South Africa

Carolyn.  We drove down to Cape Town from Namibia - about a 10 hour drive, though we took 3 days to do it, with some nice stops en route.  Then spent another week in the Cape area before boarding a train to Johannesburg (30 hours, overnight sleeper - I'll let Cooper tell you more about this).

Cape Town is a beautiful city, with the kind of variable weather that reminds us of Calgary!  And beautiful sea with city beaches that remind us of Vancouver.

We hiked up to the top of Table Mountain, spent a day in nearby wine country, admired the local penguin colony on the southern reaches of the Cape Peninsula, and photographed amazing coastline views along the way.

Importantly, while in Cape Town, we toured the former prison of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail (now a national historic site).  And then later in Johannesburg, we also visited Mandela's first home (now a small museum) in the ghetto-like suburb of Soweto - and later spent several hours at the Apartheid Museum (located on the other side of town).  Talk about an education for Cooper!  Even for Vern and I, we are still processing what we saw and learned...more than the media coverage of our teen and young adult years...

We are now headed to Madagascar.  Very excited to see lemurs, and a new part of Africa!

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Sand Dunes

Cooper. After a month of staying put in Windhoek, Namibia, it was nice to start moving again. The apartment that we stayed at was very nice, and we went back to it after our 10-day self-drive safari through Namibia.

We stayed in 5 campsites and 1 guesthouse, for a total of 10 nights. Between campsites, there was a lot of driving; once even eight hours between them. Each of the sites had a pool which we went in (it was so hot, so needed).

At home, we go camping very often with a normal tent for setting up on the ground, but our vehicle here was different. It had two small tents permanently attached on the roof of our 4x4 truck. You just unfold it and voila, then you only need to add the poles. It sounded simple to us, and we got a demonstration of how to set it up when we rented it, but on our first night, it took us nearly an hour!!! We got the hang of it by the end of the safari though.

While on the safari, we visited Swakopmund on the coast and stayed in a guesthouse for two nights (just to take a break from camping). The main reason we went there was to see, hike, and board down the magnificent sand dunes that were just outside of the ocean-side town. It was amazing(ly hot and tiring) to climb and board down the dunes, but is was sure fun! On my sand belly board (literally a piece of pressboard), I reached 71 km/hr!

Another place we went with grand sand dunes was Sossuslvei, the home of ‘the dune’ (the dune that’s on all the postcards here). Climbing up for sunrise was really cool… but it meant waking up at 4:30 in the morning. So it was beautiful, sleepy sunrise.

My favourite campsite was called Hoada in Damaraland. This campsite was very private, with a shaded concrete pad to set up our table and chairs, an outdoor kitchen sink and counter, personal toilet and shower, and a small pool. But the part that especially made it my favourite was that the campsite was in clumps of smooth boulders. (see pictures to understand it better).

Thank you safari (except for our fridge that never did stay cold!). It was very nice!

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Spiders and Centipedes and Scorpions, Oh My!

Vern.

We’ve spent the past week on a self-drive camping safari.  Armed with a 4x4 'bakkie' (a double cab truck with rooftop tents!  See Cooper's post above for pix) and a battery of rented camping gear, we ventured forth to explore the wilds of the Kalahari in northern and western Namibia.

We’ve added to our Botswana sightings of elephants, zebra, wildebeest and giraffe, and were hugely excited to view several rhinos, completing our set of the “Big 5” (the five most coveted animals that visitors strive to see:  elephant, lion, rhino, leopard, buffalo).   

We spent a fascinating morning with a Himba tribe at their remote village, learning their customs and daily routine. 

One of our self-drive campsites stands out in particular.  (It was Cooper's favourite, as he mentions above in his post.) The desert region southwest of Etosha National Park contains an area punctuated by outcroppings of huge, smooth boulders.  It’s as if giants used the place for a game of marbles, left them all behind, and went home (this based on the fact that we saw no giants during our stay).  The designers of Hoada camp cleverly incorporated the unique natural features into their fully-plumbed sites.  You meander through house-sized boulders to your outdoor shower.  Our private, outdoor, flush toilet was nestled between two similarly huge stones. The camp even included a small swimming pool situated – you guessed it – amongst prehistoric mounds of granite.

One unexpected feature of our site was the nighttime critters brought out by the combination of rock and desert sand.  Cleaning up from dinner one night, a massive centipede skittered across the ground of our eating area.  It was followed in short order by a large and aggressive spider, with a creepy yellow colour.  After the first quick glance, Carolyn asked Cooper if he was sure it wasn’t a scorpion, to which Coop replied: “No, it’s a spider.  That’s a scorpion over there.”  Sure enough, resting directly on the path to our tents was a giant scorpion.   We were very happy with the fact that our tents are on the roof of our 4x4.

The geography of Namibia continues to surprise and impress us.  We’ll shortly be driving south through the country and into South Africa, where we are looking forward to spending time in Cape Town.

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our world trip so far: Trip Photo Album

The Taxi Collective: Resistance is Futile

Vern.

