Namibia

Fiddler’s Creek Camp

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June 12, 2002 To the South African Border
In the morning before we leave camp, three guys walk up to our campfire as George is frying bacon; I walk up and introduce myself. Two of the guys don’t speak. They ask many questions…what is your truck carrying…where are you all from…where did you travel from…are you going to South Africa? I came within an ace of saying “yes, we are going to South Africa and I just finished reading “Bang Bang Club” and I want to see the townships described in the book but there was something a little off…they were much too reserved…South African police, Rod hisses when they leave.

At the border the immigration officials who are jealous of George and James go into a room to confer about George’s passport but they don’t come out again. I go to the truck and tell Rod and everyone else that they are keeping George…silence for two seconds…then Rod gravely says “you’re kidding aren’t you…” He didn’t think it was funny.

Hobas & Fish River Canyon

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June 11, 2002
On the way from Serus the topography is incredible–perfectly formed mesas and buttes-almost Utah-like. We stop in the tiny wide spot in the road called Bethanie. Bob mails a card to his mom and I buy some pop and sausage in the little market. We notice some light skinned women sitting around-told Bob they looked exactly like Central Asians; James says they are probably mixed Bushman and White.

Later I read Laurens Van Der Post describe the Bushman in his “The Lost World of the Kalahari” as having the face of a central African black turning into “a lovely Provencal apricot yellow” and that “he moved in the glare and glitter of Africa with a flame-like flicker of gold like a fresh young Mongol of the Central Mongolian plain…his cheeks high-boned like a Mongol’s….” Some description!

It’s Bob’s turn to read “Bang Bang Club” about the experiences of four photographers during the last four years of the war in the townships of South Africa before Nelson Mandela’s release and the first election to include blacks. If you want to know what it was like on the ground in those days this book is graphic. Michael, who is from Johannesburg, says that his dad had the
photography shop that sold the photographers their equipment.

The Bohemian Rhapsody is lifting us high on the stereo-Freddy Mercury singing in that glorious and sadly gone away voice!

We arrive at the camp and Rod registers us with the camp operator in his native Afrikaner and then directs us to “toilets and ablutions” (showers).

We eat lunch while the wind blows sand in our faces and our food; to keep the tents from rolling away we have to put our baggage in them and detatch them at the top from the frames. Adrian asks if anyone has any clothes “pigs” (pegs) and I am mystified until I realize he wants some clothes “pins.”

The truck drives us to Fish River to watch the sun set over the canyon. When we arrive back at the camp a Catholic school has brought about 150 middle school children from Windhoek to hike the canyon and they are all ready to sleep out on the lawn next to our tent. Needless to say, Bob and I quickly move our tent to the other side of the park and then we have Kudo steak, mashed potatoes and carrots and peas for dinner.

In the middle of the night it starts to rain and we hear the kids…then in the morning we find them all sleeping in the camp bathrooms.

The Dunes & Sarus Guest Farm

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June 10, 2002
After a night camping near Sesriam, everyone else is up at 5:00 to go hiking in the Dunes. No coffee and no “breaky” (breakfast). These are the largest Dunes in the world Rod says. I stay in camp by myself and the silence is heaven! The truck returns at noon and we are out of there.

The garbage collectors come around while I sit on a park bench trying to catch up on my journal with my computer. One fellow comes over to look at the computer screen and asks what I am doing. I tell him I am telling my friends back home about Africa. He suddenly leans down closer and looks intently at my screen. Then he wants to know how much the computer cost. He just shook his head and said “very expensive, very expensive” as he walked away leaving me to feel the incredibly deep gulf that was just created between us.

In Swakopmund Rod bought a dark brown sheepskin at a game skin shop which he is wearing around his shoulders. I tell this large man he looks especially intriguing with his stocking cap, dark glasses and bare feet!

The Sarus camp site has a little communal building with kitchen sink and wood stove. Expecting a cold night most of the campers sleep on the floor in the building. Bob and I run Rod out of the “caravan” (little trailer). I note that we call “caravans” trailers and Rod notes that we have gone from “Truck Trash” to “Trailer Trash!” That’s about it, I laughed!

