Date of Entry:November 4th 2016
Date of Writing: February 28th 2017
We start our day early yet again, though today we’re talking post sunrise, as after a tasty breakfast we pile into peter Tosh and hit the roads heading towards the edge of the desert and the Namibian coast. I’ll miss the depths of the desert deeply but I’m also eager to see the coast again and there’s rumours that where were headed we can expect temperatures around 20 degrees, instead of the close to 40 degrees we’ve been dealing with the past 5 day. We drive for a few hours before our first stop, valley of the moon, renown for it’s strange other worldly landscapes. Together we take a short hike up to a viewpoint of the valley as Honary tells us more of what we can expect in the coming days.
After a while up in the viewpoint we head back to Peter Tosh and keep driving towards the coast, the Desert landscape slowly receding as we come to our next stop alongside some massive vultures. The tropic of Capricorn is like the equator, just another invisible line across the earth, here it’s marked by just a couple of road signs, but we do stop for some group pictures.
The mandatory tropic of capricorn photoshoot done we pile back in Peter Tosh and finally leave the desert behind for real, reaching true civilization again in the city of Walvis Bay. Here the mostly dirt roads morph into sometimes multilane well paved highways as we drive through touristy summer homes belonging to rich south Africans and Namibians from the capital of Windhoek. It’s a strange contrast after so long in the desert.
Once into the heart of the city we take a left turn and pull up for lunch alongside a long boardwalk along the ocean, which comes in and is incredibly shallow and calm here, which has welcomed a huge population of very pink, very loud flamingoes. While Honary settles down to getting lunch ready for us, I take a cautious walk and eventually find a place to sit super close to some of the very nervous and antisocial (at least with humans) flamingoes.
I’ve now seen flamingoes in 5 separate continents, though only in three continents have they been wild. I love these ridiculous birds fiercely and find there behaviour fascinating to watch. I could spend all day watching them and listening to their silly honks. I even take a quick cellphone video and send it to Renata who somehow replies only with a voice message of her imitating the flamingoes. It’s surprisingly accurate and makes me miss her a lot as I keep watching the flamingoes honking, flying around and coming in for various hilarious and somewhat awkward landings. And the sounds they make are just the best (well the best next to Renata’s Impression)
Eventually I head back to the truck and eat a quick sandwich of cheese and peanut butter, (delicious by the way) before we get back in Peter Tosh, driving the last hour to our home for the next two days, the city of Swakopmund. There we will have the luxury of ditching the tents for two days and staying in an actual hotel. I’ll be rooming with Bas.
As we first pull into town we stop at the activity center where we are briefed on all the possible things we can spend the next day and a half doing in the form of a cheesy early ninety made for education film really. Still there is a lot of options, from riding rv’s through the desert, to sand boarding, to a dolphin cruise, to township visits, to sky diving. All of them come with a hefty price tag, especially the last one, so I opt to just sign up for the dolphin cruise which costs around 35 USD and will leave the next morning.
This all done we head into town and check in to a comfy and welcoming hotel near the edge of the centre of town. After relaxing on a real bed and partaking in actual functional wifi for a little over an hour I head out to see what Swakopmund has to offer. I wander down the main street passing an oddly Canadian store front until I’m down in the touristy area close by the beaches.
Here there are all manners of hawkers, selling tourists various souvenirs. Some of them are Himba tribe members, a semi nomadic group from northern Namibia that you will learn more about in the next few days from when we visit them, while others are Africans from all over the continent. They do have one thing in common, they are all super persistent. But it’s too early in my trip to be buying anything big, so instead a settle on a handful of Namibia stones from some friendly locals. These are awesome souvenirs as they’re small, handmade and personalized. Basically it’s the nut of a palm tree carved by locals with various animals on it and any name of your choosing. They get you to write the name on there hands to make sure they spell it right and then set to carving. An ingenious and low start up cost sales idea for them turns into a durable and easy to carry gift or souvenir for you. As with everywhere in Africa, just remember to haggle for the price always with a smile on you’re face, as the first offer will be very very high in comparison to what they actually expect you to pay.
Leaving the friendly but somewhat annoying salesmen behind I head down to the beach, which is small and self contained but beautiful, waves rolling in on the western atlantic coast. Any timeI see the atlantic I feel at home, my mum always called me her ocean baby and growing up in Nova Scotia, I always miss the Atlantic and the ocean in general when I am away from it for too long.
I paddle my feet in the water but didn’t bring a swimsuit so eventually I head out a pier and find two people from windhoek blaring Cozz (a very unknown rapper signed to J. Cole) on a portable speaker which leads to a great conversation about rap and everything Dreamville is doing right now. There’s also a nearby seal who seems to be enjoying the music. Eventually I say goodbye to my new friends and head to my left to the much bigger and more impressive beach at the edge of town. Then it’s back to the hotel to find some dinner,organize my bag and get ready for my dolphin cruise the next morning.
