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A F R I C A 1 9 9 9 / 2 0 0 0
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This travelogue is for a trip taken December 20, 1999 - March 3, 2000
through 11 countries in the Southern African region: South Africa, Namibia,
Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and
Mauritius. Though it is long, I have tried to write it so that it not only
serves as a remembrance of my own trip, but will be enjoyable and
informative to the reader as well. The opinions expressed within are my
own, and as with anything, the information is subject to change with the
passage of time.
Rates quoted are in the local currency of the country being discussed,
though often, the US$ equivalent is also noted. The approximate exchange
rates in effect during my trip were as follows (for one US$):
South African Rand (R) 6.1 at the start of the trip, 6.4 at the end
Namibian Dollar (N$) 6.1
Botswanan Pula (P): 4.5
Swazi Emalangeni (E): 6.1
Lesotho Maloti (M): 6.1
Kenya Shilling (ksh): 75.0
Tanzanian Shilling (Tsh): 740.0 in Arusha, 800 in Zanzibar
Malawi Kwatcha (MK): 46.0
Zambian Kwatcha (ZK): 2680.0
Zimbabwe Dollar (Z$): 37.0
Mauritius Rupee (Rs): 75.0
Though countries are referenced and discussed throughout the text, the
general country-by-country breakdown of the travelogue is as follows:
South Africa: Dec. 20-27, Jan. 12-14, Jan. 15-18, Jan. 20-24,
Feb. 23-25, Feb. 29 - Mar. 2
Namibia: Dec. 27 - Jan. 8
Botswana: Jan. 8 - Jan. 11
Swaziland: Jan. 14 - Jan. 15
Lesotho: Jan. 18 - Jan. 19
Kenya: Jan. 24 - Jan. 26
Tanzania: Jan. 26 - Feb. 6
Malawi: Feb. 6 - Feb. 14
Zambia: Feb. 14 - Feb. 16, Feb. 22
Zimbabwe: Feb. 16 - Feb. 23
Mauritius: Feb. 25 - Feb. 29
(plus Ile de Sal/Cape Verde on Mar. 3)
Email: lgreenf@nausicaa.net
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A SLIGHT CHANGE IN PLANS...
For a quite long time, I've always wanted to visit the islands of Tristan
da Cunha and St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. I'm not sure why
exactly, except perhaps that I've always been fascinated by small, isolated
out-of-the-way places, whether they be lonely desert towns or tiny islands
in the middle of the South Atlantic.
Upon returning from Australia and New Zealand in 1997, I decided that my
next trip would be a visit to these two islands -- with Africa in the plans
as well, since the only public transport to St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha
is by the Royal Mail Ship "RMS St. Helena", which departs from the UK, but
stops to pick up passengers in Cape Town, South Africa.
For the next three years, I went about making plans and saving my pennies
for the trip. The original idea was to join the RMS in late December for
its millennium sailings to St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha, then join an
overland safari for a month of camping in Africa, and finally a month or so
of renting a car and driving around Africa on my own.
Well, even the best of plans can become undone. On November 11th, 1999
(just six weeks before I was to leave), I saw a posting on the internet's
St. Helena mailing list mentioning that the RMS St. Helena had broken down
off the coast of France.
I couldn't believe it.
The current RMS ship had been in service for 10 years without a problem,
but was now sitting off the coast of France with a broken crankshaft that
could not be repaired. A new crankshaft would have to be manufactured, but
that meant a delay of at least two to three months.
Curnow Shipping, the company charged by the UK Government with operating
the RMS St. Helena, franctically did their best to find and hire an
alternate vessel to ferry islanders and supplies back to St. Helena in time
for Christmas, but the once-yearly sailing to Tristan da Cunha had to be
cancelled, and the replacement ship would not even be calling at Cape Town
until its return back to the UK. Therefore, I decided to do the only thing
I could do: postpone the Islands portion of my trip until next year, and
spend 1999/2000 seeing Africa. Curnow re-booked me for 2000/2001, and I now
had 11 weeks to look around Africa.
The only other setback for the trip was my inability to see Mozambique
(due to the worst flooding there in 50 years at the time I was to visit).
However, I used the extra days to spend more time in South Africa and
Mauritius, and in the end, most everything else went according to plan. It
was quite a trip.
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Dec. 20/21: Los Angeles / Cape Town (South Africa)
The day started early, with me having to wake up at 4:00am to catch a
taxi to LAX. It was just too early to ask anyone to drive me, and taking an
airport shuttle would have meant waking up an hour earlier.
At 5:30am, I found myself at the American Airlines check-in counter.
American had been South African Airways' U.S. partner in 1999 (with Delta
replacing them in January 2000), so the flight routing was LAX to Miami on
American, then Miami to Cape Town on SAA.
With it being so close to Christmas (and a peak travel period), I must
give my kudos to American -- they did a great job. First, the agent at the
check-in counter not only gave me an exit-row seat for the American portion,
but when I asked if it'd be possible to have an upper-deck seat on the SAA
flight (as on some SAA aircraft, the upper-deck is set aside for economy),
she gave me the most coveted seat of all: 14A, the exit-row window seat on
the upper-deck, affording me plenty of leg room, and the ability to get up
and walk around anytime I pleased. On the American portion from LAX to
Miami, American waived the usual $5 headset charge, and handed out free
headsets for everyone to watch a special holiday showing of "National
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." Plus, we were served not one, but two hot
meals.
The SAA flight from Miami to Cape Town wasn't bad either, and that
upper-deck, exit-row seat really came in handy as the hours passed into
double-digits. Before long, it was early afternoon on Dec. 21st, and I was
going through South African immigration at Cape Town airport.
For my first night in Cape Town, I had advance-booked myself into a B&B I
found on the internet: Radium Hall, and Gilian (the owner) met me at the
airport to take me back to the B&B in her Opel Astra. Radium Hall is
located in the Tamboerskloof area of central Cape Town -- a wealthy
neighborhood with narrow streets, rich homes, electrified fences, and plenty
of B&Bs. It's a good place to stay, but at R250/US$41, seemed a bit
expensive (especially with no air-con). Later, I found a better place, but
Radium still isn't a bad choice, and to be fair, R250 is pretty typical of
B&B prices in the city.
On the trip back from the airport, Gilian stopped at an ATM so I could
withdraw some money in rand (with the rate being about US$1=R6.1). Most
South African banks are connected to the major international ATM networks
(including MasterCard/CIRRUS and Visa/PLUS), and by using an ATM, you're
always given the best interbank rate of exchange. Most ATMs have one-way
glass to stand behind in order to prevent people from glancing at your PIN
number, and all have signs warning customers about ATM crime. Next to the
ATM that afternoon, kids were sitting on the street, begging.
I arrived at Radium Hall around 3:00pm, and the first thing I did after
setting my bags down (and calling a friend) was go out for a walk. Cape
Town is a city surronded by mountains (looking like a bowl), and the B&B is
located up on one of the hillsides. Not having any particular destination
in mind, I just started walking down towards the business district.
One thing immediately apparent about this area (and most of white South
Africa) is that almost with exception, every house you come across has a
sign indicating it's protected by a security agency. It doesn't matter
where you go in the country -- if it's a white home, there will either be a
security agency sign or a "beware of dog" sign on the property (and often,
both). Whether this is a hang-over from apartheid days, or a necessary
response to the very real crime problem, I don't know (I suspect it's a bit
of both), but it's something that stays in your mind, and makes you wonder
why crime is such a problem in the country. Certainly the biggest factor
contributing to the nation's crime rate has to be South Africa's long
history of apartheid, and the present-day economic reality that it will take
at least a generation before true integration and economic parity begins to
take place on a large scale (on paper, a black South African can now live
anywhere he/she wants, including inside the cities themselves, rather than
being forced to live in one of the neighboring townshps -- but in reality,
if your home is a shanty in Khayelitsha made from corrugated iron and you
never had a real education, where do you get the $300,000 to buy that house
in Cape Town from, to join your white countrymen?) Yet from the white South
African point of view, people certainly have a right to be safe and free
from harm in their own home, and for better or worse, "security" is one of
the fastest-growing job sectors in the country. Crime is a serious issue in
South Africa, and I can only hope that as time passes, it gets better. As a
first-time visitor to the country, it's easy to forget that today's South
Africa is just a baby -- not even a decade old in its present form -- and
when I sit back and think about how peacefully the country has transistioned
itself from a police state to a democracy, I'm truly amazed. I honestly
doubt that something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission could ever
exist in the USA (or just about any other country), as people generally
choose revenge over forgiveness, opting to settle old scores rather than
look towards the future. South Africa's peaceful transition is something
the entire country -- black and white -- can be proud of, and it gives me
faith that the country can get through even its toughest problems in the
days ahead.
Walking down into the city, I tried to get a phone card at a 7-11, but
the store didn't sell them (I don't know if the South African 7-11s are part
of the international chain or not, but their logo is completely different).
Next, I stopped at a sporting goods shop to buy myself a baseball cap -- a
beige-grey "Seac Sub" baseball cap that would last for the entire trip.
Wanting to get an idea of the city's layout, I spent the next few hours
exploring the Botanical Gardens, Parliament House, Greenmarket Square, and
the general downtown area. Inside the bus station, I managed to pick up a
telephone card at one of the many small shops, and a few blocks away,
stopped in at Avis to check up on my rental car reservation. I also had my
first look at some South African department stores: Woolworths in South
Africa is much fancier than the old American Woolworths stores (usually with
a supermarket as well), and Edgars is a department store much like Sears.
It was in Edgars that I saw the first of many examples of strange (for an
American) English phrases I'd see on my trip: a sign on the clearance rack
saying not "Clearance Items" but rather "End Of Ranges." Outside these
stores (and on many of the city's sidewalks), street vendors set up their
wares on blankets, and offer everything from candy to electronics for sale.
In South Africa, there seems to be no law (as there is in the U.S.)
requiring products to be labelled with their country of origin, so virtually
every item sold in the country is without indication of where it was made
(unless it's specifically used as a selling point). It doesn't matter if
it's a sweater, a TV set, or a car -- the information is nowhere to be
found. However, Korean companies seem to have an extremely large share of
the South African market for both cars and electronics. Japanese, American,
and European companies are present, but I was amazed at how prolific the
Korean nameplates were: from Daewoo and Hyundai cars to SsangYong SUVs --
and it seems that every microwave, VCR, and TV set in the country is either
LG (Lucky/Goldstar), Daewoo, or Samsung. While I was in South Africa, the
local arm of Hyundai automobiles (owned by a shady local businessman)
declared bankruptcy, as his dealings and business practices were being
investigated (affected also was the Hyundai assembly plant in Botswana,
where the vehicles are put together). The AA (Automobile Association) set
up telephone support lines to help the thousands of Hyundai owners across
the country who now have no official place to get their cars serviced or
repaired, and as I was leaving to go back home in early March, there was a
search on for another person or company to take over and hopefully re-start
Hyundai's African operations.
After walking around downtown, I decided to return back to the B&B via
Buitengracht Street, which passes through the Bo-Kaap Muslim area. It was a
beautiful afternoon, and my walk gave me a good feel for the city.
I returned to Radium Hall around 6:15pm, and met up with Francois V., a
local Cape Town resident who is a frequent poster on the internet newsgroup
for the Radio Shack Color Computer (an old 1980s computer that many people
still use even today -- in fact, I've written this entire travelogue on
it!) In his 4x4, we drove to the aerial car station at the base of Table
Mountain (I was hoping to be able to take it up at sunset, but clouds had
come in, and it started to drizzle). From there, we then drove along the
coastline for about 90 minutes (in alternating drizzle and sun), with
Francois showing me the smaller coastal communities of the Cape
Penninsula... areas such as Camp's Bay, Hout Bay, and Cape Point.
At about 8:00pm, we wound up in the Observatory area of Cape Town, at a
restaurant called the "African Cafe." There, for R80/US$13.11, you get
served tastes of traditional African meals from various countries. There
are about 15 selections in all, and you can eat as much of any as you want
(though neither of us were all that hungry). Still, it was an interesting
place to have dinner for a first night on the continent.
After dinner, we drove to the top of Signal Hill, where you get a good
view of the city down below with all its lights. You can also see Table
Mountain (the famous "flat-top" mountain of Cape Town) lit up at night with
spotlights. I returned back to Radium Hall at 11:00pm and went to sleep.
It was the end of a long day...
Dec. 22: Cape Town
The first thing I noticed upon waking up for my first full day on the
continent was the way everything once again (as in Australia) seemed to be
the opposite as in North America: for light switches, down is "ON" and up is
"OFF"... for locks, turning the key to the RIGHT will lock, the LEFT will
unlock... (plus of course, water drains and flushes counter-clockwise rather
than clockwise).
After breakfast at Radium Hall, Gilian dropped me off at the Table
Mountain cable car. Built in Switzerland, this aerial car is one of the
better ones around: as you go up and down the mountain, it revolves in a
circle, allowing you to see everything without having to move around inside
the car. At R60/US$10, it's pricy (especially for South Africa), but is
still well worth it. On top of Table Mountain are plenty of good views and
hiking trails, and it's quite possible to walk up or down the mountain
(including on one trail that leads to Kirstenbosch Gardens), though everyone
says not to do so unless you come well-prepared, as the weather here can
change suddenly.