In the evening after dinner Fi and Sarah read my Malawi story on the computer and, laughing, we remember some of the funnier moments of the trip.

Solitaire & Sesriem Camp

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June 9, 2002 Sesriem literally means “six rawhide strings”
The truck ride south to Sesriem Camp was not as cold as we thought it would be. We stopped in Solitaire-a wide spot in the road with a little store with a few shelves of canned food, drinks and a gas station. It also offered Kudo steak and lamb chop sandwiches but the best part was a delicious Apple Strudel made by the Afrikaner owner’s wife.

A black local is barbering by a fence near the tree with a hanging bell that appears on the T-shirts for sale in the curio shop next door. The bell calls everyone to the little church across the street on Sunday. Bob and I buy one of the T-shirts.

When we get into camp we put up the tents and then the truck drove us a few miles over a washboard road to Sesriem Canyon to watch the sunset. On the way back most of the campers ran ahead as the the truck rolled slowly forward-for a time without benefit of a driver-we realized-when one of us discovered James running alongside too!

Swakopmund

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June 6-8, 2002
How are you today mommi? George and James do a pretty good job looking after me-making sure I’m happy so I don’t unglue on this trip and make a problem for everyone-maybe they think we don’t like roughing it even though we have spent 30 years backpacking and trekking. In spite of their best efforts, and in spite of my determination-I unglue anyway as we pull into Swakopmund on the coast…I had gotten little sleep the last three nights in my thin nylon and cotton sleeping bag that we bought in Nairobi because our camping gear had not arrived before the start of the trip. I spent the day in the truck crossing the ice-cold desert in a levi jacket and sleeping bag and I am frozen to the bone. I natter constantly to myself: no one wants to see out-the others were partying late the night before and are all asleep! So why can’t we pull down the clear plastic tarps over the open windows?!!

The bus station is only two blocks away and in a fury I threaten to catch a bus to Cape Town…the only thing that stops me is that the truck has pulled into the locked hotel compound which is such a patchwork of spaces (three other trucks are also inside the compound) and buildings that I can’t find the front door out of the place…I retreat to our assigned room and slam my luggage down on the floor-Bob looking on helplessly! I stood in the hot shower for half an hour in spite of the written warnings on the wall to use the desert water sparingly. I crawled into bed and had been meditating for awhile when I heard Bob ask whether I wanted to join the others to eat in the compound restaurant. By this time I had calmed down enough to grudgingly admit that I had to eat.

The dinner was wonderful. I had fried Atlantic fish with a lemon sauce and Bob had Leopard’s Belly-a stew of Warthog, mushrooms and vegetables wrapped up in a pastry like an Italian Calzone and by the end of dinner I was smiling and laughing again. Nikki had half a dozen fresh oysters and game liver and onions. Sarah and Heather had Ostrich kebabs.

James and George had beef steak. Rod came over and encouraged me to stay…”you are part of the group” he says…which just made me want to leave all the more…but he promised that I could sit up in the front half of the truck where there was no wind. This definitely was the low point of the trip for me-cold and no sleep was not a good mix! And no it didn’t help to think of all of poor Africa where a lot of people are not only cold but do not have enough food this winter because of the latest drought…

Swakopmund was like a time/place warp; the small resort town by the sea reminded me of San Diego-nice wide streets with palm trees up and down the medians except you saw “Right of Admission Reserved” signs above the doors of all the businesses. Retail shops have iron gates that are locked and when the retailer sees you standing at the gate he or she pushes a button that releases a lock so you can enter. Big time security…

Everything is immaculate and run efficiently-by the white Afrikaner owners…the Blacks are the waiters, sweepers, garbage collectors and car watchers…my first experience in an openly apartheid society feels very weird. One evening coming back from the latest Woody Allen movie (only six people in the theater and half of those left early). I scared the pee water out of one of the car watchers when I went up to him and ask if his job ever got boring. Apparently not used to being approached or acknowledged on the street by Whites, he gave me a terrified look that said “hey what’s coming down here,” while one of his buddies comes dashing over to help out his friend. Embarrassed to have put him in that position, I just laughed and slowly moved away as he, realizing I wasn’t setting him up for any bad thing, finally smiled.

