A Special Day

Every day of our journey has been special - just when you think you think you're saturated with exotic landscapes, awesome wildlife, or interesting people, something or someone new comes around the corner, or the light hits from a brilliant new angle.
But today truly is special: Jenny Carver turns 58! Traveling with her has been easy and fun, despite being together 24/7 for weeks on end, sharing a small space. She's a great traveler, fascinated by the geography, geology, biology, history and culture of wherever we are. And as you know, she can instantly break the ice and chat up anyone, from an uber-serious German birdwatcher to an Afrikaaner family in a campsite to a Kavango herdsman. Lack of common language presents no barrier!
So happiest of birthdays to my great companion and love, from the banks of the Kwando River, en route to Botswana...

Nighttime on the Kwando River

As I write this, I'm inside the tent of our camper, listening to a natural symphony: tree frogs, which here seem to tinkle like wind chimes, crickets, miscellaneous birds hooting, whistling and squawking. And out in the water, deep breathing sounds and once in a while a sound like something huge stepping out of a bath - hippos! The river is only a stone's throw away, but I won't be throwing anything, or even leaving the tent. We've been warned to stay inside if we hear hippos grazing - makes sense to me!
The moon is full, so it's magical, just as it was on the Okavanga at Ngepi Camp the past 2 nights.  These campsites are beautiful, well set up and cheap, with interesting travelers to chat with, and lush rivers, forests and grasslands to gaze at and explore a bit by boat. Even though we're further north, the nights are cooler, so sleeping is easier, especially with the night's music all around.

Crossing the Line

Between Grootfontein and Rundu in northern Namibia, there's an exact spot where everything changes. You stop at a checkpoint, cross over a game gate, and you're in a different world - people said that's where the real Africa begins, and we see what they mean. South of there it's still very different than Canada, but there are towns, then open country with desert, scrub, a few farms. North of the line, there are suddenly people everywhere, and village after village, simple homes of mud and wattle, thatched roofs, stick or reed fences surrounding family (?) compounds called kraals. The vegetation gets greener, and there are real trees, even forests. Water was an issue throughout Namibia, but here it became the prime preoccupation, women and children balancing buckets on their heads, carrying water from communal wells along the road to their homes. I can't pretend to know much about the social structure, but it appears like women are doing most of the work, a lot of men chatting under trees and drinking in the numerous shabeens (tiny shack bars), although the herding of cattle and goats is a male domain, and some men will be employed, maybe far from home.
Rundu is a bustling town on the Okavango river, looking across to Angola in the north. It may seem obvious, but it's almost completely black, as opposed to other Nam towns where there was always a white presence, and sometimes a partly European feel. Had a great chat with a couple of girls working at our lodge - they need to speak several languages in addition to their own Kavanga just to get a job, and were very bright and easy to talk to about their lives. One was born on the exact day and year as our Emma, in vastly different circumstances, but like her, thriving.

Etosha

The Etosha Pan is a vast dry mud flat that becomes a shallow lake when there's abnormal flooding in the rainy season, about every 10 years. Still waiting for the main rains this year, but we had a spectacular thunderstorm at the Halali campsite two nights ago.
The main attraction is game, wandering through the brush, galloping across the edge of the pan, and especially at waterholes, where fascinating interactions happen. We watched for hours as one species, then another and another would arrive, drink, wallow and leave.  All are extremely wary, watching for predators, spooked by the least movement, yet sometimes bold. For instance, we saw a scrawny lion kill a baby warthog (sad, especially when the parents circled back, squealing their protest but galloping off in the end). But then hundreds of animals just watched the lion eating, frozen in place, and a group of giraffes actually circled the lion, fairly close, just staring at it. The whole scene is often like Noah's ark, each animal taking its turn, and some intermingling like the zebras and wildebeasts. Endlessly watchable, and you're right in the midst of things, just driving around with your windows down, looking for the next scene.
Last note: this morning we saw a Bark Snake bite and kill a chameleon, then swallow it, right in our campsite. Pics later. Yikes, we'll be careful!