When finished with Table Mountain, I wanted to go down to the Victoria &
Alfred Waterfront, but the V&A is on the other side of the city, and taxis
in South Africa aren't cheap...
Transportation in South Africa can be a bit difficult if you don't have
your own vehicle, as bus service in the cities can be sporatic. Those who
can afford their own cars will use them, or occasionally take a normal taxi.
Those who can't afford their own vehicles though, rely on the services of
the "kombi" minibus taxis (taxis that ferry 12-15 people at a time from
place to place in old Toyota or Nissan minibuses). Even today, the kombi is
the way 2/3rds of South Africans still get to-and-from work -- a left-over
remnant of the apartheid era, when the huge black majority of the population
was forced to live in townships outside of the city in which they worked.
Unfortunately, though the apartheid laws have now been abolished, the
situation still remains much the same for most black South Africans, who
cannot afford to move into the previously-white cities with the salaries
they are currently making. Until black South Africans move up the economic
scale, the need for the kombi taxi will continue to exist, and will play an
important role in the country's transportation system. As is typical of the
other African countries where a form of the kombi taxi exists, these
minibuses will almost always be fully-loaded, and the passengers generally
must wait until the taxi is filled before the driver will leave.
Unfortunately, the kombi taxi industry (a huge business today) grew
informally, with little-to-no regulation, and the state of many of these
vehicles is quite bad. From time to time, there are also violent "taxi
wars", as snipers gun down competitor's taxis (and the passengers inside
them) in a bid for turf. Such wars have flared up in Cape Town and
Johannesburg over the past few years, but the government is now determined
to make the industry safe and regulated -- including a new requirement that
soon, all kombis must be big enough to carry at least 18 passengers. From
the local Cape Town paper:
The South African Government will not be blown off course in its
determination to turn the country's death-trap taxi industry into
a safe, efficient and dependable service, President Thabo Mbeki
said on Friday. "It's a mistake to think that the government can
be intimidated into taking wrong decisins," he told parliament in
his state of the nation speech. "Ageing minibuses which were designed
as family vehicles cannot be allowed to roam our roads condemning
paying passengers to risk their lives by travelling in mobile
coffins," he said. Hundreds of taxi drivers, protesting last week
at government plans to force them to switch to new 18- and 35-seat
vehicles, brought the centre of Johannesburg to a standstill and
forced the city authorities to call out the army... Police said last
year there were 140,000 minibus taxis on the roads of South Africa,
often driven by people without licenses or perceptible driving skills
in an industry that has mushroomed since it was deregulated 25 years
ago. Rival taxi owners and associations are frequently involved in
shoot-outs in which passengers and bystanders are often victims. Taxi
associations on the crime-ridden Cape Flats in Cape Town have also
become vigilantes, meting out random beatings to suspected robbers
and rapists. In the first six months of last year, there were 373
violent incidents reported involving taxis compared with 333 in the
same period of 1998. The government plans to bring in a National
Land Transport Bill this year to finally bring some order to the
taxi chaos.
While in Cape Town though, if you don't have your own transport and can't
afford to take "normal" taxis, there is a unique alternative: Rikki's.
Rikki's is a great little shared-taxi service that operates using six old
rickity converted pickup trucks. The back is covered on top, but the gate
is held shut by only a latch. They're friendly, easy-going, and quite
inexpensive: R7 within central Cape Town, R8 for the aerial car or V&A, R10
to Green Point, R12 to Sea Point, or R15 to Camps Bay (and with ticket
books, the rate goes down even further). To give you a comparison, the ride
from Table Mountain to the V&A would have been R50/US$8.20 with a normal
taxi; with Rikki's, it was R8/US$1.31. Rikki's operates Mon-Fri, 7am-7pm,
Saturday 8am-2pm, and is closed on Sundays. Wherever you are in Cape Town,
just call them at 423-4888, and they'll pick you up and take you where you
want to go -- often with one or two other people in the bakkie as well
("bakkie" is South African slang for "pickup truck"). Another great thing
about riding Rikki's is listening to the banter between the driver and the
base -- they're always cracking jokes, talking politics, or commenting on
the latest gossip, all while ferrying you to your destination. They're also
a cheap alternative to-and-from the airport as well: the normal airport
shuttle operated by Intercape is now R90/US$15, but Rikki's will take you
for R70. While riding to the airport in March, I asked the Rikki's driver
if the new minibus taxi laws would affect them, but the driver replied that
they wouldn't, as theirs is a different type of service.
Rikki's came to pick me up at the base of the aerial car and take me down
to the V&A Waterfront, where the boats to Robben Island leave from. Robben
Island (like San Fransisco's Alcatraz), is a now-abandoned prison island,
where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were housed during the
apartheid era. It has since been turned into a museum, and you can take a
ferry out to the island for a half-day guided tour, led by a former inmate.
On the ferry over, I met an old white South African who was on the board of
the Robben Island Museum (he was on his way to a planning meeting for the
upcoming Millennium New Years Eve bash with Mandela) who told me that most
of the prisoners who conduct these tours weren't really political
prisoners -- they were on Robben Island for non-political crimes. I took
this with a grain of salt however, as old ways of thinking die hard, and
there was a habit of classifying political prisoners as being incarcerated
for something other than political reasons.
The first half of the tour consists of walking on foot through the
various cel blocks, seeing the cels where famous political prisoners were
kept (including Mandela), and the general compound. In many of the cels are
plaques with pictures of the inmates, along with personal stories of what it
was like to be imprisoned on Robben Island. Spend the time to read each
one -- they're all quite interesting. The second part of the tour is a bus
drive around the island, showing you the general layout of the place, and
some of its other buildings. During the bus tour, there's a spot where
you're allowed to get out to take pictures of Cape Town in the distance
(it's a terrific view) -- and there are plenty of penguins waddling around
in the area. The only disappointing thing about the tour is that you're
technically forced to come back on a specific return ferry (dependant upon
which ferry you came over on) -- meaning you have a limited, set amount of
time on the island. Still, the tour makes for an interesting half-day, and
gives you a good look at South Africa's recent history.
Back at the V&A, I called Rikki's to take me to the Namibia Tourism
office downtown to get some information and maps, and afterwards, I walked
back to Radium Hall via Buitengracht Street again. In the evening, I went
to a Thai restaurant where, by coincidence, Gilian happened to be as well.
The food wasn't as spicy or satisfying as California Thai food, but was OK
nonetheless.
Dec. 23: Cape Town / Stellenbosch / Ceres
I didn't sleep much during the night. The windows had no screens on
them, so to keep the mosquitos out, I closed them before going to bed,
though this made the room hot and stuffy. The overhead ceiling fan wasn't
much help, and was quite noisy as well. By morning though, the weather had
turned cooler and a bit cloudy.
After breakfast, I left a bag with Gilian containing some clothes and
other items I wouldn't need until the following month. Then, she dropped me
off at Avis...
Before leaving the U.S., I made a reservation with Avis to rent a compact
car for 30 days. If you are planning on renting a car in South Africa, the
best thing to do is to make the reservation from the United States (even if
you are already in the region, it pays to call back to the U.S., or have a
friend in the States make the reservation for you). If the reservation is
made through Avis in the States, you get unlimited kilometers -- something
you cannot get if your reservation is made through Avis in South Africa --
and if you plan to do any serious driving in the area, you'll want those
unlimited kilometers, believe me. In the course of one month, I wound up
driving 13,400kms (8,328 miles).
Driving in South Africa is the same as in the UK, with the steering wheel
on the right, and the car driven on the left. This isn't a problem for me
(I've driven enough this way), but I must admit that every time I switch, it
seems to take me a few hours to remember that the levers for the windshield
wiper and turn-indicator are reversed.
In South Africa, just about every vehicle on the road has an immobilizer
(a car alarm system in which you must insert a special key into the
dashboard before you insert your normal ignition key, or the engine won't
start). Avis wound up giving me the same car I drive at home (only with
everything reversed) -- an automatic white Honda Civic (called the "Ballade"
in South Africa), though nobody bothered to tell me about the immobilizer --
and I wound up sitting there for five minutes trying to figure out why it
wouldn't start before I went back into the office to ask.
In general, driving in Southern Africa is fine, but requires more
concentration than driving elsewhere. The worst problem you'll face will be
the roads themselves: in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, the roads are
kept up quite well, but with the exception of a few toll highways, even the
major freeways are only one lane in each direction. At any given time,
you're likely to have a line of trucks chugging along at 80kph, a line of
cars wanting to pass you at 160kph, and pedestrians darting across the
road -- with the same situation happening in the on-coming direction as
well. Helping matters though, is that other than speed (which is a major
problem in South Africa), drivers here are generally much more courteous and
less aggressive than their counterparts in California. If you're driving
and a car comes up behind you, it's common practice for you to move to the
shoulder in order to let the other car pass, rather than making him have to
cross the line. If you do this, custom is he will turn on his back blinkers
twice ("thank-you") at which you will then flash your lights at him twice in
return ("you're-welcome"). This is very different from the U.S., where
flashing your lights means to move aside, and flashing your blinkers means
to back off. The only problem with moving over to the shoulder, of course,
is that you must be careful of all the pedestrians and cattle you'll find
wandering there. The roads contain no "Bot's Dots" (bumps separating the
lanes), so you have no physical warning (in terms of driving over bumps) if
you start to stray over the lines -- though as an extra reminder to drivers,
when a designated passing area is about to end, the broken lines in the road
will have arrows indicating to get back into your own lane before the line
turns solid.
Speed is the one area that South African drivers need to watch though:
there is a vigorous anti-speeding campaign because of the high number of
deaths attributed to it each year, and you'll often see signs along the
highway saying "DON'T FOOL YOURSELF -- SPEED KILLS. ARRIVE ALIVE."
Occasionally, there will be a board showing the percentage of people NOT
speeding the previous month, along with an all-time percentage record of
law-abiding drivers. In some areas, there are signs indicating automatic
cameras (used to detect and trap speeders), and every once in a while,
you'll see a patrol car waiting to catch one (though interestingly, the
police often don't give pursuit: instead, they'll wave a speeder down, and
he'll just be expected to stop). The general highway speed limit is 120kph
outside of cities, and 80kph in town, though this can vary depending upon
the area and type of road. Airbags are not required by law in South Africa,
and the automobile companies have yet to voluntarily include them in their
cars: none of the three cars I wound up driving (two Honda Ballades and a
Toyota Camry) had an airbag -- not even for the driver.
One nice feature about African roads are all the rest stops you'll pass
every few minutes -- little pullouts (usually with a picnic table and trash
can, and often, a tree) where you can rest, have a drink, eat a picnic
lunch, or just give yourself a break from driving. There will always be a
sign 1km beforehand indicating an upcoming rest area, and you'll find them
along the roadsides of most Southern African countries.
One particularly clever signage idea on South African roads is the way
the highway signs show direction by their shape: if an upcoming rest area
will be on the left side of the road, the sign indicating it will be cut to
point to the left as well.
Parking in South Africa is different than anywhere else in the world: in
most cities, you can always find a free parking spot (a far cry from the
U.S.), but you must always have a few rand on you to pay someone to "watch"
your car for you. As has become the practice, there will most likely be
"car guards" who will come up to you wherever you decide to park, often
beckoning you into an available space. They will look after your car to
make sure nothing happens to it, and you're expected to pay them a few rand
for this service (either before or afterwards). Most people do -- though
many will pay only upon coming back and seeing that their car is all right.
One occasionally hears horror stories (such as someone who decided not to
pay coming back to find his car vandalized), and it can be a hassle at times
if you only need to run into a shop for a minute, but in the end, most
people seem to agree that it's an inexpensive way to help people earn a
living and ensure your car is safe. Sometimes the guards will be street
kids, but often they'll be men or women wearing semi-official uniforms. The
only time I saw someone NOT pay a guard was in Johannesburg -- when I went
with a black taxi driver to see a play at night, and he didn't give the
attendant anything.
Petrol (gasoline) prices in South Africa are high, though not as bad as
in other countries. In each town, the price always seems to be the same at
every petrol station (whether it be a Shell, BP, Engen, CalTex or Total
station), with the only variance in price occuring between different towns.
This has led some companies to use alternate means to attract customers, and
just as I arrived in South Africa, there was a big contraversy, as Shell was
ordered by the court to stop a sweepstakes promotion it had been running.
The court claimed the money to run it would have to come from its customers,
though Shell claimed it wouldn't (their prices were still the same as their
competitors) -- but they were forced to stop the promotion anyway. In
general, petrol comes in 93 or 95 grade, and the price is pretty consistant:
in December, it was about R2.85/litre ($1.77/U.S. Gallon) for 93 grade, and
in March, it had gone up to R2.99/litre ($1.86/U.S. Gallon). Note that
because of the uniformity of price, virtually no stations bother to display
their prices on signs out front -- meaning you must actually drive up to the
pump to find out how much the petrol is. Because of traditional cheap
labor, all stations are full-serve, and if the attendent cleans your
windshield and gives good service, it's customary to tip him a rand or two.
Most stations have small snack shops attached to them, but your petrol must
be paid for in cash -- no credit cards or checks are accepted for gasoline.