We ate twice at a pub that served incredible German food with an Afrikaner bent. Rod had recommended the pig’s knuckle-huge-on a bed of sauerkraut. I delightedly peeled off the delicious crackling.

My hair was in desperate need of conditioning and I needed some pampering so I had my hair washed and colored while Bob bought an interesting African mask and a $40 Ostrich belt that he thought he was paying $4 for…that old decimal problem again!

The owner of the beauty shop was Afrikaner and my hairdresser was black. Afterward, when I walked to the back to tip the hairdresser the white women looked striken. Later in Cape Town Heather had her hair done and while the Black beautician was working on her she leaned down and asked if Heather could keep a secret. Then she requested that if Heather were going to leave a tip could she give it to her personally as the tips were never passed back to the Black beauticians. So now apartheid is just going to go underground like in the rest of the world.

While we are doing this, the other riders participated in some of the activities offered in the area-Nikki, Michelle, Adrian, Sarah, Heather and Fi went sky diving and Jimmie, George, Nikki, Michelle, Adrian, Michael and Sarah, Heather and Fi went riding quad bikes in the huge sand dunes; George took a tumble in his bike. Fi, Heather and Sarah and Adrian went both lay-down sand boarding and stand-up boarding on the dunes-they screamed down a sand dune, they said, on a board at 80mph! They spent the evening and early morning singing kareoke in the bar with no dinner.

Bob and I of course dropped into bed and the bar is far far away…

In the morning, George has coffee and cereal set up for us and we share the outdoor “kitchen” in the compound with the other truck riders. One of the other trucks has a couple in their 70’s on it-they looked like they were having the time of their lives. I wondered if their truck had a stereo.

Otjiwarongo Cheetah Camp

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June 5, 2002
The next morning James drives us back to Outjo, the small predominantly German/Afrikaner town we had stayed in before and we buy apple strudel and real drip coffee in the bakery and scarf it up during a 10 minute email check on one of the two terminals. Then on to the Cheetah Camp for lunch and tent set-up.

The camp is owned and operated by an Afrikaner farm family who is trying to conserve some of the only 2000 Cheetahs left in Namibia. We all pile into the back of Mario’s pick-up and he drives us to the homestead a couple miles away. As we walk through the gates we see four Cheetahs pacing back and forth across the lawn. We are led around to the back of the house with Cheetah’s dashing unexpectedly back and forth-sometimes brushing our legs-one dashed at me and clamped his teeth softly around my ankle-releasing a flood of adrenalin!

Bob whispers in my ear that we are probably going to get hit up for a donation while Mario and his dad pet the Cheetahs. He approaches us one-by-one and asks if anyone wants to come pose with a Cheetah for a picture. A few have their picture taken.

Then Mario disappears and the Cheetahs start pacing expectantly. Bob says there is going to be a surprise…and sure enough Mario comes back with a bucket full of meat chunks which he throws to the Cheetahs to catch with their powerful jaws in mid-air. All this time some of us notice sheep and goats bleating nervously in the field outside the yard…then after a few hat and stick throwing and catching we are taken in the back of the pick-up again to some large fenced areas near the camp area and watch as Mario throws large pieces of meat to the wild Cheetahs.

At the end of the demonstration Mario disappears and returns with a baby Cheetah that is less than a week old-the oooohhhs and aaaaahhhhhs go up-especially when he nuzzles it with his chin…but…but…questions will be answered in the bar in ten minutes he says.

Then we get a fairly passionate pitch from the young good looking ex rugby player: Cheetahs are recognized as an endangered species everywhere except in Namibia and the farmers are killing them off to keep them out of their livestock. The problem is, he says, that Namibia has passed some laws that prevent Cheetahs from being trapped and sold to parks and game reserves-instead the laws require that any trapped Cheetah has to be neutered. It’s bullshit, he repeats angrily over and over.

