Week one in ZA..Namibia

WEEK ONE

DAY 1 - Monday - 1.7.13
Up at 5 am for a 6 am ride by Shirley Kramer to Park n Ride. Three hours later we were checked in at United and wheel chaired to the gate for a 2.5 hour wait.  Off on time for Dulles and a 1 hour wait.  Left at 5:30 eastern  local time and flew all nite arriving at our midpoint in Dakar Senegal for new crew, fuel and food at 6:00 am local.. during a one hour layover we stayed on the plane.  So far over 4500 miles and 8 hours.

DAY 2 - Tuesday - 1.8.13
Took off after 1 hour of cleaning, refueling and taking on food. We took off at 7:00 and flew 8:10 hours and 4000+ miles down the east coast of Africa to Johannesburg.  Gary and Diane Cowan, who we met on a ferry from Croatia to Italy in '04 and who we visited in '06, met us at our plane.  We successfully got 5000 Rand from the ATM.  It was amazing how our tight schedule and arrival plans, about which we worried, worked out. it is amazing given how complicated our travel tasks and needs are compared to some previous trips, or perhaps we worry more.

 We went to their home to stay as tomorrow we shall fly with them and their two boys (now young men) to Windhoek Namibia and touring there. Gary and Diane own and run a head hunting company called Jobsafrica.  Also they buy and renovate houses, thus we have now stayed in 3 of the developing enterprises.  They manage great work.  They have been great friends and guides for us in South Africa and have planned the details some of our previous visit to SA and the coming week in Namibia. They will be our guides there for a week as Gary was stationed there when he was conscripted to the military.  After a week they will fly home and we shall use our usual roaming style for another week in Namibia.  Gary and Diane regularly travel to Europe and Southeast Asia. Their 4 children (2 of whom where in high school the last time we were here) are now all in college  and have their respective boy and girl friends here during their summer break. - when the kids graduate G/D can retire and use the money for more traveling.  It was neat to be in a group of college students over dinner.  Our time is really screwed up and I am typing this at 1 am... Or whatever time I am on.  We got a call in the nite from friends in the Mt Pleasant area that  Wanda Frey succumbed to cancer.  She and her husband, Wig, were members of our church in IN and they farmed about 5 miles from us... Wig is notorious for his tobacco chewing, even in the church service with a styrofoam cup.. We often met at the local cattle auctions.

DAY 3 - Wednesday - 1.9.13
Up at 4 am to make a 6:30 flight to Windhoek. Breakfast in the airport then on the Air Namibia plane.  Arrived at 8am , 2 hrs before our 8 passenger people hauler (BB 84 CN) is to be ready but because it had to be prepared and repaired (diesel fuel filter was bad) we had to wait til after 11. Finally, we loaded up and head 25 miles to/thru Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. The city was bustling and clean with no signs of severe poverty visible.  We are not sure yet which time zone we are in - exhausted and falling asleep periodically while Gary drives. The main road north is very good until we needed to angle NW to Etosha Pan, covering 300 miles, and the Namibian Wildlife Resorts. The terrain is level with low mtns in the background. The vegetation varies from little vegetation and burned brown to green lush grasses where rain has fallen, dotted with termite mounds.. In the lusher areas are cattle farms and game farms with high fencing. We stopped to shop in Okahandja and moved on. We checked into the Etosha National Park housing near Okaukuejo by 5, seeing a giraffes, gemsbok, crooked horned type deer, tortoises, guineas, baboons, ostrich, warthogs, and springbok. We had dinner at the camp lodge and had a good meal with some wild animal meat- gemsbok. We went to the animal viewing at the camp watering hole, but due to rain and exhaustion, we retired to bed. What a sleep....

DAY 4 - Thursday - 1.10.13
Up at 7 and great breakfast before moving rooms for a good half pension deal. In the van for the look at wild life and the Pan fauna. The land is mostly a level plan with savannah in parts and short trees and scrubs in others.  The list is long - black backed jackal, marshall eagles, hawks, zebra, baboons, wart hogs, guineas, yellow mongoose, giraffes+, Kari bastard birds, ostriches +, leopard tortoise and tarpon, honey badges, Chameleon, 10 inch millipedes, springbuck, family of young jackals, wildebeest, gemsbok, oryx+, hartebeest, etc in our 200 mile drive on gravel- roads. Back at 5 for a restful beer and 6:30 dinner with 2 wild meats - gemsbok and élan. Exhausted but enriched. Temps were in the 80s and the windows open. Suffering from a cold caught on the plane in only my right sinus.  No animals came to the observation watering hole tonite.

DAY 5 - Friday - 1.11.13
Breakfast at 6am for a 6:30 viewing ride. Our crew, other than Diane and Gary, are their sons, Rogan and Gordon.  Gordon is a junior and Rogan a freshmen at Rhodes Univ in Grahamstown. Rogan is of note for his rugby playing.

