Road Trip, southern Africa.

[onlyMark]

Day 22

I thought I’d start my day with nipping out into the sandy bits.
I drove a short way to get to Dune 7 – the highest dune in Namibia at about 383 metres tall. Whereas I’ve climbed several dunes in the country, most namely Dune 45 which is high enough by itself and located at a place called Sossusvlei, further inland, this one I had no intention of setting foot on, though many people do.
A few shots around the area -













Many roads at the coast are salt water covered sand. When it dries it sets very hard and is smooth enough to be almost tarmac –




A place few know of is where the Swakop River disappears into the sand and makes several small lagoons. Every time I’m here, I never see anyone else. The pink flamingos love it -






I’ve driven past Walvis Bay many, many times, but I had decided I ought to have at least a mooch around it to see what it was like. To be honest, I wish I’d not bothered.
It is a very poor relation to Swakopmund just up the coast and as most of any historical buildings were knocked down decades ago, there is little to see.
Mostly, because of its massive port, it is industrial with some nicer suburbs but they are quite modern.
It is set up in a grid pattern and one street looks much like the other.

Originally discovered by the Portuguese, it is the only harbour as such in Namibia and was briefly part of the German empire but has always been British or South African “owned”.
I did call in at the Tourist Office and received blank looks when I asked about historical buildings. All they could point me to was the oldest one that had been preserved -






One or two more modern showed a bit of flair –








The pilot did well to land that just there –




This is the main government building -




At the side of it is the town library and poorly signposted, underneath the library, is the museum.
One large room was about it and no photos were allowed.
It was fine for an hour but you had to have varied interests to be there for that long.
I asked the lady who was there about a railway train. Just on the way to Dune 7 used to be, up on a sand bank on some old tracks, one of the original trains from a hundred years or more ago.
It had gone between this visit and my last one.
She said it had been moved to Swakopmund and put in a display building because it was suffering badly from corrosion due to the salt air.

Fair enough, I thought. Then she asked me about trains in Europe. She was very informative about local history and objects but was clearly a local woman and even though she seemed to be up to date with current affairs, asking me about Brexit etc, she had this idea that there was a train that goes under water somewhere in Europe.
I mentioned if she meant the channel tunnel from the UK to France.
Yes, she said, that was it.
Then she asked about what you can see out of the windows when it is going under water.

I gathered from our conversation she thought you would see fishes and things, in fact, that’s what she said. She was disappointed when I told her you saw nothing, it was just like going through a blank tunnel. Nothing at all except going in and coming out when you were above ground.

This is a good idea, seen as I nipped into a supermarket -




The swimming ‘pool’ at my hotel. Bloody cold and not big enough, but still scenic though -




And then sunset to end the day -

[htmb]

Lucky you! I would love to see pink flamingos in the wild.
Interesting how the woman envisioned the channel tunnel.

[kerouac2]

You made me look up the height of the Dune du Pilat in southwestern France. It is the highest dune in Europe but is just a pitiful 106.6 metres. Of course, in a way it is more impressive, being an isolated dune surrounded by a forest instead of being in a sand landscape. Still, I can tell that Dune 7 is more impressive.

Your little architectural details are always fascinating. Meanwhile, I found myself wondering about the migration of the flamingos. It seems that Walvis Bay would be their summer home, but where do they go for the winter? The flamingos in Kenya fly as far as southern France for summer. Then again, fewer and fewer birds of any sort are migrating these days due to climate change.

[mickthecactus]

Love the green art deco style building.

[onlyMark]

I always thought flamingos do migrate, but after looking at some info, it says those in warm climates don't tend to do so, yet I am aware of those I've seen in other places in Africa do end up in Europe. Hence I have no idea where these go to but maybe just a bit further north.
www.unep-aewa.org/sites/default/files/publication/flamingo_0.pdf

Mick I need really to re-do my original Namibia thread, especially the photos of the buildings in Swakopmund and Windhoek, but it means getting my other computer which is currently in Spain.

htmb, I've seen them in quite a few countries, in fact about 5km from my house in Spain is a place they go and then also not too far away is a town called Fuente de Piedra where they hang out.

