehicles) are scary enough on their own without this added impediment.

So, overall, it's great to be back in this part of the world. It's interesting to see the changes and great to see the things that have remained the same, the huge smiles, the laughter at the slightest hiccup, the smell of street fires, the biltong and the fact that traffic lights are still called 'robots'.

Kimberely

We took the over night sleeper train to Kimberely which was great fun. Compared to trains we took in India, this train was like the Orient Express. We managed to score a 4 berth sleeper compartment all to ourselves, what luxury. It even had door (!), that locked (!), in India you were lucky to get a curtain! So we kicked back, we drank our wine and chewed on our biltong as our hotel room on rails carried us through the wine fields, through the mountains, through The Karoo to Kimberely. The draw here was to see the remnants of the diamond mining industry that was happening in the early 1900's. All that is left now, once all the privately owned claims had been conglomerated, is a huge hole in ground. The largest hand made hole in the world, apparently. Well, I haven't seen a larger one to disprove their claim. We stayed within "The Big Hole" complex which has been done out like a small town in the early 1900's, so that was quite good fun poking around the old shops, the mock up pub and especially the skittles alley. We wished the prices were more like the 1900s.

Cape Town

We said farewell to our tiny little hire car which marked the end of the first section of the trip. We did the usual Cape Town stuff, headed up Table Mountain and spotted a few dassies on the top and spent sometime carrying out the Robson family tradition of having a few beers at wonderfully situated Belgium Bar at the waterfront. We took a sunset cruise and had great views of the port, Table Mountains and the new Green Point stadium, all ready for the World Cup.

We felt we had to make the most of the selection of food available in Capetown, as it wouldn’t be around for much longer, so we did lots of eating out. Eating out at fancy places can be a little difficult when you’re backpacking especially when it comes down to what to wear, “Do I wear the creased, but clean t-shirt somewhere at the bottom of my pack? Or the dirty, smelly uncreased t shirt that doesn’t look too bad? (The only reason it isn’t creased is because it’s been on my back for the last few days)” Tough choice.

We were obviously taken aback when we were often threatened by the seemingly nice enough waiters with what they referred to as The Bull. We were aware of the potentially dangerous animals in this country but not however in the confines of the restaurant setting. It was then on finishing the meals, the waiters, who by this time obviously had come to the conclusion (regarding our appearance/odor), that we may not have the financial necessities, would commence their threats. “Should I bring out the bull now?” they’d sometimes ask, masking the violence with a thin facade of friendliness. As if we had an option. Or “The bull is coming”, was a common one which really got our blood pumping and scared us into reaching for the wallet. Or how about the simple, but effective taunt of, “The bull?” “No! No!” we’d cower,” We’ll pay! We’ll pay! We have money! Anything but the bull!” How these fancy places can still operate with such wild animals in their kitchens, and it wasn’t just us. We overheard a local couple, who seemed relatively calm considering the circumstances, complaining that one night a waiter had brought them a massive bull, which apparently charged over them, or something like. They were difficult to understand,what with that strange accent of theirs.

To Stellenbosch...

The road back to the coast was also pretty spectacular especially just outside George when we hit the breathtaking Outeniqua Pass, a road that goes straight through the escarpment, it was awesome, winding in between sheer cliff walls on side, close enough to touch, and rolling green hills on the other. Whose crazy,but impressive idea was it to build the road through here?

We decided to miss out the Garden Route and keep on moving on, although we have a fair bit of time, we still have a lot of ground to cover to get up to Ethiopia. We overnighted in Swellingdam and had a great feed on warthog samosas, crocodile sashimi and springbok fillets. Yum.

We spent one night in the town of Stellenbosch and then a couple of nights out of town closer to the wineries, or wine farms as they call them here. Stellenbosch has to be the most spectacular and beautiful wine region I've seen. Even without the vines the area would be worth a visit of the scenery alone. What an amazing sight, rows of vines sloping up the side of the mountains.

