February 12 through 20, 2023
"Gonna take some time to do the things we never had..." - Toto (Africa)
Namibia was recommended to me by a few people who had visited and said it was tourist-friendly and pretty safe, and absolutely beautiful. It was all of those things in very unique ways. I signed up for a 7-day highlights tour (Art chose to stay behind in Cape Town, which turned out to be the right decision for him) and I joined a group of 6 other solo travelers as part of the Chameleon Safari tour. I learned more than a few things along the way, about Namibia and about myself.
1) I learned that Namibia was colonized by the Germans and later the British, and like much of colonialism, it didn't go well. A large proportion of two major tribes were killed by the Germans in the early 1900's, then they finally left after 1915. Soon after, South Africa stepped in and said they would be happy to run Namibia (which was called "Southwest Africa" at the time). That went reasonably well until the 1940's when apartheid started in full force. Then both South Africa and Namibia suffered at the hands of the Dutch. Finally in the 1990's Namibia broke off and declared its independence (after much fighting) and around 1993 apartheid ended in South Africa. They are many reminders of colonialism in both places, with lots of German architecture and schools still in Namibia. I think the Germans still feel like it's kinda their country 😟
2) Namibia has a rather arid climate and is sorely lacking in water. This was mentioned everywhere we went. Some tribes we visited have no water at all, and manage to clean themselves with a paste of ochre and plant oils. I have no idea if that really works but they mostly looked healthy.
3) We visited a few tribes who still live very traditionally (foods, clothing, etc.). I remember seeing a Namibian family in the movie Babies about a decade ago and I swear it was the one I visited here. They were eager to share with us how they lived and encouraged photo-taking. Mostly they encouraged us to buy their handicrafts (bags, bracelets, dolls). I think they make a very meager living.
4) A big highlight of Namibia is the desert and the dunes which makes up a lot of the country. We got to take a 4x4 jeep ride up and over the dunes which was thrilling and a bit unnerving. I also got to climb some dunes (I really need to stop climbing at my age) and I'm fairly sure I will still have sand in my shoes when I return in June 😜
5) The tour guide we had was very nice which made up for the extremely long driving days and the very bumpy roads (very few of the roads are paved). Happily we stopped enough to break up the long days (Art would have hated the drives) and we got to relax with decent lodging each night (sometimes even better than decent). I learned what a "bush toilet" is and that you should always bring toilet paper with you in Namibia 😳
6) The meals were pretty good (many were made by our tour guide on-site at the desert camps) and we got to try different game (oryx, zebra, etc). That was interesting especially since we had often just seen those animals on game drives the same day 😲 I will admit that one of my favorites was kudu (don't knock it til you've tried it).
7) I had a roommate the whole time - a lovely 19-year-old young woman from Austria - who luckily had similar hygiene and sleep habits. I'm glad I didn't get paired up with anyone with bad body odor (they were some of those in the group 👀). But I also learned that I prefer my own room at this point in my life.
8) Except for the long drives, I was glad to have seen the country. It's definitely worth a visit and at the moment it's pretty uncrowded with tourists. COVID really hurt their tourism economy for sure but they're slowly recovering.
9) We went on many game drives (saw giraffes, rhinos, cheetahs, oryx, zebras, wildebeest, springbok, and much more), visited a popular seaside town called Swakopmund, went to the dunes at Soususvlei (like Death Valley), saw shipwrecks on the Skeleton Coast, stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn sign (cool!), and drove to Sandwich Harbor (where the dunes back right up to the ocean, whoa!).
10) Lastly I learned that I can survive without wifi (which was weak and intermittent anyway). I finished one book and am a third of the way through another. On track for my annual reading goal (of 26 books).
In other news, weirdly my left arm is now aching daily (I think it's either a pinched nerve or a muscle spasm 😧) Whatever it is, it doesn't respond well to my heavy backpack (or to Tylenol for that matter), but I'm managing... I'm behind on blogs (sorry) due to the wifi issues in Namibia. I'll try to catch up tomorrow with my part 2 of South Africa (and we head to India very soon!).
Deena and Art
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