[htmb]

Oct 22, 2019 17:59:14 GMT onlyMark said:

htmb, I've seen them in quite a few countries, in fact about 5km from my house in Spain is a place they go and then also not too far away is a town called Fuente de Piedra where they hang out.

How lovely, Mark. I’m jealous. I’ve seen flamingos in captivity in various Florida places like Busch Gardens and Homosassa Springs State Park. I may have also seen them in the wild from the train my first trip to southern France, or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

[onlyMark]

I'm just a lucky person.

[onlyMark]

Day 23 –

Had a highly exciting day doing bugger all. Apart from nipping to an aquarium to see the fishes.
And a walk along the beach.
When I get back to Lusaka and have better internet I’ll add on a couple of short videos as well.
That was about it -
















Tomorrow, off again, and I’m looking forward to the drive.
The intention is to keep heading north(ish) and I’ve took some time now to plan where I’ll go and where I’ll stay all the way back to Zambia.
I’ll let you know as things go.

[questa]

Those last 2 photos...you should have told the old lady at the library that the tunnel under the Channel looked just like that. hehehe

[kerouac2]

I see the fish are back to school.

[tod2]

Been checking in on your progress Mark. You have brought back many memories of my trip to Namibia. Yes, Walvis Bay is not a destination of note but we went there to take one of several ski-boats taking customers out to get close up to dolphins. All we got was a friendly seal that clambered on board and passed for photos whilst sitting on ones lap and very friendly pelicans that flew alongside catching sardines thrown by the captain. I had one of the best Chinese meals ever in Swakopmund…..who would have thought. I hope you picked out a beautiful precious stone for your missus. Namibia is the place to buy them, or stop alongside the road and wander in a few meters off the tar and pick them up off the desert sand.

[onlyMark]

Questa, I'll send it to her.
K2, as some would say, *groan*.
Tod, I was thinking of the dolphin thing but I saw them from a boat just a year or two back (in Spain) so didn't bother.
As for the precious stones, I'm fortunate in marrying someone who has no interest at all in them. The way to please her the most is to bring her coffee in bed every morning and bake German bread. So that's what I do. She's a cheap date.
By the way, I've always rated the food in Swakopmund and yes, it is SA/German biased but there is all sorts that is also good. I've not had a bad meal there yet in the town.

[lugg]

The dune photos are starkly beautiful.

[onlyMark]

My type of landscape.

[mossie]

An expression I remember from when I was a stupid young fool, "You are sand happy"

[questa]

Dunes ARE beautiful, either stark naked or studded with valiant clumps of spinifex, acacia or spindly trees. Dunes change positions, creeping across the ground, away from the prevailing winds.

Dunes come in all colours and sizes. I have seen red in Australia, but also ochre, blue-grey and eye-wincing white. China has the Taklamakan, high sculptured dunes of tan sand ripples and the Tarim Basin is flat and bare except for a carpet of tiny river smoothed pebbles. The Gobi is dusty grey and flat with the horizon showing the curve of the planet. The Sahara shows all of these in different areas.

Dunes are just one of the reasons I like deserts.

[onlyMark]

Day 24 –

Drove steadily uphill from zero metres above sea level to about 1500m, and it got hotter and hotter.
No wonder then that the place I stayed the night, called Roidina Safari Lodge, had a garden of mainly stuff that needs little water to keep it going. I think any water available was used for the pool –






































I was told on arrival that they had a little museum about the lodge. They did have, but it had no information at all other than a display of objects you had to guess at and a number of old photos of people with no explanation as to who they are. What I did glean though was that an aristocratic eastern Prussian family fled Germany in 1945 from the advancing Russians and made their way to Namibia.
They came from a small town called Roidine and after buying a farm named it Roidina in memory -










They did have quite a few animals knocking about though, and a small waterhole for them. I spotted oryx, waterbuck, warthog, wildebeest, zebra and a number of smaller deer/antelope/gazelle.
Billions of birds as well.
It made for pleasant relaxation during the sunset time -