So Mario and his family are running an illegal operation…this is Africa he says when questioned…as long as you are careful you can play the game…Mario and his family believes that by working for years with Cheetahs they have learned some game management techniques that the so-called authorities do not learn from “the books” one of which is that Cheetahs will breed in captivity if they are happy. But what is “captivity” he asks…even the Etosha National Park is fenced he says…

At the end he asks for donations in return for being on a email list…his goal he says is reaching the outside world and the media. I think of two things that would be good for him to do. Form a non-profit organization so that he is above reproach as far as money is concerned and so that donations can be tax deductible. Also no reputable media association is going to be able make his case for him until someone with credentials-not associated with the environmental groups that he thinks are in cahoots with the political entities of the country-comes in and studies his game management. Bob looks at me and says what he needs is a good grant writer…I ask him if he wants to live in Namibia but he doesn’t reply. In the end I give Mario US $5 to help pay for the donkey meat he feeds the game because I want to be on his mail list-and I want the recipes for the homemade Afrikaner squash boats, curried cabbage and pickled beets that is served with the spit lamb after the talk.

Mario will stay up as long as he can sell the rest of the campers shots of everything alcoholic on his shelf…we hear laughing and talking coming from the partiers in the bar until early morning! The next day on the road Heather is sick again…

Meeting Mario and his family gives us our first contact with rural Afrikaner farm culture. Working the land makes you very down to earth and practical anyway. However, Mario had an independent attitude that reminded me of my dad. When he sold the ranch in southern Oregon and bought a small acreage near Salem to be near his only grandchildren, I told him that since he no longer had a Caterpiller cat to dig his own garbage hole, that he would have to take his garbage to the local landfill. But he came back with the first load he took! “They wanted me to pay to dump my garbage” he said disgustedly. “The hell with them!” So after that Bob and I had to take my parents’ garbage to the landfill for them.

We head south and then west across Namibia. The topography is flat desert with dunes. The closer we get to the coast the colder it gets until we see the crummy weather up ahead hovering the shore. Even though the Kumuka Truck left camp at 5am we pass it parked at the side of the road having lunch in the harsh wind. We honk as we pass and exchange The Finger. The kids all laugh.

Then finally the arrow-straight road on the flat African pan that we have been on for the last five hours ends flat out at a right angle with the beach!

Ombinda Country Lodge

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Sunday June 2, 2002 near Outjo
Yesterday the truck broke a spring so we stopped in the Afrikaner town of Outjo to find a mechanic and pick up some groceries. James drove us to a beautiful camp just outside the town of Outjo-Ombinda Country Lodge so we would have a place to wait while he took the truck to a mechanic-this is Sunday. We end up spending the night-each of us in these charming little huts made with tree branches one and half inches in diameter-we can see daylight in-between them…feels like Africa only with the best hot shower yet, sink and toilet and beds with electric sheets!

The camp owner, an Afrikaner, has owned the camp for six years. In the bar we watch CNN news and the others drink beer and wine, play pool, swim in the pool and lie in the sun all afternoon. We order dinner at the outdoor lodge restaurant that by 7pm has been closed in from the cold with a roaring wood fire going. Bob has a filet of beef and I have a steak from the beautiful Oryx-the national animal of Namibia! Sleeping that night in a real bed was heaven.

Angolan Refugee Camp

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June 2002
So African Intervention in Namibia
Namibia used to be part of South Africa and South African incursions into Angola and Namibia continued from 1975 until well into the 1980’s and I tell you this because Rod, having been raised as an Afrikaner in South Africa was conscripted from the age of 16 to 18 (between 1987 and 1989) into the South African military and participated in it’s guerrilla activities in Namibia, Angola and also in secret incursions against the ANC in South Africa.

Several thousand refugees are camped in the distance. “We won’t drive into the camp,” he says, “out of respect for them.”

Yainguaz Camp Near Gobabis

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June 1, 2002 Yainguaz Camp near Gobabis, Namibia
The countries of Botswana and Namibia are very different geographically from Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The topography is flatter even than Botswana and much of Namibia is desert except for Brandburg Mountain, a huge marble massif rising out of the desert-also called Fire Mountain because of the way it appears at sunrise and sunset.