In North America, it would be highly irregular if you were in a taxi and your driver stopped to pick up additional passengers.  There would likely be an "Excuse me, what the hell are you doing?" as part of that conversation.  And then no tip.

It took a while to get used to, but there is no such thing as "this is MY cab" here in Windhoek, Namibia.  The "collective taxi" concept is the norm.  Because there are no public transit buses here, it's like the taxi industry functions as a bus system of sorts - they'll take you where you need to go, but you don't know what route you'll take to get there, how long it will take, or who you will be sharing your ride with. 

Cabs are ubiquitous and cost 10 Namibian dollars (about 85 cents Canadian) to go anywhere within the city.  Good deal, really!

All taxis are 4-door sedans.  Happily a "full" taxi is usually 4 passengers (3 in the back, one up front), but sometimes they will try to fit an extra person in the back.  A driver at a shopping mall may wait until he has four or five passengers heading to the same part of town before he'll leave.  And if the car isn't full, he'll honk at potential passengers along the way.

On our first day, when the driver tried to stop for an additional passenger with us already in the cab (and not yet knowing about the collective), I glared so fiercely at the incoming passenger that she stopped with her hand on the door handle, turned around and left.  

And there was the time when the driver had a passenger up front, the three of us were in back and he was going to let a really big guy into the back seat with us.  Ixnay, buddy, move on.

I'm happy to say that we are now fully at ease with the concept, and think nothing of joining a cab in progress or welcoming additional passengers in flight.   After all, when in Rome...

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Grocery items remind us of home!

Carolyn.   We are half-way through our 4-week apartment rental in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia.  Our time here is part of our original world plan to stay put in one city per continent, to stop travelling for a while, and "live like a local".

While we were in South America for the first five months of our trip, aisles in grocery stores looked very different from home.  Different is good - it's what this year of travel is about!  Lots of interesting options, especially amazing fruits in the markets, but nothing that was familiar.  To our surprise in Nambia, there are many things in the grocery stores that look the same as in Canada (we guess the same will be true when we get to South Africa - since most of the retail items in Namibia are shipped from there).

Three things I missed over the last 5 months in South America that I am enjoying again:  pretzels, Multi-grain Cheerios, iced tea.

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Foodie Corner: Joe’s Beerhouse, Windhoek, Namibia

Vern.

Joe’s Beerhouse lends credence to my theory of “if it moves, it can be eaten”.   Located a short ways out of downtown Windhoek, Namibia, Joe’s has become an icon for tourists and locals alike.  Yes, they do serve beer, but the main attraction is their game menu.   

Rather than settle on a single meat source, I opted for a kebab with variety:  springbok, oryx, zebra, crocodile and kudu.  Helpfully, my dish arrived with a laminated 'what's-what' legend.  Each piece of game was nicely cooked and well-seasoned and I thoroughly enjoyed my meal.  However, I learned that full steaks can provide a better cut:  Carolyn’s oryx steak was beautifully tender.   Next time ‘round.

If you ever find yourself in Windhoek, don’t leave without a visit to Joe’s.

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Kalahari Safari

Cooper. We just finished an amazing ten-day safari in the Okavango Delta. From Victoria Falls, we drove to the Botswana border, and met up with our safari guide: Eddy. Eddy took us to the Chobe River, where we got onto a boat, went out on the river, and saw our first African animals; lots of hippos, elephants, and buffalo! Afterwards, we got back into our safari truck and started for our campsite. Once we entered the national park, we saw elephants, giraffes, and even lions! We arrived at our campsite and watched the beautiful African sunset.

On our safari, we saw elephants, hippos, and giraffes every day! We saw lions eight out of our ten days, including cubs! We journeyed along a river in a wooden canoe-like boat called a Mokoro. The sunset was beautiful every night. We watched it in front of our campfire until it got dark, and then ate dinner. The breakfasts, lunches, and dinners were delicious every day. We had steak, pork, bacon, eggs, hot dogs, pastas, and fruits and veggies. It’s very hard to keep the fruits, veggies and milk good for the whole ten days. If anyone didn’t know, I love lemons (especially eating them straight), and they gave lemons at every meal, so that was awesome.

When we slept, we weren’t on mats in sleeping bags like we usually are camping, we were on cots with duvets (but we really didn’t need the duvets, it was hot outside already). In spare time, we all read, and I journaled each day (thank you again Ms. P!). We woke up at 5:30 am each day for our morning game drive and usually went to bed around 9:30 pm.

At the end of the safari, we visited and stayed for one night in Maun (ma – own), a small town outside of the national park. We all agreed that we could have done with a seven-day safari instead of ten, but we had a great time.The next day, we took a ten hour drive to a large city called Windhoek (vind – hook), the capital of Namibia. 

Here is a wildlife list that I made about the animals we did and didn’t see:

Green = we saw it

Blank (white) = we haven't seen it yet

Here are some of our favourite pictures from the safari:

Beautiful sunset

 Baby hippo yawning

 Giraffe family and elephant herd (also a baby elephant)

Please leave comments! We like to read them!

Click here for more safari pictures

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our world trip so far: Trip Photo Album