One major problem throughout Africa is the serious amount of air
pollution caused by trucks on the road -- the exhaust coming from these
trucks seems to be blacker and dirtier than trucks elsewhere in the world,
and their exhaust pipes don't face upwards towards the sky (as on U.S.
trucks), but rather, are located down near the axle, where you might be
standing or sitting next to in a car. Whether you're passing a truck on the
road or standing on a street corner as a bus passes, you'll be innundated
with heavy, black exhaust fumes all throughout Africa.
The first thing I did upon driving out of Cape Town was head for South
Africa's wine country, and the small town of Stellenbosch. It's a nice
little town with tree-lined streets and small boutiques, though it has a bit
of a yuppie/tourist atmosphere. Walking around, I looked everywhere for
some multi-vitamins to buy...
If you need vitamins, bring them from home, as the local brands aren't
much good (for instance, they all contain only 60mgs of Vitamin C in each
tablet, and it was only weeks later -- in Swakopmund, Namibia -- that I was
able to find imported multi-vitamins that were of decent strength).
Sunscreen is also important to use under the African sun, but typically
you'll find only lower SPF numbers in the stores (8 or 15). A few places
had SPF30 (very expensive), but anything higher you'll have to bring from
home. An interesting footnote to this is that all throughout Africa
(especially in poorer countries such as Malawi and Zambia), typical dress
for men would be worn, ragged long-sleeve shirts and slacks rather than
T-shirts and shorts (even in the hot weather) -- as sunscreen is just too
expensive for locals to buy in these places.
After spending a bit of time in Stellenbosch, I continued along the R310,
turning off just before Boschendal to visit the winery there. In a
beautiful outdoor setting, wine-tasting is offered for a small fee (a few
rand to sample five wines), but because they were out of many of their red
wines (including merlot), the lady there let me sample two of what they had
left for no charge.
I continued on to Francishoek to look around, though there's not too much
there (it's just situated in a nice valley). I then turned back to start
heading north, driving through Paarl and Wellington. Though I didn't stop
in either city, Wellington seemed like a lively town, and had I not wanted
to get through the mountain passes before late afternoon, I would have
stopped. Between the two cities, there's a large black township called
Mbekweni, and as you're about to enter, you pass a sign that says "Urban
Area." Welcome to South Africa...
The mountain passes all have good roads, but often there's no guard rail
to prevent a wandering car from going over the side. Surprisingly, at the
top of one of them (the Bainskloof Pass), there were actually a few isolated
homes scattered around the area. Driving these passes aren't difficult, but
they do take a while, especially if you want to get out and look around, as
I frequently did.
Late in the afternoon, I arrived into Ceres, a town famous for its
beautiful valley setting, its fruit trees, and the brand of fruit juice
produced locally and sold Africa-wide. However, scenery aside, the town has
the worst feel of any town in South Africa. Beggars and hawkers are
everywhere (so much so that "NO HAWKING" signs have to be posted all over
the place), and everything about the place has a bad vibe. For dinner that
evening, I ordered a pizza from a pub/restaurant with a sign out front
saying "Pizza R16." Though the pizza was excellent, when the bill came, the
amount due was suddenly R20 (with the sign downstairs now magically changed
to R20) -- and earlier, at a nearby store, the cashier gave me change in
cents coins rather than rand coins, seeing that I was a foreigner, and
deciding to short-change me. I knew what she had done, but decided not to
say anything.
People in Ceres (both black and white) have a cold shoulder about them
(more so than in other parts of South Africa), and are surly like you
wouldn't believe. I can't explain why, but the town just has a very bad
feeling to it. The only nice thing about the place other than its
picturesque setting was the B&B I found a room at -- Hindenburg B&B, run by
a nice lady and her husband, both busy cooking and setting up for Chirstmas
Eve dinner the following day.
I relaxed in the evening, taking some walks around town, and catching The
Simpsons on M-NET (a pay TV service) in the room. As with all NTSC
(American televison standard) programs that have to be converted to PAL (the
other major world television standard, and the one used in South Africa),
the pitch gets raised a full half-step in the conversion process, giving the
actors higher-sounding voices, and upping the Fox fanfare from starting on
an F to an F#. Drinking a diet soda while watching, I noticed that in South
Africa, the diet sodas don't just have aspartame, but a mix: "sodium
cyclamate and acesulfame K and aspartame." Hmmm. At least there are some
good sodas though: Schwepps makes a diet soda (Lemon Lite) with 6% real
fruit juice.
Dec. 24: Calvinia
In the morning, I left Ceres to drive to Citrusdal and Clanwilliam -- two
nice towns on the way up north. It was Christmas Eve Day, and in
Clanwilliam, a black teenager dressed as Santa (complete with foam white
beard) was driving a donkey-pulled cart, throwing out candy to the kids as
he passed. I asked if I could take his picture, and he smiled, saying
"sure!"
Turning off the N7, the road (384) between Clanwilliam and Calvinia is
quite nice, though for most of the way, I hardly passed any cars coming from
the opposite direction (perhaps because it was Christmas Eve). The radio
though (SABC), kept me company for a good part of the drive.
While driving today, I decided to pick up some hitchhikers -- the first
of a few times I would do so on my trip. In South Africa, the majority of
the population can't afford a car, so hitching is common. It's especially
difficult for people in rural areas to be able to get somewhere if someone
doesn't stop to pick them up. In a way, speeding down the highway in my
rented Honda, I felt it was almost my responsibility to stop every once in a
while to give people a needed lift. That being said however, picking up
hitchhikers can be dangerous anywhere in the world, and South Africa is
certainly no exception. The times I did stop, I felt it would be reasonably
safe to do so, though in the end, one can never be absolutely certain.
Still, on one level, it's a way to meet the people of South Africa that you
might never be able to meet otherwise as a tourist. Even after spending a
few months in the country, as a white tourist, it's very easy to see only
the "white" side of South Africa: all accomodations (B&Bs, hotels, hostels,
etc.) are invariably run by whites, your fellow travellers will be white,
the restaurants you eat at and the cities you explore will be predominately
inhabited by whites... and until time passes and South Africa becomes truly
integrated in day-to-day living, you almost have to go out of your way to
see the country as it really is. Today, I picked up three hitchhikers
separately, all black. The first was a middle-aged fork-lift operator on a
nearby farm who was going home to spend Christmas with his family, and had
been walking the distance in the heat. Later on, I picked up another man,
then a woman. It was one of the few ways to have good conversations with,
and meet people other than white South Africans, though I certainly did not
just stop and pick up everyone I saw.
Arriving into Calvinia where I'd spend the night, the police stopped me
at the Shell petrol station for a routine check (as violence tends to occur
on Christmas Eve). Taking the Indian officer's picture, I continued on into
town, noticing that the army was out patrolling the streets. Later, I asked
two officers (one black, one white) if there was trouble, but the reply was
that they were in town only to ensure the peace (which they did
successfully).
I checked into the Hantam Hotel, an interesting place run by a friendly
ex-Brit and his wife. They've been in South Africa for 15 years, and at
first, owned a hotel in another city before moving to Calvinia 4-5 years ago
to run the Hantam. The hotel itself is old and a bit run-down, but adequate
enough to spend the night in (though it's always an interesting sight to see
giant water-bugs not only in the shower, but come down into the toilet bowl
as you flush).
The hotel has an attached restaurant (the "Tropicana") where I ordered
calamari rings, thinking fish would be the healthy thing to eat. Wrong.
They were served fried -- as so many other foods in South Africa are. I'm
not sure if it's a British-influenced diet or not, but there is virtually no
emphasis on "low fat" or "healthy" in the country. Instead, emphasis is on
grease, frying, and fattiness (those "toasted" sandwiches will almost
certainly be grilled rather than dry-toasted). Pies are popular (curry pie,
mince meat pie, etc.), as is fast food -- and though McDonald's isn't yet on
every corner, local competitors such as Hungry Lion are prolific. This diet
shows in the local population, as many people (not just whites, but blacks
as well!) are overweight -- and ads for miracle diet solutions abound. This
was a stark contrast to some of the poorer African countries such as Malawi
or Zambia, where you'd almost never see anyone overweight. Other than diet
sodas though, trying to get low-calorie prepared foods in South Africa is an
impossible task. Another South African food quirk (especially in a country
rich with fruit trees), is that it's impossible to find 100% pure orange
juice here: it's easy to find sweetened orange juice, or a pure orange juice
BLEND (usually with grape or pear added), but only once, at a supermarket in
the town of George, did I actually find a bottle of 100% pure orange juice,
prepared by the supermarket itself.
I spent the afternoon walking around the nice, quiet desert town of
Calvinia. At one end is a giant postbox (the largest in South Africa) where
you can mail a postcard from, though I enjoyed the residential areas more.
It was Christmas Eve, and while most whites were at home with their
families, a steady stream of blacks were walking down the path out of town,
towards an area outside the city where most blacks still live. After
spending some time around the tree-lined residential streets (with their
nice white homes and schools), I turned around at the grain silo to go back
into town. There, only one small white-owned market remained open for
Christmas Eve, and things soon became pretty quiet.
Following a tip from the Hantam Hotel owner, shortly before sunset, I
drove a few kms out of town, and just parked off the side of the road to
take in the view. Sitting on the hood of the car, I took in the surrounding
scenery and gorgeous sunset before returning back to town.
There were only a few other guests at the hotel that night, and I was the
only one to eat in its restaurant (which had already been set up for
tomorrow's Christmas Day lunch) -- but Calvinia was a nice little desert
town, and the perfect place to spend a quiet evening in -- I can understand
why the owners of the Hantam Hotel moved here.
Dec. 25: Augrabies Falls / Upington
Last night at the hotel, I thought I had lost my watch, and asked the
owners to come by and wake me up at 7:30am, though in the end, I was up by
7:00am anyway (as I was leaving Calvinia, I noticed I had left my watch in
the car's glove box). It was a beautiful morning, and at 7:30am, I was out
walking the quiet, deserted streets of Calvinia once more. You wouldn't
guess it from its current name, but the town was actually founded by Jews
who settled in the area years ago -- though there is no longer a sizeable
Jewish population in the area. The town's synagogue (built in 1920), was
donated to the town in 1968, and is now the Calvinia Museum.
Tonight, I would spend the night in Upington, so I had a long drive ahead
of me. From Calvinia, I'd pass through Brandsvlei, Kenhardt, Keimos,
Kakamas, Augrabies Falls, and back to Keimos before reaching Upington. On
the drive between Keimos and Augrabies Falls, I picked up a hitchhiker who
spoke good English, and on the way back, one who was extremely friendly, but
couldn't speak English very well (he asked to be dropped off at the police
station so he could pick up a document, so I obliged).
Today entailed lots of desert driving (the type I like), and by the
middle of the day, I had reached Augrabies Falls. The area is popular with
South African holiday makers who can stay in small bungalows close to the
falls, and consists of a nice Orange River waterfall and a small game park.
I checked out the waterfall first, and though it was nice, I found the many
multi-colored lizards on the nearby rocks more interesting. I ordered lunch
at the park cafeteria (so-so), and afterwards, started to drive through the
game park. However, due to recent rains, the dirt road was pretty muddy in
places, and knowing I'd be in better game parks in the weeks to come (not to
mention the fact that most animals wouldn't be out in the hot mid-day sun),
I decided to turn around and head for Upington.
While driving, I found myself listening to the radio almost all the time,
usually alternating between African, Afrikaans, and English-language
broadcasts for variety. SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) radio
is broadcast throughout the country on different frequencies (depending upon
which city you're in), so many of the car radios in the region have
something called RDS -- a feature that identifies the station by name, and
will automatically find that station's strongest frequency for the area
you're in. As you drive into another area and the signal fades, the radio
will try searching for a newer, stronger frequency for the station, and will
automatically switch to it once found. Besides the nationwide SABC and
African stations such as Umhlobo, many large cities also have their own
independent local stations (in Durban, for example, there's a station
focusing on Indian-related topics due to the city's large Indian
population -- and Cape Town must have at least a half-dozen independent
stations of their own). The English SABC broadcast typically has news at
the top of each hour, followed by music (with a classical hour at 2:00pm,
and golden pop tunes from 3:00-5:00pm), though there are also talk shows and
news analysis. As with most of Africa, the vast majority of stations are on
the FM band (including SABC), but there are also a small handful of AM/MW
stations, including "Cape Talk" (Cape Town 567AM), and a large talk/news
station in Johannesburg at 702AM. Note that in South Africa, the AM/MW
"step-rate" (how far apart station frequencies are separated) is 9khz, as
opposed to 10khz found in the United States (giving you frequencies such as
558AM, 567AM, and 576AM instead of 550AM, 560AM, and 570AM). Though I don't
know where their transmitter is located, the Voice of America (VOA) can also
be picked up throughout Southern Africa on 909AM, as well as on their usual
shortwave frequencies.
Today's big story on the radio was the report of another bomb attack in
Cape Town: there had been a few bombings in the city recently, but no one
had claimed responsibility for them. This latest attack was perpetrated
against the police, with them being anonymously called to a scene where a
bomb was waiting. Two women officers were injured, and one had to have her
leg amputated. A few weeks earlier, a bomb was detonated at a gay bar, and
more recently, there was one at the V&A Planet Hollywood. Who was doing
this? Was it political? Or a protection or extortion scheme? The fact
that no one had claimed responsibility for the bombings was making people
antsy, and their anxiety showed in the voices of those who called in to talk
about the subject. In the coming weeks, Vodacom and MTN (the two cel phone
operators in South Africa), would announce that they would no longer sell
pre-paid cel cards to customers without proper ID, as it was determined that
a cel phone had been used to detonate the most recent bomb.