Day 25 -

A quick(ish) run in the morning brought me to a lodge called Toshari, quite near Etosha national park.
After checking in I had a drive into the park for a couple of hours to watch the game at the headquarters water hole.
Nothing too stunning turned up but a few elephants. Tons of normal zebra, oryx, waterbuck and so on –




Etosha is a stunning place, and massive.
Imagine a rectangle with the long side down. Drive upwards to the centre or so, and turn right. You’ll drive about 140km to get to near the right hand edge.
Until 2011 the public wasn’t allowed to turn left (west) except with special permits. Now a camp has opened up to public use, but you still have to have a booking to turn left, i.e. to the west. Even then you’ll still have to drive 160km through the park to get there.
It’s pretty flat though and reasonable roadways.

In the evening at my lodge I had dinner. Unusually, I was solo. Not unusual for me, but for the lodge. That meant they had given me my own special table.
By the looks of it, it was one they’d dragged off a patio somewhere and stuck as best as they could in an available gap -




I had the curse of the meat eaters at dinner. Quite normal here where everything comes with meat. They had probably ten different cuts of game meat they would grill for you plus different meat stir fries they’d do.
No fish dishes and one dish of mixed vegetables, one of rice and one of boiled potatoes.
But, the saving grace was a) a big salad bar and b) malva pudding and lashings of custard.
Should that sentence be – “But, the saving graces were a) a big salad bar and b) malva pudding and lashings of custard”?


Day 26 –

My day was spent in Etosha. I hunted high and low and all over. Each HQ in the park has a sightings book and I examined these to see what the best places were likely to be to see ‘interesting’ stuff like lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards and unicorns.
Not a sausage (meaning - thing) was seen by me.

I retired to one of the water holes and saw more in an hour than the previous six.
Most interesting to me were the herds of elephants. Still my favourite big game –








And of course, when driving along normal roads near the park, be careful of warthogs. They amuse me no end –




Morality question – on my drives to and from the park there is at the side of the road, a shepherd with his goats.
Ok, technically a goatherd then if you want to be picky.
It’s a young man, as is the norm here, of about sixteen years old. He is miles away from anywhere.
It was a hot afternoon when I first saw him and I stopped to see if he was ok for water, which he wasn’t, so I gave him some.

I also gave him..... – and this is where your opinions come in – what would you give him? You have a choice of basics you carry with you like bread, noodles, tins of things and such like.
He wasn’t particularly malnourished looking and being lacking in food isn’t a big thing in Namibia.
Or, seeing as he has no money for anything other than basics, would you give him some crisps, biscuits and sweets that you know he’d never ever buy for himself?
Huh?!

[kerouac2]

The frivolous items were definitely the best things to give.

I like all of the photos of this area, and the 'cactus' lodge looks great, but it really needs its swimming pool as relief from all of the dryness.

You have not shown us what the roadways look like in this part of Africa. Of course I know that your passenger took the roadway pictures in South Africa and you no longer have that convenience. But I am thinking that the roads are no longer as sleek as they were in South Africa. I may be wrong.

[onlyMark]

I'll see what I can do. Bear with me.

[kerouac2]

Something tells me that you can easily stop your car in many places without the risk of causing a traffic jam. That's how I have always done it in Australia, the American West and a few other places. I even do it in France from time to time when I appear to be alone on the road. Naturally, that always triggers the arrival of another vehicle.

[mickthecactus]

Great pictures Mark thanks.

I’m sure you all know but cacti and Agaves aren’t
native to SA. They just grow well there.

[onlyMark]

K2, I tend to slew my car across the road completely to take a photo out of the driver's window.
Only works on quiet roads but yes, it does seem to bring on other traffic.

Mick, didn't know that. Wonder then how they ended up in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa? Who brought them and why?