We still have to cross the Ondundozonananan (not a typo) Mountain Range in the south of the country before crossing into South Africa. Probably for this reason there are no villages or even huts along the road; the nomads in the area are few and we see only a few people in the small towns.

Crowded House, a New Zealand group is singing the chorus to “The Weather With You” which is “Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you”…and then “If you can’t change the world change yourself…” This music has played so much it has become the truck’s theme song.

It’s a breeze crossing the border into Namibia-and no charge for our visa. We are south of the equator now…it is winter and it is freezing cold but Rod doesn’t put the flaps down on the long-haul drive….and I suspect Bob has asked to have them rolled up so he can see out. I am fuming at what I consider his selfishness. We are all in our sleeping bags. We need the girls from Britain here to mutiny…You Bastard! Lorelle would have yelled!

Half frozen, we get to the camp after dark and put up the tents. James inspects a broken spring on the truck as we eat our dinner in the dark. We can’t use the multi-use hall of the camp to put our tents in as we had hoped because the Afrikaner farmers are having a joint birthday/wedding celebration and all the space is being used.

Bob has put the tent on a hump so I am cold and miserable all night as I scrunch down in the corner.

Nairobi to Cape Town Overland

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May 5, 2002
We left for the 4000 mile seven week trip in a Mercedes Benz truck overland from Nairobi to Capetown. As Bob suspected there would be, there are 17 kids all under the age of 30 on this truck-very cheeky Aussies and Kiwis and half a dozen ball-busting Britains. Overland trucks are the cheapest way to travel Africa so the trucks are always full of kids-guess we will be content with being the token elders.

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The master of African roads is the truck driver-cars cannot manage the ruts and potholes. The truck can go almost anywhere with its powerful engine and wide tires. James understands the power under his control. We are dumbfounded by his ability to wedge the truck into the smallest path, narrowest driveway, around the sharpest corner! Drivers are extraverted and have tremendous confidence-an almost regal bearing. I read this on my blog to James and he whooped and hollered and jumped up and down…Yes! Yes! That’s me! That’s me! First instruction from Rod: it’s a TRUCK and not a bus! Every time someone calls it a bus we are supposed to buy Rod a drink-I’m the biggest offender. I just laugh.

We are all divided into four groups that rotate daily-cooks helper, dish washing, security and “dog’s-body.” Security has to stay with the truck when are parked in the towns. Dogs-bodies are the go-fers. They fill up the water jugs at the camps and set up the folding seats. They set up the folding table for food preparation and put up George’s tent. (George is the Kenyan cook.) They also periodically sweep out all the dust and mud out from under the seats and the aisle of the truck. Dish washers make up three tubs of water-one soapy, one with disinfectant and one rinse. They set up two plastic pans for hand washing-one with soap and one with disinfectant for rinse. They dry the dishes by swinging them in the air.

George makes a fire on the ground with the charcoal he has purchased along the road and sets a big grate over the top.

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The charcoals much softer than ours…coals are red and coffee-water hot in just a couple minutes. Cooks helpers peel veges and generally do whatever George wants them to do while they try and keep out of his way. George has pretty fixed and definite ideas about how he wants things to go.

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For breakfast we have had eggs all different ways, French Toast, pancakes, dry cereal made with reconstituted dried milk, toast, wieners, bacon, canned spaghetti, beans. Lunch is grated carrots, sliced tomatoes, grated cheese, green or red peppers, sliced meat and bread for sandwiches. I ask Claire if this is always going to be lunch and she says yes, but to shut up and don’t complain because it’s the only fresh veges we get! So I don’t say a word! George usually puts out the leftovers from the night before too. Pineapple or bananas or dessert.

Dinner usually is served with creamed soup first and then African stew with mashed potatoes or rice, steak and baked potatoes, chicken and rice with good spices, spaghetti with interesting sauces…and many more good things like that. We sit on little camp stools to eat. A couple times George has fixed the African staple, maize, for us-a kind of fine white corn meal. You dip your fingers into it and form a little ball with which you then dip into a spicy meat stew and eat. When it is dark and getting colder and we want to sit awhile around the campfire we put a few coals on the ground underneath each folding canvas seat…works nicely.