I arrived into Upington in the mid-afternoon, and being Christmas, the
town center was pretty much deserted. The first thing I did was check into
the Protea Oasis Lodge (Protea is a chain of mid-range hotels found
throughout South Africa, and in Upington, there are two Protea Lodges in the
center of town right next to each other. The higher-rated one was booked
for the night, but there was still room at the Protea Oasis Lodge -- which,
even though it has one less star in the book, is actually the nicer of the
two to stay at. If you stay here, you're allowed to go next door and use
the pool at the other Protea). The rate was R160/US$26.23, and after
setting my bags down (and turning on the air-con), I went out for a walk.
Upington is a nice town, and even though everything was closed (and the
town pretty much deserted), I still enjoyed exploring the area. About the
only businesses open were video-rental shops, so I decided to have a peek
inside one of them. VHS is still the norm in South Africa, but a few DVD
discs have started appearing on shelves here as well.
Walking back to the Protea Lodge, then continuing onwards, I soon came to
the Orange River -- and the area here is quite nice. Down in a residential
area by the water, I stopped to ask a white lady watering her lawn if it
was safe to swim in the river (as many kids on the other side were now
doing). She answered "oh yes", saying that her own kids had done so all the
time while growing up. Walking the bridge to the other side, I noticed lots
of families relaxing on the grassy banks or enjoying the water as they took
the day off. One black kid even had a home-made fishing pole, and was
catching fish out of the river, though I don't know how safe such
locally-caught fish are to eat. To get people to-and-from the area, there's
a boat (used mostly by blacks) that carries passengers down the river, and
when it's ready to leave, it sounds its horn to the tune of "La Cucaracha."
In the early evening, I returned to the hotel, and went to use the pool
at the neighboring Protea. Later on, I caught some of "Anastasia" and
"Independence Day" on TV in the room...
In South Africa, there are three channels of SABC, but those that can
afford it subscribe to pay TV services such as M-NET or DSTV (a new digital
satellite service). Even though people must pay a TV license fee each year
to support SABC (and many stores such as "GAME" will refuse to sell you a
new TV unless you show them proof that you've paid your TV license), SABC
still has commercials -- though nothing like the amount found on American
television. M-NET is a pay service that offers movies and other foreign
programs, and can be purchased by itself (along with SuperSport), or as part
of a complete digital satellite package from DSTV, including dozens of other
channels. The footprint of the DSTV satellite covers most of Southern
Africa, and its signal can be picked up even in the remotest areas of the
region, including Malawi, Zambia, and even apparently, St. Helena Island.
DSTV winds up up costing about US$30-$35 a month, though the rate differs
with the country you live in. One funny quirk is that even though M-NET is
a pay channel, they still censor movies for bad language, and have a very
annoying way of doing it: instead of just cutting out the offending
language, or using an "alternate" version (as you'd see on U.S. TV or aboard
an airplane), they'll broadcast the original, but turn the sound off for a
few seconds whenever a bad word is about to be spoken -- meaning there's a
sudden and total loss of volume everytime a bad word is uttered. It really
is quite annoying...
Dec. 26: Pofadder / Pella / Springbok
December 26th, once known as "Boxing Day", is now known as "Family Day"
in South Africa.
On the radio this morning was news of yet another bomb scare in Cape
Town: last night, 500 people attending a concert had to wait while
authorities looked into an anonymous phone call that reported a bomb at a
Christmas concert. Luckily, no bomb was found, but other reported news of
the day was worse: throughout the night, there had been a spate of Christmas
shootings and stabbings in the eastern part the country and Johannesburg. I
suppose that's why the army was out in places like Calvinia -- to keep the
peace.
This morning, I drove through more desert, and loved every minute of it.
Between Kakamos and Pofadder, there's absolutely nothing (the area looks
much like California's Mojave desert), and just as with the Australian
outback, you drive on a flat highway that seems to stretch on forever into
the horizon.
In Pofadder, I stopped to walk around: it really is a very small, quiet
desert town, and even though hardly anyone was yet out and about, I enjoyed
exploring its dusty streets and small, simple houses (some of which had ham
radio antennas).
I then continued onto the town of Pella -- a black-only town off a gravel
road and a bit out-of-the-way -- but it was worth the side-trip, even though
I didn't really stop: the small town is nestled among some beautiful desert
scenery, and among traditional houses and shacks are kids shouting and
playing ball anywhere they can. On the way back, I passed three junior-high
aged girls walking along the dirt road to the main highway. I stopped to
give them a lift, but after dropping them off at the highway, realized I was
in no particular hurry to get anywhere -- so I circled back, picked them up
again, and took them to where they wanted to go: the nearby town of
Aggeneys. One spoke English pretty well, and they were quite surprised not
only to be picked up by a white, but to hear that I was from America. When
I dropped them off in Aggeneys, they all got out and yelled in glee to their
friends (from what I could gather, to make sure that their friends saw them
being dropped off by a white guy).
I then continued driving south towards the town of Springbok, where I
stopped for lunch and petrol. In the spring, this area becomes one of South
Africa's busiest tourist destinations, when the entire region blooms with
wildflowers -- however, in the scorching heat of summer, there's not a
single flower to be found.
I stopped in at the Springbok Lodge and Restaurant for lunch. Its owner
and his son have quite a business going -- they run a cluster of yellow
bungalows, as well as a busy restaurant with typical South African
service...
In just about all of South Africa, it seems no one has heard of the
phrase "service with a smile." South Africa is still very young at
developing a service-oriented economy and culture, and service (good or bad)
is never done with a smile. Later on in the trip, I read a newspaper
interview with a black South African tourism official who said something to
the effect that you can't expect people who have never been on the receiving
end of the service industry to understand how important it is to treat the
customer right (in other words, a worker at a fancy hotel who has never had
the means or opportunity to stay at such a hotel himself would not
understand how important friendly service is). The official suggested a
program in which hotel chains might donate a few rooms to those unable to
afford the normal room rate, so that South African society as a whole can
change from one in which service is rough and ambivalent to one up to
international standards. Most telling about this need are all the
advertisements you come across throughout the country -- proclaiming that
for every eight tourists that visit South Africa, one permanent job is
created -- and urging people to welcome tourists with open arms. Here's one
humorous example: in South Africa, the oft-used phrase "The Big Five"
usually refers to the five major animals you might see on a safari (lion,
leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino) -- but there are two great posters
plastered all over the Johannesburg airport that relate to the service and
tourism industry (I even took a picture of them). One says: "Have You Seen
the Big Five Lately?", and shows pictures of an American tourist, a Japanese
tourist, a British tourist, a French tourist, and an Italian tourist... and
the second shows the faces on the U.S. Dollar, the Japanese Yen, the British
Pound, the Italian Lyra, and the French Franc, with the caption "The Nicer
You Are, The Longer They'll Stay."
From Springbok, I called ahead to the small town of Kamiskroon to book a
room for the night, but as I drove further south, I began to have doubts
about staying there. I was now going out of my way on purpose (heading
south, even though I'd need to go north tomorrow), because I had heard that
Kamiskroon was a pleasant little town. However, it just seemed to get
hotter and hotter the further south I went, and the more I thought about it,
the more it seemed to make sense to just stay in Springbok for the night.
Still, I decided to finish the drive, and arrived into Kamiskroon to
sweltering heat. I stopped at the little shop/hotel I was to stay at, and
explained the situation to the owner -- who was quite nice, and understood
completely (though I also picked up some drinks and snacks to give him some
business). Before leaving town, I stopped at the town's one petrol station
to use the phone, and here, met up with a caravan of rich, spoiled Chinese
tourists driving BMWs who were anything but friendly. After making my
calls, I hopped into the car, and drove back to Springbok in the heat.
By the time I reached Springbok again, it had cooled down a bit, and I
booked myself a little yellow bungalow at the Springbok Lodge and Restaurant
(R90, with air-con and TV). The city is home to South Africa's first copper
mine, and like Calvinia, was settled by Jews (with the old Jewish synagogue
also being the current town museum). Outside the restaurant/lodge office, I
used the card phone to arrange some accomodations for myself in Namibia for
the next few days...
While calling ahead for reservations, the question always asked is "what
is your contact number?", and even if you say you're visiting from the
United States, most places will still assume you have a working South
African cel phone. Each time I'd say I didn't have one, the response would
almost always be "Hmmm..." -- but in the end, I never was rejected due to
not having a contact phone.
Public phones are found everywhere in South Africa, and are generally
quite good. Telkom is the monopoly telephone provider in the country, and
there's hardly ever a problem placing calls (the blue phones accept coins,
the green phones accept cards). South African telephone cards are of
credit-card thickness, with a small chip embedded in them rather than the
thin, flimsy telephone cards you'll find in Japan or Australia -- and an LCD
display on the phone will show how many credits you have left on the card,
with the amount ticking down as you talk. Except in Cape Town (where for
some reason, the phones seem to be smarter), most card phones in South
Africa cannot automatically detect when a call is answered on the other end.
This means that when the party you're calling answers, you need to press the
"TALK" button -- which will start the credits ticking down, and enable your
mouthpiece to work so the person you're calling can hear you. However, a
benefit of this hassle is that if you don't actually NEED someone on the
other end to hear you, you can make your calls for free. For instance, if
you want to call home to check your answering machine, just don't push the
TALK button, and you won't be charged for the call (however, after about a
minute or so, the LCD display will finally warn you that if you don't press
TALK soon, it will begin to automatically assume you're connected, and start
charging you anyway).
One other annoying problem with public phones in most Southern African
countries is that the "#" and "*" keys don't generate tones -- they're
basically just dead keys -- but if your answering machine (or bank-by-phone)
requires them, you're out of luck, and must find a private phone somewhere
to use them properly.
Directory Assistance is "1025" in South Africa, and when you call it,
you're told the approximate wait time. However, if you're told the wait
will be (for example) 3 minutes and 14 seconds, calling right back will
often give you a totally different wait time (perhaps 45 seconds -- or 4
minutes!) Whenever I'd receive a recording saying that the wait would be
more than 3 minutes, I'd usually just call back -- and more often than not,
would be given a shorter wait time (more than once, I also tried timing the
wait to see how accurate it was -- and it wasn't very accurate). However,
to soothe you while you wait, you're put on hold to an instrumental version
of John Denver's "Annie's Song" (C, C, B, A, C.. B.. A, A, A, B, C, G, E..)
each time you call. Most public phones in South Africa and Namibia also
allow incoming calls (the payphone's number is usually displayed on the LCD
screen, especially once you start placing a call) -- though incoming calls
have a 10-minute limit on them, and you can see the remaining time tick down
on the LCD screen as you talk.
After making my calls, I walked around town a bit, hiking up to the top
of the local hill. The dirt path was filled with footprints, and once I
reached the top, I saw why: on the other side of the hill was the settlement
where all the blacks in the area live -- and each day, they'll walk up and
down the hill to get to their jobs in "white" Springbok (when I later asked
in the restaurant about the name of the black settlement, I was told that
years ago it was actually the original site of the town of Springbok).
After walking back down the hill, I lied down on a stretch of grass and
relaxed, looking up at the clouds in the sky as a nice summer breeze began
to pick up... quite a nice way to spend the late afternoon. For dinner that
evening, I went back to the Springbok Restaurant and ordered a small pizza
(it was Sunday -- the day to take my weekly malaria tablet, so I had to have
lots of liquids and a good meal), and afterwards, went back to my little
yellow, windowless bungalow, catching Flubber and The Untouchables on M-NET
as I sorted my pack.
Dec. 27: Port Nolloth / Keetmanshoop (Namibia)
Today, I decided to drive north and cross into Namibia -- but before
doing so, wanted to look at Port Nolloth on the western coast of South
Africa. The drive to Port Nolloth is a lonely one on a long, desolate road
with no real stops along the way, but I wanted to see what South Africa's
northwest coast was like.
In the morning, I wound up giving a lift to a few different people.
First, I picked up a security guard in Steinkopf that spoke English quite
well, enjoying a good conversation with him. Later, at the start of the
road to Port Nolloth, I picked up three men separately (though they were all
waiting in the same general area). Unless one is going specifically to Port
Nolloth, there's not much of a reason to take this road, (as Port Nolloth is
its only destination), so traffic can be very light, and thus, it can be
difficult to get a lift.
It was still early morning by the time I arrived into Port Nolloth, and
its famous morning mist was still around. The town is basically a small
coastal fishing village, though not a very busy one. There are some holiday
bungalows by the ocean, but fishing (along with the area's small port) play
a more important role than tourism here. There really isn't too much to
see, but I spent some time walking along the beach before looking around
town. After buying a couple of doughnuts from the local market, I soon
hopped back in the car, and headed for the N7.