      .... LIONS! Someone saw the movement of washed out yellow going to bushes 1000 meters away... We watched as 4 lions layed down in a bushy area for the day.  We returned 3 times to distantly identify their faces as they did not move from early morning until the gates closed at 6:30.  I doubt any other persons saw them or knew the lions were there. We saw Jackal families, BABIES of wildebeest & springbok... 4 boks- spring, oryx, gems & steer + hartebeest.. We drive 50 miles seeing ... Running spotted hyena, jackals+, wildebeest herd w/4 young, brown eagle arguing with a crow-like bird, many Kari Bastard birds, many carcuses, large flock of ostriches+, millipedes, many huge society bird nestings, Jackal eating on a kill, several herds of zebras with very young, Jackal feeding on a baby zebra, vultures, and ground squirrels.

Rained most of the nite. Bushes and trees that look burned up in the dry season are sprouting new leaves of lite green and some flowers as this rainy season starts. There will be large areas of green short grasses and then black-brown areas which have not gotten enough rain to come alive. Contrasts!
Our afternoon drive yielded about the same volume of sightings, but added Kudu, marabou stork, impalas, and a secretary bird.  Back before the gates to our compound were closed until sunrise tomorrow (so we are safe inside, except for the local jackal). Big discussion about US and SA.



DAY 6 - Saturday - 1.12.13
Some were up at 6:30 to make an hour drive while others slept and packed before breakfast and off to the coast... They got back to eat breakfast, collected everyone and headed out for our next destination- Kamanjab on tarred roads. The 2nd leg of the trip was 150 KM and we arrived by 11:30 to stay at Oasi Garni Guest House ("an oasis amid the dust") without AC but the common areas are comfortable and it had wifi. M and I went for a ride around town and surrounding area- a petrol station, market, 2 banks (ATM's), 2 schools, 3 guest camps/houses and a township. We drove a few KM east (gravel rd) and north (tarred rd at least here and possibly to Angola) and visited the township..

This area is very remote and has little to claim. The farming appears to be in very large plots and must require a huge acreage to sustain animals - cattle, sheep and goats. At 3:30 we left for the Himba village tour (250 Namibian dollars- $56 total ) on a 15000 acre of the farmer provided half his acres to the Himba people (initially nomadic) who developed a village for an orphanage and a few families. They are an extremely basic people who, if what we saw today is true, live the life of tribespeople with no amenities now or historically. When we were shown their living circumstances the women were bare-breasted and wore hand-made beaded adornments around their necks, chests, arms, wrists and ankles, loin cloths, amazing hair extensions with clay and animal skin decorations, and sometimes wore skins around the waist or neck down the back. The young girls wore fewer adornments (as they haven't had the time to make them), and the young children wore loincloths solely with some hair braiding. All people were adorned with some ocre (red powder).  We were told that the money we gave them would be used to purchase basic supplies, but realistically its their living. The entire area is red dirt with very little grass or weeds (but a lot of life's debris, apparently there for a long time), including their entire living area. We saw two clusters of roundos, with the buildings being in somewhat poor shape and positioned at least 20-30 ft apart in a circle generally. They are similar but smaller than the one we visited on our last trip to SA. They move back and forth between the tribes up north, and this group is "resupplied" from north. We were told that this group has a large herd of animals which graze in a large area of the farm. As we were leaving the area we noticed fully dressed women and children going out of the living area and 3 men at a roundo off to the side.

We got news this afternoon that our friend Cindy's mother passed away in Madison. R feels lousy with a sinus cold so we stayed in for grilled cheese and listened to the IU vs MN basketball game- okay!. R drugged himself and slept thru the nite. We had a letter from Mashishing regarding a reception, which required an immediate response.

DAY 7 - Sunday - 1.13.13
BAD MORNING - we learned the Pack lost!  Slept well last night 2ndary to pain and sleeping meds so as to catch up on restful sleep, unlike the last three nights of toss and turn, up and down. We have 7:30 breakfast so we can do the long drive to Hentes Bay, the seal colony, and Swakpumund today.  Drove 100 Kms and visited the cousin of Diane in Omaruru and had a snack. The family works with sustainability for the Himba and reduced impact construction. We then proceeded 200+ Kms thru grasslands, hilly terrain with only scrub and some large hills, to flat out no-vegetation desert. As we approached Swakpo we could see the beautiful reddish-tan sand dunes south of the city.  We are staying at the Secret Garden Guest House, where Kelzie stayed in '02 when writing the "Lets Go" chapter on Namibia (still in print and not updated since as far as we know). As we dropped several thousand feet to sea level, Rs cold moved to his ears. Marnie remains the mainstay of this part of the operation.
END OF WEEK ONE....