Date of Entry: October 31st 2016
Date of Writing: February 6th!
Happy Halloween. To celebrate November arriving we’ll be crossing into Namibia tomorrow. To celebrate halloween…well… we don’t do much. But we start the day early waking to a crisp mountain morning and packing up our tents before enjoying a breakfast. We find out Peter Tosh is back after having been worked on all night, half of it here at the campsite and while we can’t help but be a little skeptical of them fixing a major transmission issue overnight we’ve got no choice but to climb in,but first we enjoy a nice breakfast before heading north towards the Namibian Border.
As we drive it gets dryer and dryer outside, vegetation becoming more and more sparse as we descend out of the Drakensburg mountains and up towards the vast deserts of southern Namibia. There’s not much to see and we’ve got a lot of miles to cover before we get to our campsite alongside the orange river which seems as a natural border between the two nations.
We eventually stop at a gas station and small convenient store in the middle of nowhere the landscape still caught between mountains and desert as we drive.
Several more long hours on the back of the truck spent annoying my seat mate norman to the best of my abilities and we arrive at our campsite along the orange river. Here we get our first taste of African roads, leaving the highway and driving maybe 15 km into the backcountry on rough and poorly graded gravel roads. Peter Tosh’s shocks have seen better days and we’re all feeling rather jumbled as we climb out and set to setting up our tents while Honary gets to work cooking up what he says is going to be an african feast (He’s not a liar).
It’s hot. Dangerously hot. Approaching 40 degrees hot. At least 10 degrees above any self respecting Canadians melt point. So once the tents our set up we enjoy a cold drink (15 rand for a soda 1.50 CAD) from the oddly decorated campsite bar, covered in foreign money, strange sculptures, and everything else you can imagine. Basically what I’d guess an African version of shenanigans might be like.
Wandering back to my tent shared with Al to get my swimsuit I meet two friendly labrador retrievers who call the campsite home and am thrilled when the golden one accompanies me down to the river for a very refreshing swim. There is an optional activity for the next mornign doing a sunrise boat ride on the river but with no animals to speak of everyone has opted out so we just have the afternoon to enjoy the river and what ends up being an incredible sunset.
My new canine friend also joins me on an illegal border crossing as I wander onto the opposite shore of the river to be able to say I’ve already been to Namibia all be it without the passport stamp. That will come tomorrow.
As the sun goes down and the temperature becomes more tolerable we are called back to the camp for dinner where we will go over the plan for the coming day and eat Honary’s delicious cooking (both of these things become a nightly ritual). Tonight’s menu, African Braille (Which is like an Argentinean Asado or North American Barbecue.) I eat too much, another ritual on the first part of this trip, and then we head to the bar, where Bas our resident dutchmen teaches us the South African Spring Bok (think small antelope) dance. Another good day although lacking in the spectacular, don’t worry it starts to heat up tomorrow at Fish River Canyon after entering Namibia!