Driving towards the Namibian border, the sun came out, and the weather
began to get hot. At the border, I had my first taste of what would be the
usual procedure for African border crossings: first, you park your car and
walk into the immigration office for the country you're leaving (in this
case, South Africa) to have your passport stamped and receive an exit
paper. Then, you get into your car, show the exit paper, and drive about
1km or so to the other country's border (in this case, Namibia), park your
car once more, get out, and visit that country's immigration office (where
you once again have your passport stamped). Generally, the borders in
Southern Africa were easy and effortless (if a bit slow), but it should be
pointed out that many are open only during daylight hours.
At the Vioolsdrif border crossing between South Africa and Namibia, I
stopped on the South African side for a bit to get a drink and make a phone
call at the small, shady rest camp (I wanted to call South African Airways
to find out if it was possible to change the dates of a plane ticket booked
at the "African Explorer" rate -- it was, as long as seats were available).
The border at Vioolsdrif is open 24hrs, and though busy, the formalities
thankfully didn't take too long, especially with the mid-day heat. Upon
crossing into Namibia, I stopped at the BP station to fill up with petrol.
Driving in Namibia is almost the same as driving in South Africa. Though
Namibia (once known as South West Africa) was German-occupied, the roads and
signs are almost carbon-copies of South Africa, which later occupied the
country. In Namibia, the grade and quality of a road can be determined by
its classification: a "B" road will be a primary road or major highway... a
"C" road will be a secondary road (either gravel or tar)... and a "D" road
will almost certainly be gravel -- and possibly a bit difficult if
travelling in a normal car (additionally, a "P" road is a private road, and
an "F" road is a farm road). Namibian license plates all have the same
color scheme (yellow, with black numbers), but use the following system to
show what part of the country the car is from: "N 12345 WB" would indicate
the car is from Namibia ("N"), its number is 12345, and is from Walvis Bay
("WB" -- just a "W" at the end would indicate "Windhoek", and an "S" would
indicate Swakopmund).
The area by the border is arid, dry, and desolate, but as you drive
further north, things turn greener (though of course this depends upon where
and when it has rained). Throughout my trip, I was very lucky to have
avoided most of the rain and bad weather, but for most of Southern Africa,
summer is the rainy season -- and this year, it hit pretty hard in KwaZulu
Natal and Mozambique, causing damage and death.
Just north of the Namibian border is Fish River Canyon (and the Ai-Ais
Hot Spring Resort), but as the area is closed during the summer months due
to the intense heat, I continued driving north until I reached Keetmanshoop,
where I would spend the night. Here, I decided to stay at the pleasant
Canyon Hotel, with its air-con, TV, and pool (all useful amenities in a hot
desert town). The rate was N$205/US$33.60 (the Namibian dollar is pegged to
the South African rand, with the same US$1=N$6.1 exchange rate), and in
Namibia (unlike South Africa), most accomodations include breakfast with the
price of the room.
Keetmanshoop is an interesting city in that it has more petrol stations
than any other city of its size in Namibia. As just a small town, it has 11
petrol stations (I went inside one to ask), and there's virtually no
competition between them. Amazingly, you'll see two different stations of
the same brand right next to each other, and a third one just a block away,
making Keetmanshoop the town where everyone fills up their vehicles. Inside
the station where I asked the number of petrol stations in town, two guys
were hanging around, talking to a big guy behind the counter. One (who
initially thought I was Canadian), was on leave from military service in
Kosovo, and the other was just visiting. We started chatting for a bit
about Namibia, South Africa, and the type of town Keetmanshoop is, and a few
days later in Swakopmund over New Years, one of the guys (then with his
family) recognized me walking in a supermarket shopping mall. Small world.
As much of a "hick" town as Keetmanshoop might sound like though, it has
one thing going for it: a terrific public swimming pool. It was hot that
day, and walking through the deserted town (deserted because it was still
the holiday season), I saw two young kids looking as if they had just come
from a pool. Remembering having seen one on a city map, I asked the kids
where it was, and they pointed the way. The pool is large, well kept-up,
has two diving boards, and a cheap-enough price: N$1.50/US25c for kids, and
N$2.50/US41c for adults. It was nice to see everyone (black and white, kids
and adults) enjoying the pool together, and I wanted to jump right in, but
didn't have on my swim trunks. I asked the lady at the ticket window what
time the pool closed, and she said 7:00pm -- so I walked back to the hotel
on the other side of town (a 25-minute walk), changed, and returned to the
pool by 5:45pm -- only to be told that it would be closing in 15 minutes (as
the pool actually closed at 6:00pm, not 7:00pm). Still, after walking all
afternoon in the heat (including three round-trips from one end of the city
to the other), I wanted a swim -- and that 15 minutes in the pool was more
than worth the N$2.50!
At 6:00pm, I walked back to the hotel to use the pool there, and though
it was no comparison to the community pool, was still enjoyable
nonetheless. At the hotel, I also met some German tourists (now living in
Johannesburg, though vacationing in Namibia), and we chatted for a bit by
the pool.
In the evening, I walked around town under a beautiful orange-grey sky,
noticing how different things were here in Namibia than in South Africa.
Here, blacks and whites were much more integrated in daily life than in
South Africa, with black families living alongside white ones, blacks
driving nicer cars (even an occasional -- though rare -- Benz or BMW), and
even owning some of the neighborhood businesses as well. A large portion of
Namibia's population may indeed be in poverty, but there was also a definite
black middle class in the country -- something you hardly see at all (at
least so far) in South Africa.
Later that evening, the wind picked up quite a bit, and from inside the
hotel room, the trees swaying in the wind sounded almost like rain.
Dec. 28: Luderitz
Today, I drove from Keetmanshoop to Luderitz, where I would spend the
night, and along the way, stopped for a bit in the tiny town of Aus to buy
an ice-cream cup and a sticker of the Namibian flag. I also stopped in the
town of Bethanie -- a nice, small town with an old church, though I didn't
spend much time in the area.
There is very little but desert before arriving into Luderitz, with much
of the area consisting of protected diamond mines. A few kms. before the
city limits, you pass the ghost town of Kolmanskop (a popular tourist
destination), but I opted not to stop, as you can't see much if you just
"show up" (you must book a guided tour in town, but the following morning, I
decided to go on a seal cruise instead).
Luderitz is a town where you can see Namibia's German past alive and well
even today. Everyone here speaks and understands German, and the town has a
definite European flavor to it. As in Europe, the shops all close for a few
hours during lunch (when everyone empties out onto the streets to talk and
eat with friends), and businesses are all closed by 5:00pm or 6:00pm. Many
blacks live in the poorer areas higher up on the hills, though many also
live in the town itself.
I checked myself into the Hotel Zum Sperrgebiet for N$305 including
breakfast (just look for the light pink building up on the hill), a nice,
new hotel with almost all its guests being German (note that the Lonely
Planet mentions it has a pool -- it doesn't). I then walked into town,
first reserving a spot for myself on the following morning's boat trip,
before buying a telephone card at the post office and looking through some
of the town's stores...
Namibia has many of the large South African chain stores (including PEP
and Ackerman's), as well as South African supermarket chains such as Sentra,
Spar, KwikSpar and ShopRite. PEP is an interesting store -- they're like an
old "five and dime," selling clothes, shoes, umbrellas, and other everyday
items for a good price. Most items probably come from China, but the chain
is huge -- there are 940 PEP stores in South Africa, and 300 more in the
rest of Africa (PEP is part of Pepkor, a huge company which also owns the
ShopRite chain of supermarkets). It seems no matter how small a town is,
there's bound to be at least one PEP store there -- if not more. As strange
as it sounds, I've been in small towns where the "downtown" is just one
street, three blocks long -- with a PEP at one end of the street, and (only
a 2-minute walk away), another PEP at the other end. The store's first
location was in Upington (South Africa), but the familiar blue PEP logo is
now found throughout Africa, with Pepkor expanding vigorously in the region
(in 1998, the first PEP store in Ghana was opened).
In Luderitz, I stopped at a "PEP Namibia" store and picked up a polo
shirt for myself -- the first of many that I would buy at various PEP stores
throughout the region. The shirts -- even though identical -- carried
different labels, ranging from "Lancetti Italian Design" to "Classic", and I
would wander in many a PEP store to look for them. Their country of origin
wasn't labelled (probably China), but they were comfortable pocket polo
shirts made of lightweight 65%-35% fabric, with short sleeves that were
actually SHORT -- exactly how I like my shirts (and perfect for travel, as
they weigh almost nothing). The price? N$31.70/US$5.20, which later
dropped to N$29.95/US$4.90 as time went by. In the end, I wound up buying
seven of these shirts: five to bring home with me, and two more striped grey
shirts of identical design that would become my trademark shirt for the
trip -- the first being worn constantly while I was on my own, and the
second being worn almost everyday during the overland portion.
In most stores (both shops and supermarkets), you're supposed to check
your parcels in when you enter (to deter against shoplifting, you give your
bag to the guard, who then gives you a number and keeps your parcel).
However, I didn't want my camera out of my hands (as the stores will take no
responsibility for anything lost or damaged), so on each occasion, I
basically played dumb tourist and ignored the parcel checks. Only once (in
Mauritius, at the very end of my trip), was I ever asked to check my bag
in. Interestingly, everyone does it voluntarily -- they're almost never
asked to do so.
After PEP, I stopped in at the local Avis office in Luderitz to have my
Honda checked for enough oil and fluids (as I was doing a lot of hot, dusty
driving, and I didn't want the car breaking down in the middle of the
desert). It took about 30 minutes, but everything turned out fine.
When finished at Avis, I drove out to Diaz Point, a short drive from town
with a lighthouse and a good view of the ocean. On the radio was a live
broadcast from Dolphin Park (a family vacation spot near Swakopmund), with
kids competiting for prizes from KFC by answering questions such as "what
can run all day without getting tired" (answer: your nose, etc.) Along the
drive to Diaz Point are signs warning you not to leave the marked road
(because of the surronding diamond mines).
In the late afternoon, I drove back into town and just walked around,
looking at some of the old European-style buildings of the city, (including
the local church, where plenty of German tourists were looking around as
well). Later, I had dinner at Badger's Bistro (one of the few places open
after 6:00pm, except for the hotel restaurants), and ordered peri-peri
(spicy sauce) calamari, and a hawaiian chicken burger for dinner. Both were
surpriningly good.
Dec. 29: Luderitz / Sesriem
I started the day by going out on a boat trip around the Luderitz
coastline. From 8:00am-10:15am, the boat went out in the cool, foggy
weather to show us seals, jackass penguins, and heavyside dolphins (named
after Capt. Heavyside, who first documented them). While on the boat, I
chatted with a young couple from Copenhagen who were about to spend six
months studying in South Africa, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed
the little excursion.
Back in town after the cruise, I stopped at the post office to buy more
phone cards before beginning the long drive to Sesriem/Sossusvlei (where the
famous red sand dunes are). I left Luderitz at 11:15am, and without
stopping, didn't arrive into Sesriem until 5:45pm -- a long, tiring, dusty
drive on dirt roads of varying degrees of bumpiness. The first portion of
the drive from Luderitz is actually quite nice (passing through some
beautiful desert scenery), but as you get closer to Sesriem and turn off
onto the dirt roads, the driving becomes more tedious. Especially annoying
was the fact that even though Sossusvlei is one of the main tourist
attractions of Namibia (with just about every driver in the area heading for
it), NONE of the road signs mention either Sossusvlei or Sesriem (instead,
they indicate only obscure, small towns past them). On these dirt roads in
the middle of nowhere, miles can go by before you see another car, and at
one intersection, the signage was so poor, I had no idea which way to go.
Luckily, a minute or two after choosing a direction, a car passed me coming
from the other direction, and I was able to flag it down and verify with its
driver that I was indeed going the right way. The condition of the dirt
roads to Sesriem from the south are worse than you might think from looking
on a map: they're not impassable for a 2x2 car, but are much bumpier and
pothole-filled than other gravel roads with a "C" designation -- requiring
you to drive slower than you'd like, especially in the heat. Driving these
roads is much like driving on ice: if your speed begins to even approach a
certain velocity, the car will start to slide -- and it can become quite
easy to lose control. The road coming down from the north (via Solitaire)
is in better condition, though if you take it slow (annoying as it may be),
the road from the south is passable as well.
I finally arrived at Sesriem, the small little "oasis" in the desert that
contains both the government-run campsite and the luxury Movenpick Lodge
(previously known as the Karos Lodge). I filled up with petrol at the lone
BP station (where at first, one of the pumps stopped working, so the
attendant had to finish filling the car with the second pump), and at that
station, found the greatest payphone on my whole trip -- an orange card
telephone that put calls through, but didn't deduct any credits from your
card for them! Over the next 24 hours, I'd use that phone numerous times to
make free calls all over the world -- but locals had also discovered it was
giving free calls, so there'd often be a queue for it. One strange quirk
with this phone though, was that it would not place any calls through to the
"949" area code in the U.S. Even though other phones in Namibia had no
problem doing so, this phone just would not recognize that there was a "949"
area code in the U.S., and refused to complete such calls (similar problems
cropped up from time to time in other places as well, including one phone
elsewhere in Namibia that refused to recognize the "818" area code in the
U.S.) In the end, I wound up using the phone to call family and friends in
the U.S. and Japan, as well as to call the Swakopmund area the following day
in an attempt to find an available room. One note about calling overseas
from Namibia: the overseas access number is "00", not "09" as it is in South
Africa.