Namibians

Just a few more people we encountered along the way - Damara men, a family in a donkey cart near Uis, Herero women in traditional dress in Outjo, a truck crew. Also shown is Jeffrey (very African name), who ran the remote Hoada campsite, built around huge boulders - we loved it.

Roads, Moonscapes and Tires

We've had the privilege of driving thousands of km through landscapes in Namibia that are beautiful, surreal, infinitely varied, sometimes peopled but usually not. And harsh - sudden potholes, corrugation and sharp stones that stab through tires.  We carry two spares, and often crawl along after blowing a tire, because you don't want to be down to no spares in the middle of nowhere in the heat. 
One memorable night we took a loop that looked easy and logical on the map, but ended up being totally empty and very bad for long slow stretches. The campsite we thought we'd find didn't materialize, so at dusk we just pulled off into the desert. A serene night with moon, stars, wind, antelope, mountains and miles of emptiness, my favorite night yet although our nerves were a little on edge.
Each tire repair has been an experience, with dozens of roadside people attacking the problem efficiently with minimal tools. We've done our own tire changes, but blew one near Grootberg in front of a family's very modest house, so we had the 4 boys pictured below helping us in no time - lots of laughs and a way for them to make some money. So far not one negative experience with local people.

Cape Cross Seals

Atlantic coast of Namibia, cold current, chilly foggy air a contrast to the heat just inland. No precipitation, so just a barren flat coast dotted with shipwrecks, except for the explosion of life here at the seal colony. 250,000 of them, swarming like insects. Babies were 3 months old, scampering down to the sea, then back to somehow find their own mom. Constant barking and squealing, big stench, but thrilling!

Namibia!

We've just spent our first week in the camper, loving the outdoor tenting feeling but with a bit of luxury like a fridge and being up off the ground (though not higher than a lion can reach, for the record...) We drove from Capetown almost to the border the first day, and then to Fish River Canyon in the south of Namibia.  It's huge, deep, awe-inspiring etc.!  Also very dry - the river only flows when the rains come, which should be now, but so far nothing, so it's a drought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Namibian campsites are plagued by baboons, rather than bears... 

 

We're driving through ridiculously gorgeous landscapes, changing all the time with location and the time of day.  Things are hot, up to 42 degrees, but as they say, it's a dry heat, more like being in an oven than a sauna!  This was the road into our campsite at Namtib, 12 km of sand, sometimes slushy like deep snow.  We've learned how to deflate the tires and shift to 4WD Low.

 

The view from our campsite.  We were the only campers, and the lodge was 2 km away - solitude!

 

Sunrise brings the vibrant desert colours to life

 

 

Endless huge dunes at Sossusvlei 

 

A shifting dune cut off the water supply to these trees at Deadvlei 600 years ago! 

 

 

Some trees do manage to thrive, or at least survive, in this harsh world

 

 

 

Ostrich, oryx and springbok also eke out a living  

 

 

 

Oryx (gemsbok) on the run, inland from the dunes. Still very dry but there are sparse grasses to graze

 

 

Some farmers (and tourists) have 4x4's; others don't...

 

 

It's Independence Day this week, so there are festivities even in supermarkets, like these Ovanga (?) traditional dancers.

 

 

Our kind hosts, the Vignes in Windhoek.  (my apologies for likely errors in this synopsis...) Piers (Jenny's cousin once removed) worked with the UN Refugee commission on resettlement and agricultural projects in Thailand, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Angola, and now works with a German fund, atoning for near-genocides in their colonial period here, to fund community-driven projects such as wells, schools and agricultural tools.  Katrine is finishing Grade 12 and gave us a window into teenage life at her school, and Hella worked with Namibian and South African anti-apartheid groups in London and Namibia, and stayed when independence from South Africa was unexpectedly won.