The truck has padlocked compartments all the way around with doors that fold down. George has the keys on a shoelace that he wears around his neck. I get tired trying 14 keys to find the one that unlocks the compartment where our baggage is so I paint the key with someone’s nail polish. George just laughs.

The truck periodically pulls over for “toilet stops.” We scatter…boys on one side of the truck and girls on the other. On one stop I was one of the last to get off and after walking down a small bank I looked to the left and saw 6-7 shiny white butts all in a row. I yelled to the girls that I wished I had my camera-you can imagine the hullabaloo! Our hands get sprayed with disinfectant before we get back on the truck.

There are two heavy plastic drops on each side in place of windows that are rolled up during the day so we get lots of fresh air and can see out. It also gives us accessibility to people standing around the truck when we are parked at border crossings and supply stops for those who choose to stay on the truck. If everyone gets out we put the drops down because local kids are known to jump up and grab things off the seats. If we are in a camp the drops come down to keep the monkeys and baboons out of the truck.

The other riders on the truck ranging from early twenties to early thirties are bright and sassy. Besides Bob and I there are two other couples, Damian and Melissa from Melbourne Australia and Tim and Belinda from New Zealand-the rest are single-Heather and Fiona are sisters from New Zealand, Nikki from New Zealand but had been working as a nanny in London, Michelle, Claire, Sarah and Lorelle traveling together from England. Adrian is from Australia with a Canadian passport who lives and works in London and Pete is a New Zealander. In Victoria we will pick up Michael from Johannesburg South Africa and lose everyone else except Nikki, Fiona, Heather, Sarah, Michelle, Adrian and us. Heather, who was working as a nanny in London had a friend who knew Mick Jagger”s nanny (hope this is right, Heather!)

Most are already well-traveled-the four girls from England spent a year traveling together after “uni” (university) and Michelle and Nikki have done overland trips before-Nikki amazingly did a 6 month overland trip in the year 2000 on the old “hippie trail” from England to Kathmandu via Iran, Pakistan and the Karakoram highway. Both Michelle and Nikki are gunning for a job in the overland business and will remain in Africa at the end of the trip.

It’s fun listening to the British, Aussie and Kiwi accents but they insist Bob and I are the ones with the accent! I am starved for conversation and want to discuss the linguistic, cultural and political differences among the English speakers but I sense they don’t like it…that maybe they assume I am being critical of them…the arrogant American…little do they know how critical I am of my own popular culture and the foreign policies of my government.

There is a library (big box of tattered paperbacks) ranging from slut novels to the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela on the truck for long travel days. There is a cassette deck with speakers at the front and the back. The smokers have to sit in the back-always Michelle in her funky little hat under which you can barely see her sparkly eyes and Rod the tour leader. At the very front of the truck there are two steps up to a section of four seats on each side where the Brits usually sit facing each other so they can chatter. The rest of the seats face forward. There is a cooler for drinks.

We have lucked out with a really nice group that is very compatible and everyone enjoys each other. Tim from New Zealand says he couldn’t imagine his mom doing an overland trip-makes me feel good. Rod has confiscated the Michael Jackson tape but the rest of the music blaring all day on the truck stereo is ungodly as you might imagine. We would prefer to remain steeped in images of Africa…the sounds of the local dialects in soft voices…he sound of children’s laughter…the look of the bright wide smiles…the sounds of the daily village activity and of the animals in the parks, the sight of the incredible red clay soil reflected in the morning and evening light, the mind blowing brightness of the stars at night…the breathtaking red sun while it is setting down on the Zambezi…we have left home partly in an effort to get away from the abrasiveness of western popular culture…but James says the other riders are young-this is their time to enjoy…

Bob and I don’t sit together…24 hours a day since February is more than enough togetherness. The truck is not full and many of us get two seats to ourselves. In July and August we are told the truck will be filled to capacity-36 people! I can’t even imagine it! It is good to be traveling now.