After filling up with petrol, I went to the Movenpick Lodge to check in.
This was the one night I decided to spend some money and stay in Sesriem (as
opposed to staying in a town such as Solitaire). The reason? I wanted to
see the Sossusvlei dunes at sunrise, and was told the only way this would be
possible would be to spend the night in Sesriem, where your only choice of
accomodation is the campground or the luxury lodge. Though the actual dunes
are a good 60+kms from Sesriem, I was told by the Movenpick Lodge that if I
stayed with them, I'd be able to make it to the dunes by sunrise. WRONG.
The truth: only those staying at the CAMPGROUND will make it to the dunes by
sunrise. Even though the campground and the lodge are just a stone's throw
away from each other, the campground is actually inside the gate of the
national park, while the lodge is located outside the gate. The park gates
aren't opened until sunrise, so the only chance you have of getting to the
dunes BEFORE sunrise is if you stay at the campground. The problem is that
the Movenpick Lodge (which charges almost US$150 a night) lies to people
inquiring about this, claiming that if you stay with them, you can make it
to the dunes by sunrise. When I booked myself a room, I asked the lady
repeatidly if I'd be able to be at the dunes for sunrise, and she assured me
"oh yes, of course." Only upon arrival though (once it's too late, unless
you want to turn back and drive over an hour to the next-closest town) do
you find out that it's all a lie. When I went to inquire at the campground
about this, the employee there sighed and said "you know, you're the THIRD
person today that has come to me with the same story. I don't know what to
tell you, except that they're not telling the truth. If you don't stay at
the campground, you cannot enter the park before sunrise, so you will not be
able to be at the dunes until well after sunrise." At this point, I asked
if there was anything I could do (could I pay for a campsite? No, the
campground was fully-booked. Could I just park my car inside the gate, so I
could go early? No, it's against regulations, and the car will be noted and
towed later -- they're very strict about that). Having no choice now but to
miss seeing the dunes at sunrise, I went back to the lodge to complain,
though the lady now at the counter insisted that no one was giving false
information, even after I mentioned I was the third person that day who had
been lied to. To make matters worse, the lodge also lied about the cost of
the room: on the phone, I was told the charge would be N$842/US$138 with all
taxes, but when I checked in, it was suddenly N$875/US$143 -- and I had to
pay that rate. Then, while eating dinner, the waiters didn't want to serve
me, and I saw one of them go up to the lady boss, point to me, and begin to
ask questions. I finally asked if anything was wrong, and they said "are
you registered at the hotel here, sir?" I said "yes, I'm in room xxx", and
showed them my key. Finally they said "oh...sorry...we thought you were
staying at the campground, and were...uh..." (trying to steal dinner).
Their excuse? Everyone else in the hotel was part of a group, and I wasn't
with that group (gee, I didn't realize it was a crime to travel alone).
The above is typical of the attitude you'll receive from the Movenpick
Lodge -- and it only gets worse: while checking in, I was "reminded" that
I'd have to pay them N$50/US$8.20 for a 4x4 shuttle from the 2x4 car park to
the base of the dunes the next morning unless I wanted to walk the 2kms
myself -- insisting that I'd have to pay them now, and couldn't pay the
drivers themselves in the morning. I did so, but it was a complete waste of
money: the shuttle service doesn't start running from the 2x4 car park until
7:30am (much too late if one wants to get to the dunes early before the heat
of the day), and while they dropped me off at the dunes, they never came
back to pick me up (they're supposed to check every 30 minutes to see if
people are ready to return). I waited for 1hr 15mins, but no one ever came.
Luckily, I hitched a ride back to the car park with a nice trio of Swiss
tourists -- and there at the car park were the shuttle drivers, sitting
around, chatting. The first thing they did was ask for my voucher (so they
could get paid for their services), and when I commented that I had waited
an hour and 15 minutes and finally had to get a ride back with some fellow
tourists, they said "oh no, we were there!" Yeah, right. The attitude at
the Movenpick Lodge leaves a VERY bad taste in one's mouth, as does the
"shuttle" service that "runs" (when they feel like it) between the 2x4 car
park and the dunes. Beware, fellow travellers.
To be fair, if it wasn't for the shitty treatment and constant lying from
the lodge (not to mention the incredibly high price to stay there), it
actually wouldn't be a bad place (though NOTHING excuses their attitude and
business practices). The lodge is basically a collection of square-shaped
bungalows that look as if they were dropped from the sky onto the desert
floor. You get your own private bungalow with zip-up windows built into the
tent-flap walls in case of sandstorm, a nice swimming pool, and dinner
served outside under the stars, cooked fresh right in front of you (with a
choice ranging from ostrich kabobs to antelope steak). While dinner was
being prepared, I talked with one of the cooks, and found out that the
workers live in the small staff accomodations nearby, with many of them
coming from all over the country. Since I had been chatting with the cook,
I wound up being first in line for dinner -- so later, as everyone else was
eating, I decided to go for a dip in the pool. It was a warm night with
stars like you wouldn't believe, and after swimming, I decided to walk out
of the lodge and try to use the free phone at the petrol station again. I
knew both the BP station and its phone were located behind the park gates
(which would now probably be locked), but even if it was inaccessible, I
still wanted to go out for the walk. Grabbing my flashlight, I walked the
2-3 minute distance from the lodge to the park gate, but sure enough, the
gate was locked, and the phone inaccessible. I still enjoyed the evening
stroll though, as with very few artifical lights in the area, the stars
shone magnificently in the clear, warm night. I walked back to my bungalow,
set my watch for 4:56am, turned on the fan, and went to sleep.
Dec. 30: Sossusvlei / Windhoek
Waking up at 4:56am, I hopped in the car, and drove to the gate, wanting
to be first in line when it would open at 5:45am. I sat under the stars
listening to the VOA on the radio, and soon, another car came up behind me:
it was an East German guy who did nothing but complain, especially when no
one showed up at 5:45am to let us in. At 5:55am, a lady finally came out to
open the gate, and as the sun began to rise, I started the 60+kms drive to
the 2x4 car park. Unlike the outside road to Sesriem, the road within the
park (from Sesriem to Sossusvlei) is tarred and well-maintained, and a crew
was out later that morning to continue rennovations on the road. I made it
to the 2x4 car park in about 50 minutes, though the shuttle service wouldn't
officially start running until 7:30am. At 7:00am, the shuttle driver showed
up, and I immediately asked if he could take me a bit early. Though he said
he's not supposed to, he did wind up leaving at 7:15am, and I reached the
base of the dunes at 7:30am -- certainly not at sunrise, but still early
enough.
I spent the next few hours walking on the dunes -- an incredible
experience, as the sea of red sand goes on for miles. Once I reached the
top of the first dune (where most people stop), I decided to continue on to
the top of the next one -- and once there, to the following dune, soon
leaving everyone behind. Going through my head was the thought that if
anything were to happen to me, or I were to get lost, no one would even know
where I was -- but I wanted to keep going, always being curious about what
was further ahead.
Meanwhile, my shoes were filling up with sand, and every few minutes, I'd
have to stop and shake the sand out (I kept my shoes on to guard against
scorpions, as well as the heat of the sand). One interesting thing about
walking on the dunes is that there's no flat "top" to walk on -- the pointed
top means you must set your feet down on either side of the dune. However,
because of the constant wind shaping them, one side will be much firmer and
supportive than the other, and you soon learn to walk on that side of the
top. There are also plenty of little animals that manage to live on the
dunes: you'll see one every now and then, and their tracks can be seen all
over the sand.
After a while of traversing dune after dune, I reached one that was quite
a bit steeper than the others, but decided to climb it as well, for it
looked as if it might be the final dune of the area with perhaps a good view
of the valley on the other side -- but the only way to be certain would be
to reach the top. In the heat and wind, I began climbing it little by
little, until I finally decided it was just taking too long and getting too
hot (this was an extremely steep dune, and no one else had ventured this
far). Looking back, I realized I'd have to climb down (and up) all the
dunes I had already covered in order to get back to where I started, so
close to the top, as the grade became even steeper, I decided to turn back
around.
I started my descent down that steep dune, never finding out if it was
indeed the "final" dune of the area or not, and on the way back, had to once
again climb up and down all the other dunes I had already traversed. Though
I had with me a safari hat and a 1.5L water bottle, it was beginning to get
quite hot, even with the nice breeze that had started up.
Finally back at the top of the first dune, I tried something I had been
wanting to do all morning: a run down a giant dune! I had watched others
try it, and standing there at the top of that last dune, decided it was time
to try it myself. Taking off my shoes, I looked down, and started running.
Wow! The thought going through my mind was of a scene in "Lupin III:
Caglisotro Castle" (a Japanese animated movie where the hero does an
impossible, comical run down the roof of a building, gaining so much speed
and momentum that he almost can't stop himself) -- and sure enough, even
though my feet were going pretty deep into the dune with each step, there is
enough momentum that builds up to where you have the sensation of constantly
being pushed forward. Finally reaching bottom, I rolled around in the
sand -- a great end to a morning of exercise and sweat.
The area at the base of the dunes is quite interesting as well, and when
I was done climbing, I spent some time down below, walking on the cracked,
dry earth that looks as if it hasn't seen water in decades. Afterwards, I
walked back to where the shuttle driver was to come by every 30 minutes
(though as I mentioned earlier, he never came). As I waited to be picked up
next to a middle-aged Italian couple under some trees, I began to worry as
the minutes ticked by. Having sat there since 9:05am, by the time 10:20am
rolled around, I had to start thinking about alternatives. At first, I
tried to get a lift with a large tour group, but they didn't have enough
room for another person. Then, a nice trio middle-aged Swiss tourists came
by in a rented 4x4, and let me squeeze in with them for the short distance
back to the 2x4 car park -- where my car (and the lazy shuttle drivers) were
waiting.
Driving back to Sesriem on the tarred, pink road, I noticed not only the
crews out working on it, but some ostriches off in the distance as well -- I
guess they're able to live and thrive even in these harsh, arid conditions.
Back at the camp's BP station, I stopped to use the phone again -- this time
not to call overseas, but to find a place for me to stay over the next few
days...
For New Years, I wanted to head for the coast (to Swakopmund or Walvis
Bay), but unfortunately, that's what the rest of the country normally does
as well -- and compounding matters, this was also Millennium New Years, so
ALL accomodation by the coast was fully booked. Taking out my Lonely Planet
book and Namibia Visitors Guide, in the heat of the mid-day sun, I called
EVERY possibility in Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, and even Henties Bay (further
north) -- but everything was fully booked for the 31st, with most places
booked for the 30th and 1st as well. Thinking about what to do, I
remembered a similar situation a few years back in New Zealand, when
everything was booked at the Bay of Islands over New Years, but I decided to
go anyway, and was lucky enough to find a room (though I was able to confirm
the reservation before leaving). I wondered if I should try my luck this
time, and just head out to the coast anyway -- but being hot and tired from
hiking up and down sand dunes all morning, and knowing the drive would be
long and tiring, I didn't want to take the chance. With no option available
by the coast, I called Windhoek, and booked myself into a B&B there. After
buying an ice-cream at the station shop, I started the drive inland towards
the nation's capital, rather than west, towards the coast.
The condition of the dirt roads heading north out of Sesriem (towards
Solitaire) are in better shape than those to the south, but the drive is
still long, dusty, and hot in the mid-day sun. In Solitaire, I stopped at
the lone hotel/restaurant/store/petrol station to have a stretch and grab a
bite to eat. I went inside, intending to order a sandwich made with their
freshly-baked bread, but when I asked for one, the lady at the counter told
me in German-accented English that the bread was still too warm for a
sandwich -- that I'd need to wait a half-hour or so because the bread might
crumble (even though it had already been sliced!) Saying I didn't mind, I
asked again for a sandwich, but she refused to make me one. I was hot,
hungry, and tired, so I finally asked her for just the bread (since they
also sold the bread by itself), figuring I could buy the ingredients and
just make the sandwich myself. Finally she relented, and made me a cheese
sandwich -- it was one of the best sandwiches I had on my trip, and didn't
crumble at all. To this day, I don't understand what her problem was, but
if you're considering staying at the Solitaire rest camp, just be aware of
this kind of mentality.
The above was just one example of something I noticed about European
(white) Namibians in this region of the country: I don't know why (German
customs? State of things in present-day Namibia? I haven't a clue), but
white Namibians in the Luderitz and Sesriem areas were cold and surly almost
without exception (MUCH more so than in other parts of the country). The
lady in Solitaire was just one small example, but there were ones that were
far worse (including the lady who runs the Sesriem BP station store -- she's
rude as hell). I really hate to generalize, but there just seemed to be an
icy frigidness from the white Namibian population in these two places that
wasn't evident in other parts of the country.
I continued driving towards Windhoek, and the closer I came to the
capital, the cloudier the skies became. Arriving in the late afternoon, it
began to rain just as I pulled into a CalTex station to ask for directions.
