Swakopmund, Namibia

My most recent trip, (likely my last until the end of the semester due to the amount of work that I am finally being forced to complete before the end of the semester) was to Swakopmund, Namibia. This means that while in Africa I have managed to see both the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans and can easily say that the Atlantic was pretty lame. The very first thing I noticed upon getting into Swakopmund and finding the nearest stretch of beach was that it was almost identical to the Oregon Coast. For those who have never been to the Oregon Coast (or perhaps Washington or Northern California coasts, I’m a bit biased) it wasn’t the easter Break vacation to the beach that I was envisioning. I definitely could have replaced my swimming trunks and t-shirts for a sweatshirt and a wool cap. The water was far too cold to swim in except if you lost a bet, sitting on the shore required sweatshirts or light jackets (neither of which I had, which is why I know they were required), the town itself was small and quiet with plenty of tourists, and 20 minutes inland it was too hot to move. Really, the biggest difference is that everybody spoke Afrikaans and that finding a place to eat lunch was almost impossible since the restaurants didn’t open until 5PM. This last part generally meant that we woke up late, snacked on something from a grocery store that was open, and then fasted until exactly 5PM when we would rush to a restaurant (usually a pizza place because it was cheap, delicious, filling, and the waitress was kinda cute) to eat a day’s worth of food in an hour. This would of course ruin our dinners so we would generally nap for a bit and then eat something lighter around 10, when restaurants started to close. 4 of the 5 of our group were wholeheartedly accepting of this lifestyle and schedule. 1 was less so. It caused a few problems. But like any good group of 5 college aged guys, we just ignored the issue for the most part and had a good time in spite of it. At least I had a good time.

While in Namibia, I spent the majority of my time outside of Walvis Bay (about an hour south of where we were staying) playing around on something called Dune 7. This dune is one of the largest dunes that people have access to, the other giant dunes being in conservation areas and as such are off limits for climbing or playing on. My version of playing on the dune involved hiking to the top and throwing myself down it headfirst on a waxed piece of masonite board. In all fairness, the board did have a string in the front to hold on to so I wasn’t totally at the mercy of the dune. All I can say is that it was awesome. It was also exhausting because for every 30 second ride down the dune, we would be forced to climb back up for about 10 or 15 minutes. And the only way we found to stop was by crashing, sometimes pretty badly. We’re pretty sure one of my friends dislocated a couple fingers and I’m very surprised I didn’t break something on my last trip down. The dune that we were on had a very steep side by a parking/picnic area and a much more gently sloping side. We did all our rides down the gentle side because it was easier to climb back up and significantly less terrifying looking. After breaking a chunk of my board off (I think with my chest…) we decided we should head back to the car. We also decided the best way down the steep side of the dune was by sliding down it. I think the heat was starting to get to us at this point because it was clearly not a smart idea. Needless to say, our last trip down the dune didn’t end nearly as well as we had hoped. My friend went first, made it halfway down, slipped off, and buried his face in the sand. According to him, his head was literally in the ground. I have no way of knowing for sure, though, since as soon as I made sure he was still moving, I jumped on my board and headed down. I quickly realized that I was in the same track as he had been in. This realization came at about the same time that I broke the rope off my board and was left just sitting on my board hoping I wouldn’t fall off. After spinning around once and managing to stay on, I looked down hill (down dune?) and realized that I was headed straight for my friend who had just managed to extract himself from the sand. We made eye contact, both realized I was going straight at him and he leapt out of the way just before I got to where he had been trying to extract his board from the sand. I also tried to jump out of the way, which only led to me heading face first into the sand. Considering this was our only means of braking, it wasn’t that unintelligent of an idea. My immediate thought, in fact, was along the lines of “okay at least I’m stopping.” This was quickly followed, however, by “ay, I’m not stopping.” By the time I finally slowed enough to grab onto the sand and stop I looked back and saw that I had flown, tumbled, and slid about 30 feet from where my board was stopped. After making sure I was still in one piece, I climbed back up to my board and tried to slide the rest of the way down. I immediately crashed (probably because I only had about 1/3 of a board left) and decided it would be a good time to walk down the hill and find some place flat for a while.

All in all, the Namibia trip was incredible, mostly because it allowed me to get out of Botswana, and into an entirely different landscape. Heading to Namibia you go through the Kalahari Desert (more like a savannah with small shrubs and trees and grasses), a small mountain range, the Kalahari again, the Namib Desert (a real, flat desert with sand and everything!), a ton of huge sand dunes, and then the beach. We headed north one afternoon into an area that was incredibly depressing due to a lack of anything in it. The place was empty. The most exciting thing we saw, apart from the occaisional fisherman’s shacks along the water, was a pile of salt. The salt amazed us so much that we actually all stopped, took pictures of the salt, and even tasted a little bit to be sure that it was in fact salt. The area was flat, brown, has rocks sometimes but usually not, and there’s a bunch of fog. I have never seen an area that more fully encapsulates the word ‘desolate.’ To add to the sense of nothingness in the area, we had no radio, everyone has silent, and there was no other noise except for the wind coming through the windows. This is all broken up when out of nowhere you pull up to a seal reserve with a fancy lodge (about $150 per night for single room) next to it. None of us could understand why anyone would pay that much money to stay in someplace so out of the way but there were a few guests there drinking in a glass porch. We looked around for a few minutes, met the lodge owner who tried to get us into the seal reserve (it had closed 10 minutes before we got there) and then headed back to our hostel to eat and rest for the marathon trip back to Gabs the next morning.