So, the first day we got here and they had Namibian school children come on the boat to sing and dance for us. Then we had a diplomatic briefing from the US Ambassador to Namibia and from the Chief Security Officer of Namibia.
Then we got of the boat and immediately got into a taxi (we were traveling in a group of 7: Me, Henry, Kyle and his girlfriend from Hawaii named Amelia, and then two of Amelia's friends Kristen and Kelly... Kelly has cousins in Pawleys Island and lives there every summer.. I remember her from summer in like 10th grade, as well as another guy.
Anyway so the seven of us got in a taxi and went to Swakopmund (our ship was docked in Walvis Bay, but that is a really industrial area, and Swakopmund, about 30 miles north, is the place to go). We had a beach house rented, which was only $190 bucks a night, and really nice, only a block from the beach, and so we checked in and got our stuff dropped off, and went to walk around the town.
The entire country of Namibia is the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined, but has fewer people than in Houston alone, so it is VERY sparsely populated. Swakopmund is about the size of Pawley Island, and has the same small beach town feel. It is very westernized because it used to be a German colony. So we walked around the town and did a little shopping at a market, I bought some sweet salad tossing forks that are wooden and have elephants carved in the handles, and then we walked along the beach to this cool restaurant on stilts on the ocean and had lunch there.
Namibia is known for its oysters, so we had some of those at lunch, they were really good but kind of small. Then we went to the beach for a little bit. After that we went back to our beach house and got ready for dinner. We went out to eat at this oceanfront restaurant called Lighthouse, which was really good, and the sunset over the water was absolutely stunning (I took exactly fifty pictures of it).
The next morning, we got picked up at about 9:30 am to go SANDBOARDING on the dunes!A little bit about the geography of Namibia: Basically, you have the ocean, and then a road that goes between the ocean and these HUGE SAND DUNES - overall, the sand dune area is about a mile wide. After the sand dunes, there is about thirty or so miles of flat, dry, sandy desert. Then, almost out of nowhere, the landscape drops down into an area knows as the Moon Landscape. It used to be an underwater ocean, but not it looks like the surface of the moon, and then there are bigger mountains off in the distance…but we didn‘t see anything past the big dunes until the second day.
So we went sandboarding on the dunes, it was fun but very hot trekking up the dunes carrying a snowboard. Well worth it though. It was only 35 USD and included lunch, drinks, and all equipment.
Henry and I had to leave early because we were signed up for a Semester at Sea trip that night and had to be back at the boat at 1:30 to leave for that. So one of the sand boarding instructors drove us to our beach house from sandboarding and dropped us off. On the way, he drove us through a township, which is basically a community for the poorer people of Africa, and showed us around.
The driver was really cool and loved Henry's shoes (they were the Reef flip flops with the bottle opener underneath), so Henry traded them to the guy for two sandboarding t-shirts.
Then we got back to the boat and left for our "Camping and Stargazing"trip. It was awesome, and nothing like I expected.
We got into some 4-wheel drive Landcruisers and left for what was about an hours drive to our campsite. Until this trip, I assumed that the sand dunes when on forever, and that that is what the desert of Namibia looked like. Wrong.
So we drove past the dunes into the flat dry desert area and then down into the dried up bottom of the ocean area that looked like the moon. It was incredible looking; I can’t wait to get my pictures online so everyone can look. Our campsite was in a valley between two huge cliffs - they had tents set up and everything for us, as well as a local band.
O yea, another cool fact, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted one of their kids from Swakopmund, Namibia. The band that we had was the same one that played for the adoption ceremony.
Anyway, we had about 5 hours to hike around before dinner. Everything was really dry and there was hardly any vegetation or animals. It was amazing because most of the landscape hadn’t changed in thousands of years, and is completely untouched by humans. We saw a few desert lizards and the “Dew beetles” (these beetles are about the size of a quarter and burrow their heads under the sand and put their butts in the air in order to catch the dew in the air. Then it trickles down their body into their mouth. I got so pictures of this.).
During dinner, the Namibian band played, and it rained for about 5 minutes. ALL OF THE NAMIBIAN LOCALS WENT CRAZY. The average rainfall per year in Namibia is only 11-13 MILLILITERS!
After that, around 10pm, we walked into this big open valley where an astronomer showed us all sorts of constellations and told us some other cool stuff about the night sky. This was awesome! After that, I went to bed. It was really hot and sort of hard to sleep.
The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast and hiked around a little bit more. There was an ancient riverbed that was completely dry the day before, and we could see a little bit of water start trickling in. About twenty minutes later, the ancient riverbed was about two feet deep and about ten feet wide, full of rushing water. The locals said that this hadn’t happened in over 20 years, and we ecstatic. Then we got picked up in the 4X4 vehicles and headed back to Walvis Bay.
When we got back, it was around noon, and we had six hours until we had to be back on the boat. Henry and I got back into a taxi and headed to Swakopmund again, where we walked around and did a little shopping. Then we went ATV-ING through the dunes on a guided tour for about an hour. It was really fun, but I almost fell down the side of a dune along with my extremely heavy 4-wheeler because I didn’t go fast enough up it. We got some t-shirts and well as some cool pictures and a video that I took from my old, small digital camera. Then we headed back to Walvis Bay and got on the ship. That was the end of my Namibian adventure. I definitely want to come back here in the very near future, it was absolutely amazing.
There are a lot of interesting politics going on right now because 7 uranium mines have been discovered in the moon-valley regions of Namibia - making the country the world’s leader in uranium supply. NOT GOOD for Namibia because MNCs will take this land over and the money will not go to Namibia at all. (Another fact - Namibia has the world’s largest economic disparity between the wealthy and the poor).
By Elizabeth Elliott
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