Driving up into the surrounding hills to find Pension Moni (the B&B I had
reserved a room at), the rain started coming down in buckets as I hit the
B&B's driveway. The owner came out with an umbrella to greet me, but it did
little good (thankfully, the rain didn't last for long). Pension Moni isn't
bad: its German owner is quite friendly (though he mentioned he was new to
Namibia -- perhaps that's why), and the rooms were clean and comfortable --
but I wound up not sleeping much that night due to an annoying cricket
hidden somewhere outside my room. No matter how often I went out to try to
find it, it remained well-hidden, and chirped throughout the night.
With the rain still coming down, I set my bags down in the room, and
watched The Simpsons on TV. Once the rain stopped though, I thought it
might be nice to go out and see a movie in town. Not having a paper, the
owner called a local theatre to find out what was playing, though he
mentioned many shops and restaurants in town would be closed, as everyone
generally leaves Windhoek for the coast during holidays (and compounding
this was the fact that due to Y2K computer fears, the Namibian government
had declared the weekend a four-day holiday, lasting through Monday, January
3rd -- with people taking full advantage of their extended vacation). This
fact had been emphasized all day on NBC radio, with "live from the coast"
broadcasts, which reported on all the people flocking to the coast from the
rest of the country. Oh well.
I drove to the cinema (fairly close), and parked the car, giving the car
guard a few N$. A ticket for "The Sixth Sense" was N$25 -- and in this
region, you select your seat when you buy the ticket, being able to see
which seats are available on a computer screen. While waiting for the movie
to start, I ordered a small pizza (N$26) -- most of the restaurants in the
shopping arcade were closed for the holiday weekend, but the pizza place was
still open (though the waitress told me they too would be closing soon
themselves, and would remain closed for the next few days). It seemed
Windhoek would be a ghost town until the 4th, and not wanting to waste time
in a city where everything was closed, I decided I'd wake up early the next
morning to make some more calls, just in case a room at the coast became
available.
Dec. 31: Swakopmund / Walvis Bay
Not having had much sleep during the night thanks to the noisy cricket, I
woke up early (6:40am) this morning to make some calls to see if any
accomodations had opened up by the coast. Normally, I would have waited
until I could use a public phone in town, but this morning I was
desperate -- the room had a phone, so I used it.
The first guesthouse I called was still fully-booked for the night, but
the second one mentioned he had heard the Strand Hotel still had a few rooms
left. Though I had called the Strand yesterday (and was told they were
full), I immediately called them again, and the lady on the other end
confirmed that they did indeed have a room. Giving her my credit card
number, I hung up, rushed in the shower, grabbed my bags, and left cloudy,
deserted Windhoek as soon as I could.
There's nothing to see on the drive between Windhoek and Swakopmund, but
it was good to see Namibian drivers taking care on the roads, and driving
carefully (especially during the holiday period). For the last few days,
the radio and newspapers were blanketed with public service announcements
imploring people to drive carefully and sober -- and it was working. I was
impressed with how safe everyone was driving today, and how few instances
there were of people doing wreckless stunts behind the wheel. Of course,
helping to keep people in line were the many roadblocks set up along the
highway: the first of which was just outside of Windhoek, where the woman
officer waved others by, but stopped me to ask for my passport (perhaps
because I had South African plates on the rental car) -- but once I showed
her my U.S. passport, she let me continue. The second roadblock was just
outside of Karibib (where I was just waved by), and the third was about 9kms
before arriving into Swakopmund -- where they seemed to just wave everyone
by. Having the roadblocks reminded motorists to drive carefully, and people
seemed more than willing to put up with them.
I arrived into Swakopmund at 11:00am; the sky was overcast with coastal
clouds, but the temperature was pleasant. The first thing I did (even
before checking into the hotel) was to stop in the center of town and have a
look around. Businesses were still open, but almost all had signs saying
they'd be closed by early afternoon (usually by 13:00). Many (such as the
PEP store) had a sign indicating they'd be closed from 13:00 on Dec. 31st
until 9:00am on January 4th (with the Namibian government having declared
Monday, January 3rd a holiday) -- so I decided to look around while the
stores were still open. After the PEP store, I looked in at some of the
small shops along the street, bought an ice-cream cup at a supermarket, and
noticed that every ATM had a long queue of people waiting to withdraw cash
(Y2K fears). The town certainly was lively this morning, with people out
everywhere enjoying the day, and picking up supplies for their New Years
parties.
After spending some time around town, I drove to the Strand Hotel to
check in. The hotel is in a good location right by the water, and its price
reflects that: my room was N$390/US$63.93 -- but with all other options
full, I didn't have much of a choice. On top of this room rate, the hotel
also charges its guests for use of the parking lot, but with a backpack on
my shoulder, the lady behind the counter probably figured I had arrived by
bus, and didn't charge me for parking (and at the rates they were charging,
I wasn't about to volunteer that I was using their lot). The room was fine
(though nothing special), and for New Years, they placed a nice chocolate
medalion on the desk, saying "Into the New Millennium With The Strand Hotel,
Namibia, 1999-2000", along with a bottle of South African champaign.
After dropping off my bags, I walked from the hotel back to downtown.
Many of the stores were just closing or about to close, but a few were still
open: at the Dolphin Pharmacy, I finally found a decent multi-vitamin, and
at the WB Supermarket across the street, I picked up a new torch (as the
bulb in mine had burnt out a few days ago, and I had been unable to find
either a replacement bulb, or a cheap, decent 2-AA size torch -- for some
reason, most places sold only the larger-sized flashlights). In the WB
Supermarket, I also ordered takeaway toasted sandwiches for lunch, and
looked around the store for a bit. Being December 31st, the place was
packed -- but even on a normal day, the typical African supermarket can be
pretty busy. Besides food, these large markets also sell clothing
(including T-shirts, slacks, and school uniforms), as well as everything
from toys to school backpacks.
By now, the sun had come out, and it was shaping up to be a beautiful
day. I couldn't help but feel glad to be here by the coast, instead of
being stuck back in cloudy, deserted Windhoek.
In one of the little shopping malls attached to the supermarket, I found
an internet cafe, and walked inside. I had to wait about 5 minutes for a
terminal to be free, but it was relatively inexpensive (N$10 for 30
minutes), and had a fast connection. More importantly, I was able to
"telnet" in to check my email (rather than being web-based, my email is on a
unix shell account, and I can only access it if the internet cafe allows
"telnet" from their system. Throughout my trip, most allowed this, but a
few did block the function on their machines).
While walking through the corrider that connects the supermarket to the
internet cafe and neighboring shops, I ran into one of the guys I met at the
petrol station in Keetmanshoop. He was there stocking up on supplies with
his wife and kid, and recognized me (I had on the same shirt and cap).
In the afternoon, I ordered toasted sandwiches from a small takeaway
stand (one of the few places still open in the late afternoon -- and boy,
was it busy!) before paying N$5/US82c to climb to the top of the town's
lighthouse, which overlooks the water. At first, I wasn't going to bother
with the lighthouse, but the view from the top is actually quite good, and
I'm glad I decided to check it out. Paying my N$5 to the young white girl
collecting the money (her family which runs the lighthouse seemed to be
having a get-together), I began walking up: from the bottom, it's 106 steps
to where you can walk outside near the top, or 116 steps to the very top,
where the light is -- though from there, you can only look through a
window. At the entrance is a sign indicating that entry is at your own
risk, so no one minds if you just sit down outside at the top and dangle
your legs, enjoying the breeze and beautiful view. When finished with the
lighthouse, I asked the family there if they had heard anything about the
two parties going on that evening. One (the Dune 7 Millennium Party) I had
heard about on the radio, with a reporter interviewing the man in charge of
it -- but people around town had also mentioned a second party to be held
nearby. Everyone I asked seemed to have conflicting information about this
second party though, and the family running the lighthouse was no different:
they had indeed heard about it, but wasn't sure where it was to be held.
From the lighthouse, I walked over to the fancy Swakopmund Hotel and
Entertainment Centre to look around. I found the adjoining Mermaid Casino,
and bought an entry ticket for N$5 (unlike Las Vegas, most casinos in this
part of the world require you to buy an entry ticket before you're allowed
inside, though you're allowed to come back later the same day with your
ticket). I changed N$20/US$3.28 into 25c slot tokens, and decided to have a
little fun: I tried one slot machine, then a neighboring machine twice.
Then, on my forth token, I came up with [BAR] [BAR] [CLOWN/WILD] -- and
taking the money, I decided to leave while I was ahead. It wasn't much of
course (N$13 -- N$8/US$1.31 really, when you figure in the N$5 entrance
fee), but I still had a bit of fun, and left with more than what I came in
with. At the casino entrance was a large Samsung display with multiple TVs
all tuned to CNN -- and having not seen the news that day, I stopped to
watch for a bit. At 6:00pm local time, I found out President Yeltsin had
just resigned... and CNN then showed pictures of Millennium New Years where
it had already happened (the South Pacific, China, Hong Kong), as well as
pictures of Times Square in New York, where people were still getting ready
for the big event. I stood and watched for about 20 minutes, also having an
intermittent conversation with the very nice black lady selling the entrance
tickets.
Back at the hotel in the late afternoon, I went out onto the nearby rocks
to watch the sunset. It had been a beautiful day, but the wind had now
started kicking up, and by the water, it was a little cold (especially since
I had on a short sleeve shirt and shorts). Suddenly a van drove up, and
three people wearing tuxedoes jumped out and started setting up tables right
beside me. Soon, a group of about 25 people dressed in party hats started
walking down the small pier towards the tables: it was a New Years party,
and they were celebrating right by the water. At first, I minded my own
business, just sitting there waiting for the sunset, but soon, one of them
came up to me, gave me some champaign and oysters, and invited me to join
them. The group was mostly South Africans visiting Namibia (along with a
few Namibians from Windhoek), and they wanted to watch the sunset while
drinking champaign and eating oysters (after which, they'd continue the
party indoors). I chatted with them for a few minutes, and as we took
pictures of each other, a man came up to me, held out his hand, and said
"Laurence!" I looked at him, dumbfounded. "How do you know my name?" I
asked -- at which point he said "no, no, Laurence is MY name!" We had a
good laugh, and soon, as the sun began to set over the water, we all counted
down: 10...9...8...etc., taking pictures as the sun finally disappeared
behind the horizon for the last time in the 1900s.
That evening, I went back to the hotel room to warm up a bit, eat some of
the groceries I bought at the supermarket, and write some notes in my
journal while passing the time. The plan for the evening was to first visit
the "younger" party that was supposed to be happening somewhere out by the
beach, and later, head off to the party at Dune 7 for Millennium midnight.
At around 8:45pm, I decided to leave and try to find this first party.
Easier said than done though: I was told to turn off past the old locomotive
at the start of the town -- which I did (following other cars), but it soon
became apparent that no one else knew where to go either, for cars were
driving in all directions, turning around, and asking others where to go --
all in complete darkness, with no landmarks, but plenty of paths to choose
from. I was very careful to try to remember all the turns I was taking so I
could find my way back again later (as it was pitch black, with no lights
save for those of all the other wandering cars), and after about 45 minutes,
I finally decided to just give up and go to Dune 7. Trying to re-trace my
steps, I went the wrong way only once, and soon realized my mistake. Just
to be sure though, I stopped a car coming towards me to verify with him that
he had just come from the main road -- he had, but when the driver then
asked me where the party was, I had to tell him I hadn't the slightest idea
either.
Upon reaching the main road, I looked back at the lights of all the cars
wandering around trying to find the party, and wondered how many would
actually be able to locate it. Then, I headed off towards Walvis Bay, where
the Dune 7 party was being held (Dune 7 is a large sand dune outside Walvis
Bay, and according to the radio, a large Millennium celebration had been
going on there for the past few days). The turnoff for the dune is just
before you hit Walvis Bay, and while most of the road is tarred, the final
stretch is on sand, though it's usually passable with a normal 2x2 car.
Arriving at Dune 7 around 10:50pm, it was pretty quiet... some cars were
parked, and a few people were mulling around, but it seemed pretty dead.
There were a few stalls with people selling items such as millennium
pancakes, T-shirts, and snacks, but the main center of attraction was a
large tent, inside of which was a dance floor and a band (it was free to
park and walk around the area, with admission being charged only if you
wanted to enter the tent). Peering inside, I noticed only a few people
inside talking or dancing, but still decided to pay the admission, as at
N$20/US$3.28, it really wasn't that expensive. After hanging around inside
the tent for a few minutes, I left to walk around outside again. Asking the
lady selling millennium T-shirts if anything was planned for midnight, she
answered that originally there was to be fireworks, but the company set to
provide them cancelled -- so there now wouldn't be any at all. She also
mentioned that earlier, it had been quite windy, but by now, the wind had
died down, and it actually was quite a pleasant evening.
Not having much else to do, I walked over to the base of the dune, where
I noticed someone near the top, shining a flashlight down. After having
climbed dune after dune at Sossusvlei, I decided I'd try this one for a bit:
it was much steeper than it looked though, and 3/4ths of the way up seemed
to be a good place to stop, relax, and look down at the goings-on below. By
this time, things were getting busier -- I could see a line of car lights
headed towards the area, and more and more people were beginning to arrive
(especially around 11:40pm-11:45pm). Lying out under the stars a bit
longer, I finally walked down the dune at about eight minutes before
midnight.