[onlyMark]

Day 27 -

I’m more or less heading home now. Still quite a way to go though but Etosha was about the last thing I wanted to stop in at.
So, a few road photos amongst a couple of other things -




There are spots here and there, outside the major German influenced places like Swakopmund, where the culture does still pop up. I have no evidence for this next assertion, but I bet the majority of tourists who come here are German/austrain/Swiss. I hear the language all the time and for every one time I hear English, there must be ten times I hear German. I also notice, but as expected, a hell of a lot of the service staff speak German, mainly better than me.
However, the advantage is good bread and cakes -








There are different classes of roads in Namibia, as in every country, but one confusing thing is that there are currently no “A” designated roads. I think they’re saving that for if ever they get a motorway.
“B” roads are all tarmac.
“C” roads can be but mainly are graded gravel.
“D” roads are graded earth/sand but can be gravel.
There are also “M” roads here and there for whatever reason.

There are also roads, for want of a better word, which are just tracks and these will often cut through a farmer’s land and are replete with gates every few kilometres or so.

They are the main categories. Namibia has more than once been voted for having the best roads in Africa.
There are more than 44,500 kilometres of roads of which just 6,664 kilometres are tarmac. The B roads join the main centres and are single carriageway and usually in good condition. Can be a bit bumpy at times and can exhibit a small washboard effect where the original gravel road was covered, but not so well.
I’m sure you are all old enough to understand what a washboard is (ok then, corrugations which build up over time making for a very bumpy ride).

They are well signposted, speed limits and other signs are in abundance and it is difficult to get lost or out of touch as to where you are.
Even the minor roads will often have count down mileage signs –






A bit difficult to make out, but this is a normal D road where a grader/scraper just cuts through to make a smooth surface.
By the way, tourists have no end of accidents on these roads, normally misjudging the speed and being caught out by a bend, then turning over into the sand/gravel after they slip off the edge.
A little known fact is that nearly every year the Namibian tourist authority make a little campaign in Italy about how to drive on these, as they are the worst offenders for having rolling over accidents –




The, not far from my destination, I come across a rather strange abode. No signs, no information and probably not quite finished. You can spot the end of the pool....? -






I’m at a backpackers tonight but will treat myself to a posher lodge tomorrow.

[kerouac2]

Yes, those roads don't look bad at all. I was horrified the first time that the road to my destination in South Africa turned out to be unpaved for about 80km or so. Nothing on the map led me to expect this. Of course, after that experience I did learn to look at the map closer, since there were indeed a few indications.

[htmb]

First flamingos, then scores of elephants. You are, indeed, lucky!

[onlyMark]

Day 28 –

Hakusembe River Lodge. One to remember. There is a collection of posh places to stay in Namibia called the Gondwana Collection.
Originally just good class lodges, they’ve branched out a bit but are still keeping up standards. Often I’ve noted a place of theirs wherever I am but usually I’ve been camping so have not seriously considered them. This time though I thought I’d give one of them a try.
I looked into others but usually there was for me a better alternative on this trip.

I had a steady drive south east and then north east to a town called Rundu. Not much to the town at all but I did notice very quickly that after leaving a town called Grootfontein and arriving in Rundu, things have changed.
What do I mean?

Grootfontein is a typical Namibian town with good and bad bits, but there is a white population that means there are certain things such as a good cafe or two plus, and it’s nothing to do with the white population, but there is a sense of order, streets are clean, litter is minimal and as I say, quite typical for a Namibian town.

Then drive about 250km through nothing at all apart from the odd local village here and there, not even needed to slow down on the road and the speed limit stays at 120km/h, hence hardly worth noticing, and you arrive in Rundu.

It reminded me of Zambia. Not so much in a good way. Certainly a lot more chaos and litter and dirt than a normal Namibian town.

This is a major centre on the Cubango River – a river then flows to Namibia from Angola and at a certain point, becomes the border between the two.
In years past the colonial powers did what they like to do and cut places up into convenient bits making country borders a bit arbitrary if there wasn’t a major geographical feature to help. Such is the north of Namibia where it borders Angola.

Working from the coast on the north west, the border follows the Kunene River eastwards. The river, unfortunately for the colonial powers, began to drift north at a certain point (Ruacana Falls) – the river is flowing east to west but I’m going upstream if you see what I mean – and the Kunene River didn’t play ball at all by doing this.
The powers saw that there was another convenient river, the Kubango, that further east did the opposite, it drifted down from Angola, went east for a way, then carried on near a town called Divundu south – but this then ended up being in Botswana to the south.