Graaff-Reinett

We hadn't even heard of this place before, but everything we'd read about it made it sound like it was worth the extra bit of effort to get here. It involved driving through a very dry area know as The Karoo, however the other very dry area this day was our fuel tank. I (Phil) take full responsibility for the events of this morning. For some unknown reason (which in retrospect can only be put down to stupidity) we (i.e. me, Phil) didn't fuel up in Grahamstown, presuming there'd be a petrol station very soon back on the highway. Cutting a long story short, there wasn't. The low fuel warning light was (still) on, unsurprising, as it had been illuminated for 20 or so kms on the way into Grahamstown the day before. We drove 30kms this morning and still no petrol station in sight. My positive mantra "oh there'll be one round the next bend" had rapidly turned into occasional expletives punctuated by bouts of nervous silence, during which only my sweating could be heard. We reckoned (as you can't be 100% certain without a good map, again, stupidity) that the next town, that may or may not have a petrol station, was about 40 or 50kms away. It was only a matter of time when the inevitable question was aired, "Do we turn around and backtrack 30kms to Grahamstown or do we keep going?", for all we knew there could be one just round the corner, we'd refuel, have a laugh and then continue on our way. But we were pretty far from laughing at that point. The fuel gauge needle hadn't moved now for about 20km, it couldn't point any further below the E for empty, which was also summed up the state of my vacuous head for making such an error of judgement. We spotted a private game park on the side of the road and we asked the guard how much further the next fuel station was and we explained that we were dangerously, dangerously low on fuel. We'd obviously turned off the ignition whilst we were chatting, not to waste what little fuel we had remaining. The guard told us it was close and he asked to see the fuel gauge. He looked through the window at the horizontal needle, "Turn it on" he asked, I told "On or off, it has the same reading, it's empty". "Turn it on" he asked again. The only effect turning the engine on (apart from using up more fuel) was to re-illuminate the fuel warning light. As soon as this light went on he said "Ah! You will make it!". I have no idea where his optimism came from, from simply seeing that light flash on. Maybe many African guys just know these things, after all you do see a lot of African guys pushing cars around, but that wasn't a image I wanted in my mind. We weren't sharing his optimism, we asked him to call someone who actually knew which town was closer, he did this and told us Grahamstown was the closest town. So reluctantly we turned around hoping that we had 30kms worth of fuel remaining, otherwise we were in big trouble.

It must have been hilarious to watch; we were crawling along the highway doing about 50kph, we were virtually coming to a stand still when driving up the many hills with just enough momentum to take us over the brow and then coast down. It was a very nervy not to mention slow 30kms. Terrible thoughts were running through my mind and making the situation worse, adding to the potential humiliation and frustration of running out of fuel. I liken it to sunburn, 100% completely avoidable (if one was smart and savvy), but if it occurs there's not only the humiliation of the naivety but also the pain and distress it causes. Either way you end up with a red face. Anyway. Somehow we limped back into Grahamstown as we did the side to side swerving thing to hopefully slosh the remaining drops of fuel into wherever it needed to go. It had been a very stressful morning and we were still in Grahamstown. I learned a valuable lesson this day, not only does a stitch in time save nine but also 'don't be a f@#*ing idiot Robson'.

So with a huge smack of deja vu we left Grahamstown again, back down the same old road we were becoming quite accustomed to. Just for the record, if we hadn't turned back to Grahamstown we'd had to have made another 45 kms to the next petrol station, so....would we have had enough fuel left to make that extra 15kms???? Possibly, but possibly not.

Anyway the rest of the way to Graaff-Reinett was an amazing drive, for the most part The Karoo is very flat and scrubby, but in the distance we could just make out some mountains, and it was towards these mountains we were heading. It was actually escarpment, escarpment of all shapes and sizes, peaks, plateaus, singular cones and long stretches (really putting my geological nomenclature on the line here), anyway, it was amazing, very moon-scapesque, I'd imagine.

The town itself was in the middle of a C shaped cradle of this escarpment and is the fourth oldest (European) in South Africa. There were some cool Cape Dutch arcitechure especially the beautiful Dutch Reformed church in the middle of town.

Just out side of town was The Valley of Desolation allowing cool views within the escarpment itself, some great rock formations and huge finger-like columns, it was quite a cloudy day which made everything look a bit more sinister.

Grahamstown

A cool little university town with some great looking buildings, but unfortunately as it was Good Friday virtually everything in town was closed. We stayed at The Old Gaol, another one of these backpacker places that was once a jail and has been converted for the pleasure of paying guests. Unlike others I've stayed at , this one hasn't been touched up that much at all, which at first was a bit of a surprise, but once you got used to it, it was quite cool, although the uniforms were a little scratchy, the shackles a little tight and the food a little basic. The cells where we slept were nice and cool and it was nice to get out of the blazing sun.