In the tent, the live band had stopped playing, but the DJ put on some
CDs. I walked around outside to watch everyone, and soon, the DJ was
counting down the seconds until midnight. When 12:00am came, everyone
cheered, and suddenly, there were lots of small fireworks lighting up the
sky -- not from the company that had cancelled, but from people that had
simply brought their own. These included small aeriel fireworks, bottle
rockets, and ground fountains -- but the best idea someone thought of was to
bring red signal flares -- for against the the sand, these signal flares
gave the entire area a reddish glow. During all this, I walked partially up
the dune again for a view of the fireworks before walking back down to the
parking lot. There, a group of teenagers was singing in a local African
language (they were quite good), and when I asked what they were singing,
one answered that it was a Christian song. Everyone here seemed to be
having a good time, and shortIy after midnight, I went over to the Telecom
Namibia trailer (inside of which was a row of blue card phones), to place
some calls to the U.S., where the New Year hadn't yet happened -- though I
just reached a lot of answering machines (still, I left a "calling from the
future -- whooooo!" message on a few of them).
At around 12:25am, I decided to leave (though people were still setting
off fireworks) -- but on the way out, my Honda became stuck in the sand!
The last stretch into and out of the dunes is over sand, but coming in, I
was driving fast enough where I had enough momentum not to get stuck.
Coming out though, I was driving slower, and without the momentum, the car
got stuck in a sand trap right by the entrance (an area at most the length
of two cars). Of course the more you step on the gas, the more the wheels
spin into the ground, so I stopped, not being sure what to do, as I watched
the line of cars behind me grow. Luckily, a guy in a 4x4 came up and said
he'd give me a tow out of the sand. He tied a rope to the front of the
Honda, and as he pulled, I stepped lightly on the gas. Soon I was out, and
just had to wait for someone to fetch a knife to cut the rope. While this
was going on, the guy's son told me they had already helped four other cars
out that night at the same spot.
Driving back carefully, I reached the hotel shortly after 1:00am. After
taking a shower, I opened the champaign and had just a sip. The party
downstairs at the hotel (that had closed the dining room early) was still
going on, but the loudest noise was coming from a building across the way on
the beach, with music loud enough to be heard downtown blasting out from it.
I resigned myself to the fact that it was New Years and I probably wouldn't
get much sleep, but in the end, the music stopped a little after 2:00am, and
I managed to catch a few winks.
Jan. 1: Walvis Bay
Last night before going to sleep, I set my watch for 6:10am in order to
see the sunrise, even though I knew it would rise on the other side of town,
rather than over the water. Up early, I made my way down to the rocks where
I had watched the sunset the night before, but sure enough, not only was the
sun rising in the opposite direction, but the nearby trees made viewing of
the sunrise impossible. I returned to the hotel room, but by now, couldn't
fall back to sleep, so a bit later, went down to have the included
breakfast, opting to eat outside, as it was turning into a beautiful day.
Some people were out already, enjoying the morning, but I'm sure most were
still in their beds trying to recover from whatever party they had attended
the night before.
After checking out of the hotel, I drove north along the salt highway up
the Skeleton Coast (because of the black dirt created by the constant
traffic, the road looks more like deteriorated tar than salt, but it
actually is a salt road). There are salt mines throughout the area, and the
landscape has a bleak, barren look to it.
The first town I stopped at was Henties Bay, a nice (if boring) town that
is of interest mainly to anglers and sport fishermen (most cars I passed
while driving up had long fishing poles attached to them). After spending
just a few minutes here, I drove further up the coast to the Cape Seal
Colony (yes, it was open even on New Years) -- an impressive stretch of
coastline where literally thousands of seals come to breed and live. It's
only a few N$ to enter, and in January, there were lots of young seal pups
squaking continously, sounding somewhat like a goats.
After watching the seals, I drove back south, backtracking through
Henties Bay and Swakopmund on the way to Walvis Bay. The road from
Swakopmund to Walvis Bay was the same one I had taken the night before to
get to Dune 7, but this afternoon, strong wind gusts were blowing sand onto
the road. About halfway between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, I saw the
turnoff for Dolphin Park -- the NBC (Namibian Broadcasting Corporation) had
originated its radio broadcasts from Dolphin Park over the past few days, so
I decided to stop and see what was there.
Dolphin Park isn't much, but it's cheap (N$6/US98c for adults, N$2/US33c
for kids), and the lady at the window was nice enough to let me have a quick
look around without charging me. Basically, it's just a large grassy area
with a swimming pool and a water slide (which all the kids were using) --
but it's a nice place for a picnic or afternoon family outing, and even with
the strong wind, there were plenty of people out enjoying the area. There
are accomodations here as well, but I have the feeling that most people just
make a day trip to the park.
Continuing on, I arrived into Walvis Bay a short time later. The city
has an interesting history that's worth pointing out: after WWII, South
Africa was given the United Nations mandate to administer the country (then
called South West Africa) after the Germans had occupied it. However,
because of its natural harbor, and its importance in fishing and salt
production, South Africa declared Walvis Bay to be part of its own Cape
Province in 1977 -- refusing to budge, even as the United Nations demanded
it be returned to the mandate. When Namibia gained independence in 1990,
the new constitution included Walvis Bay as part of its territory (naturally
so, since it's smack in the middle of the Namibian coast!), but South Africa
still laid claim to it. In 1992, when it was apparent that white rule in
South Africa was ending, they agreed to remove their border posts and
co-administer the area with Namibia -- but it wasn't until February, 1994
(with South Africa facing its first democratic election) that South Africa
gave in, and Namibia was finally able to take Walvis Bay as its own.
Arriving into downtown Walvis Bay, the sign outside the Protea Lodge
advertised rooms for N$320 -- a bit cheaper than I had been quoted, but they
honored the N$320 rate. The entire downtown area (as well as the hotel)
seemed deserted, even though when I later asked if I could change rooms (as
the air-con was blowing only room-temperature air), I was told the hotel was
fully-booked. Since I arrived at the Protea Lodge before the room was
ready, I set my things down, and decided to go for a walk. Outside, it
seemed as if the entire town was deserted (almost as if I was walking down
an empty studio backlot), and by now, the wind had kicked up even more,
blowing sand and debris in my eyes and mouth (mmmm... crunchy saliva!)
Being January 1st, most shops were closed, and the only open places I could
find at first were the petrol stations and a bar (luckily, the stations both
served food -- one made fresh takeaways, and the other had curry pies).
After my initial walk, I returned to the room for a bit to write some
postcards, but soon wanted to go back out again (I don't like sitting around
hotel rooms). I'm glad I decided to go out again, for once I left the
downtown area, things got better. Even though the wind remained strong, as
I walked closer to the water, it no longer kicked up much sand or debris
(something I couldn't understand, as there's more sand by the coast than
downtown!) At the waterfront itself it was low tide, and sprawled out along
the shore were dozens of enormous, orange-brown jellyfish the size of large
pizzas, as well as a few pelicans hanging around the restaurant/bar, open at
the end of the small pier. Continuing my walk, I soon reached the port
area, and though everything was now closed due to the holiday, I still
enjoyed being out in the strong wind, especially now that the sand was no
longer blowing in my face.
Walking back through Walvis Bay's residential section, I thought about
how the area could easily pass for Orange County, California, with its
modern (albeit small) comfortable homes, and wide residential streets. As
for the wind, I was later told by the Protea receptionist that strong winds
are quite common here, and in fact, almost all of the businesses I passed
had a sign on their door or window that read "OPEN -- door closed on account
of weather" (even though today they were obviously closed for New Years).
Reaching the downtown area again, I noticed a few "Chinese" shops: one
had a sign saying "Chinese Friendship Store" on it, and another was simply
called "Chinese Imports" (with Chinese writing on the sign). At first, I
didn't think these stores were actually Chinese-owned, but as time went by,
I was proven wrong: there is a small but ever-present ethnic Chinese
population in Africa, and virtually every African country -- from Swaziland
to Tanzania -- has a Chinese community (and at least a few "Chinese Shops"),
filled with cheap imports such as sandals, T-shirts, watches, toys, and
trashy radios (often bearing names like "Sunny" or "Philibs" instead of
"Sony" or "Philips"). The shops would never seem all that busy when I'd go
inside them, but apparently they do well enough to survive and flourish.
Looking through the window that day though, things weren't all that
inexpensive -- a nice comforter ran N$390/US$63.93 (not exactly cheap by
Namibian standards, especially for a Chinese import).
I walked over to the petrol stations to buy some takeaway for dinner,
then returned back to the hotel, feeling much better than when I first
arrived... and in the end, it turned out to be quite a nice afternoon. I
thought about the rest of the fully-booked hotel's guests (who had
apparently decided to stay in their rooms all afternoon), and felt sorry for
them -- for even though the wind had been strong, they all missed out on a
gorgeous day by staying in their hotel rooms. That night, I finished my
postcards, and gave them to the receptionist to mail for me.
Jan. 2: Omaruru / Otjiwarongo / Outjo
Before leaving Walvis Bay, I stopped at a petrol station in the morning
to make a few phone calls up to Etosha National Park, where I'd be heading
the following day. A few days earlier in Luderitz, I had called ahead to
make a reservation for myself for January 4th (in Okaukuejo) and January 5th
(in Namutoni), but I now wanted to move both of these reservations up a day
(to January 3rd and January 4th). I got ahold of Namutoni first, and was
able to change my January 5th reservation there to January 4th with no
problem, but when I tried to reach Okaukuejo, no one answered. Getting back
in the car, I drove onto Swakopmund, where I tried calling Okaukuejo once
again. This time they answered, but said their computers were now down and
suggested I just call Namutoni, as Namutoni could also take care of
Okaukuejo's reservations. So, I called Namutoni again -- but by this time,
THEIR computers were down as well, and was told to try back again in 30
minutes. In the town of Usakos, I tried Namutoni once more, and finally was
able to change my Okaukuejo reservation from January 4th to January 3rd.
Driving north, I came to the town of Omaruru, and stopped to get out and
walk around. Though there's nothing "special" about the place, Omaruru is
quite pleasant, and the town has a nice feel to it. People here are
friendly (not always the case in other parts of the country), and both the
main and side streets are fun to walk through. Parking the Honda on a small
residential street, I planned to spend just a few minutes, but wound up
staying a good two hours.
After walking through Omaruru's residential streets, I decided to have a
look at Franke's Tower (erected in 1908 to commemorate a German victory over
the native Heroro forces). You can obtain a key for the gate from the Hotel
Stebe, but to get to the tower, you must walk across a wide, dry riverbed.
In my mind, I kept wondering how people get across this riverbed during the
rainy season (there seemed to be no other way across other than to walk --
and though above me was a wire that stretched from one bank to the other,
there was no bridge of any kind attached to it). The dry riverbed was
filled with footprints, and the locals I passed while walking towards the
tower were all friendly, and smiled. I really like this town.
Having stopped off for the key at the Hotel Stebe, I was soon checking
out Franke's Tower. It's really nothing special, but you can open the door
and walk up the stairs inside to the top, where you have a nice view of the
area. While I was there, a German couple came by to look around, and joined
me on top. Walking back to the car, I noticed a sign in the Omaruru Post
Office: "Fast Mail" to certain South African cities (Pretoria, Cape Town,
Kimberly, etc.) took six business days!
After a few hours, I left Omaruru and stopped in the town of Otjiwarongo
for lunch. Otjiwarongo is a large town, and a nice place to look around.
When I returned here later in my trip, it was a bustling, major city, but
today, most places were closed, and the streets quiet. I did find one store
with a lunch counter open though, so I ordered some toasted sandwiches and
picked up a much-needed newspaper.
Because of the heat, I had been wearing shorts everyday, but driving in
the car, I'd constantly have sun beating down on my legs. It was too hot to
wear long pants, but I didn't want my legs getting burnt either, so I found
a solution: take a newspaper, and place it over my legs -- it wasn't as
stuffy as wearing long pants, but still protected my legs from the sun. In
the store where I had lunch, I wanted to pick up a paper, but all they had
were Afrikaans papers. Still, since I wasn't exactly buying one to read, I
decided to pick one up. When I tried to pay for it though, the cashier
wouldn't take my money, telling me that the special Millennium New Years
edition (dated 1-1-00, but which arrived on December 31st), was being given
away for free. I gladly took it, and put it to good use while driving.
When I reached Outjo, the town looked even more deserted than
Otjiwarongo. It seemed that everywhere in Namibia, cities would be empty
and desolate until businesses start up again on Tuesday.
In Outjo, I checked into the Hotel Onduri, which turned out to be one of
the worst places I stayed at on my trip (and a major rip-off). I was the
only one in the whole hotel, and when I arrived, a black porter met me and
checked me in (though later, I met the owner -- a white, German-speaking
Namibian). I was originally quoted a rate of N$255 over the phone, but upon
arriving, the porter showed me a room in the attached wing (rather than the
main hotel building) and told me the rate would be N$190. Good enough, but
after he left, I noticed there was no electricity for the wall sockets or
the air-con -- only the overhead light worked. For N$190, I wanted
electricity (the hotel's brochure makes this seem like a nice, posh hotel --
it certainly isn't). The porter tried to fix the problem, but was
unsuccessful -- so he then moved me into a neighboring room, with no better
luck. Finally, he just smiled and said "well, I guess no electricity..."
Then I asked him "well, what about a r