It all got quite complicated, but to join up where one river went north(ish) and the other came south – they drew a straight line. Dead straight, on the map, running east/west – for close on five hundred kilometers.
In fact if you look at a map of Namibia – go on, I’ll wait........................................
...........................................................................
............................................ see yet? You’ll find there are more straight lines making the borders than bendy bits.
Then you have that bit that sticks out top right, the Caprivi Strip.
I’ll come to that tomorrow.

The lodge I stayed at, Hakusembe River Lodge, was on the Cubango River and faced Angola – which seeing as the river was at most, waist deep at the moment, meant you could walk across. Which I saw many locals doing.
I had an idea that if I wanted to disappear, escape from being chased by the police because of the major fraud I’d perpetrated on the evil banks and transferred millions of Euros from them to me so I could live a life of luxury and I didn’t want to be traced, I’d slip over the border and use that as a stepping stone (excuse the pun) to a life on the run away from any being tracked and caught.

Maybe next year though, I’ve not thought it all through at the moment. But if your life savings disappear, it wasn’t me yet.
I’ll leave you with views of the lodge, the river and my accommodation, which faced the river. Somehow I’d ended up with one of the better places as there were many set back. I do have a feeling that when I book, a single person of a certain age and just for a night or two, there does seem to be times when the hotel/lodge gets a bit paranoid and think I must be a travel writer or one of these ‘secret shoppers’ or something. More on that tomorrow because something else has happened.
But, there we are -

The first photo and this one show my ‘room’.

Right at the front and just a short step from the restaurant. There were only three places at the front at the lodge and I got one of them -

More of the site -










As best as you can see, the inside of my place. I think my boarding case has exploded -






It was a fair way out of town so I was more or less committed to eating my dinner there. It turned out to be a buffet, which I knew, but others I’d had had meat, meat and more meat with a bit of other stuff. This had a lot of meat as well, but the veg and salad and extras were quite comprehensive. There was even couscous, which is relatively unheard of here.
More next time.

[onlyMark]

K2, I cheat now and look at Google Maps for the satellite image.
Htmb, lucky is my middle name.

[questa]

Oct 25, 2019 14:13:15 GMT onlyMark said:

I also gave him.

If yon goatherd is low on water, a packet of salty crisps may not be A Good Thing. He would probably take them home to share with his family anyway. I try to grab all the toiletries, stationery etc and give them to women in the poorer villages. If I'm on a bus tour I ask for and collect these goodies from everyone and give a bag full to the school. I ask that they are to be given to the kids who are "trying hard" not the "this is easy" lot.

Burma 1992...my first trip to a "difficult" place. Official Govt exchange rates were 16 kyats to USD but freely wandering around were the chaps changing at 93 kyats to USD. As I had only Travellers Cheques I was paying a huge "Stupidity Tax". I wanted to buy a lacquered bowl...50 USD but 3 USD in real money.I went through my day-pack...2 Bic pens, a lipstick and chap stick, roll of Sellotape, comb, a few paper clips...and the bowl was mine.
I had done the trick of buying a carton of cigarettes and bottle of whisky in Thailand and a chap quickly exchanged these for me as I stepped out of the Arrivals Hall.
Currency there was so stupid...The President was superstitious, favoured the number 9, so there were no Tens in the currency, only freshly minted 9s 19s 29s 91s...9999s etc.

[kerouac2]

Just so you'll know that one person here takes you seriously when you say to look at a map of Namibia.

[onlyMark]

I do appreciate someone taking me seriously. I am obliged. Very few seem to, it must be my attitude.
Nice map book.
Did someone make your table out of an old pallet?

Top left of Botswana in the 2nd photo, Tsodilo Hills, amazing place. Used to be a deep sand track to get to it and was an adventure, now there is a good graded road and it's full of bloody tourists. Full of rock paintings and significance for the Bushmen peoples, paintings believed to be up to 20,000 years old.
Worth a couple of days being there, at least.