I just had to start with that because it's true. Our adventure starts with a 22 hour bus ride from Cape Town to Windhoek Namibia. We decided to take the bus because it was far cheaper than an international flight. I was with 4 other friends and we were meeting up with two others who were flying into Windhoek. We had heard things about the bus company we were traveling with but didn't understand the extent of the rumors until we got on the bus and they played a welcome video that started with about 15 solid minutes of Jesus praise. As if that wasn't enough the whole bus ride was filled with Jesus movies and propaganda. The best was a section they played in the wee hours of the morning comparing atheists to Robsepierre and the reign of terror in France where he killed about 30,000 civilians. I don't really think you need god to tell you killing everyone is a dick move. Other than that the bus ride was relatively painless and we got to stop at gas stations that were like scenes out of the twilight zone: in ghost towns with an inch of dust covering everything in the store.
We made it to Windhoek and got picked up by our driver from Thimbi-Thimbi Adventure Safaris. Windhoek is the biggest city in Namibia, but that's not saying a lot considering Namibia is 4 times the size of England and has a population of 1.7 million. We made our way to the Thimbi office to sign our lives away and get supplies for the tour. Once we got there the tour organizer Sandra told us that our driver Martin had to go to the police station to try and get a temporary license because he was mugged the night before and, as Sandra said, had "a little bit" of a stab wound on his head. So much for small towns being the same as safe towns. The two friends we met up with told us that the people who worked at the hotel they stayed at said a woman had been on the street a week before and someone grabbed her purse and ran with it. The police saw it happen and instead of stopping the man to get the purse back just shot him dead on the spot. Welcome to Africa.
While we were waiting I bought some sweet sunglasses (the awesome pair of sunglasses my mom had got me from a box of cheerios when I was little (one of the only things I've ever had that said my name on it) were, and hopefully are, the first and last things I've had stolen in Cape Town). The boys picked up some Billtong (like beef jerky but BETTER) and we hung out. Finally we left in the bus only to be turned back at a check point because Martin didn't actually get a temporary license. (Over the duration of the trip Martin would prove to be kind of a useless d-bag. Hopefully a strongly worded e-mail from Caroline will get us some money back). Finally at about 2pm (6 hours after we were supposed to leave) we were on the road. After four hours of driving we made it to our campsite just in time to watch the end of a lovely sunset from the deck.
The next morning we woke up to go to Sossusvlei which is a clay river valley surrounded by huge red dunes. Here we climbed the biggest dune in the world: Big Daddy.
It doesn't look that big from the picture but trust me, it is. Climbing in sand is the most difficult thing to do, made even more difficult in the Namibian sun. But we finally made it to the top, exhausted sweaty and dirty but with a fabulous view. The best part was going down. To get to the top you have to walk and climb your way up a gradual but steep incline only the spine of other dunes. It took us about an hour and a half. To get down you run straight down the side of the dune at about a 45 degree angle. It takes about 5 minutes. Oh, I also feel it's important to mention I did all of this barefoot. Total hippy-earth-africa shit and I LOVED it.
Once we were at the bottom of the dune we walked back to the pick up point through Deadvlei (vlei means valley). Deadvlei has this name because the trees in the valley have been dead for 150 years. They're still there because there are no bugs to eat them and no wind to knock them over.
Needless to say we were all pooped when we got back to the campsite to hang out.
The next morning we got up and took down our campsite to make our way to Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. During the drive we got to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. We had lunch in Walvis Bay but it smelled like poop so we were eager to move about 50km up the coast to Swakopmund to do our first activity: quad biking! (Yes I'm rocking the flannel in the desert)
This was by far the best activity we did in Namibia. Riding ATVs through the sand with nothing but dunes for miles and miles made me feel like I was living inside Mario Kart. We did it in the later afternoon too so we came up upon a huge dune were we could see sand and the ocean to one side of us and the entire town of Swakopmund behind us.
That night we got to eat at a restaurant in town which was a nice change from eating outside and slept in a lovely little hotel in rooms with beds and showers and locks. The next morning the girls all decided to go sandboarding because we'd been told it was the thing to do in Namibia. The boys decided to get drunk on a bay cruise. Go figure.
We got picked up by a guy named Castro. The five of us were then joined by 3 more instructors from the sandboarding company. We figure they must have been bored to all come along. Caroline and Kelly decided to do the kind of sand boarding were you stand like snowboarding, but Mel and I felt lazy and just wanted to do the kind where you lie on a piece of particle board and zoom head first down the dunes. It was a good choice because you go super fast where you lie down. This is a video of Caroline trying it and eating shit because she didn't hold the front of the board up enough:
The guys we were hanging out with were super cool pseudo-rastas who just wanted to have a good time and talk. They wanted us to stay in Namibia to hang out with them because there are only a handful of people who live in Swakopmund and sandboard. They were trying to get a sandboarding gang together. We had lunch and a few beers with them on the beach and they showed us some rasta hand signals and told us about wanting to go snowboarding. They invited us to their boss' birthday and party but we had to head back to Winhoek.
That night we stayed in a hostel so we could make our flight this morning. The cost of the flight was completely worth not having to be on a bus for 22 hours again. Especially if they were just going to show us the SAME Jesus films over again.
Overall Namibia was completely incredible and worth every penny I spent. It might be the last bit of serious traveling I do before I come home (in less than a month I might add) and it was definitely a good note to end on.
Love and Kisses, miss you all!
Laurel
