Into Africa

The flight from Singapore was long (10 hours) and uncomfortable. We started at 2am and arrived in Johannesburg at around 6:45am after a 5 hour time change; then, after flying on to Namibia, we find that we are now on the same time as London! In Johannesburg we had to go out and collect our bags as they had not been checked through to our next flight. That was all a bit long and tedious but at least it meant that we got a South African stamp in our passports. Out through passport control; collect bags; on through customs; then check bags back in; back through passport control and security. The airport is in full hype for the world cup and there were loads of TV and other media guys arriving from all sorts of places, and fans arriving in their various team colours and some in full voice. We had several hours to wait until our next flight to Windhoek in Namibia but we were kept very busy with the huge number of shops in the airport selling all sorts of fantastic goodies from carvings to paintings.
The flight to Windhoek was only two hours and we were met and whisked the 60 km to the capital by taxi; the airport is that far away because it is the closest piece of flat land! The road seemed to be in very good nick and we saw no sign of poverty, perhaps this is not a third world country(?) Our hotel seems pretty posh, it comes as part of the package with our safari, we have a large room with 4 beds and a sofa in front of the TV. We were pretty exhausted after our journey but we decided to go into town to get some cash and try to find some food. There was a shuttle service from the hotel so it was all very easy, but we didn't find anywhere to eat but found a fantastic little market and loads of great shops, but they were all just closing at a round 5pm. We returned to the hotel and went to the restaurant to eat (a fantastic buffet for about £12 for an adult and half for a child). Needless to say we were in bed by 8pm after a long shower and we slept very soundly.

On Saturday we had a great breakfast in the hotel before we set off back into town to visit the market at a bit more of a leisurely pace. We ended up buying a very large and rather fat hippo! We lazed around for most of the rest of the day (still a bit shell shocked after the journey) until 6pm when we met up with our guide, Delphin. It turns out that we shall have another private tour as we are the only people booked on this trip. Delphin reckons that it is because of the world cup. He had 31 in his group 2 weeks ago and has large bookings for July too - how lucky are we!

Sunday.
Up at 7am, breakfasted and packed by 8am. Delphin and Jason (the cook) collected us at 8.30am in a rather large lorry, they sit in the cab and we sit behind up high with windows looking out over the cab in the front. It gives us a great height to look out at the world from. We set off out of Windhoek, westwards, towards the coast. Only about a half hour into our journey and there, sitting in the road, was a troop of baboons; a great big male; several mums with babies and some juveniles. They didn't worry about the passing cars at all, but as soon as we slowed down they were very nervous and took off into the bushes. A great start to our trip. On the rest of the journey it was very difficult to stop due to the narrowness of the road and the endless roadworks that seemed to be going on on the Trans-Kalahari Highway ( the Kalahari being out of Windhoek in the other direction, Eastwards, we will be going there later). However we did spot loads of creatures, Hornbills, Secretary birds (a pair), a Bustard, a small deer and a large deer, several Harriers, Bee Eaters and Roller Birds. The landscape is dry and very flat but with great lines of hills in the distance. Delphin managed to explain a few things to us at some of the stops we made.
Namibia was a German colony until after the first world war when it was transferred to South African control.
They were under the Apartheid regime until 1990 when they became independent.
There are only 2.1 million inhabitants, 1/8th of whom live in the capital Windhoek.
The average population is under 2 people per square km.
18% of the country is classified as desert and another 55% as semi-desert.

The country seems really quite organised, not like the South American super bureaucracy. It is clean and neat and in the towns, at least, the people look well nourished and contented, really rather affluent I would say. We did pass a couple of shanty towns, some houses made out of old bits of corrugated iron and one made out of old aluminium cans, but I haven't seen people in rags or people begging. There have been people waiting on the edges of the roads but mostly they have a pile of goods and seem just to be waiting for some sort of transport rather than being homeless or destitute.

We reached our destination of Spitzkoppie at lunchtime and set up tents before sitting down to salad and sandwiches. Spitzkoppie is a small, pointed, granite mountain that sticks up out of the flat landscape with a few other bulging mountains alongside. Celso, Tris and I went for a small exploration of the area; it was very, very hot so we didn't go far; but we saw loads of lizards, rock Hyraxes and loads of birds just in a small 15 minute walk. Flies followed us everywhere as soon as we were in sunlight but they left you alone if you were in the shade; apparently they follow the body heat to find their next victim! There was also a small pool of water in the shade of one rock where an enormous number of strange insect larvae were swimming (they looked a bit like very large sea-monkeys) along with one huge tadpole / froglet; body 1 inch long, tail another inch; back legs nearly fully formed; large bulging eyes and a huge mouth; in fact it looked a bit like a whale shark in miniature!
At 3:30pm we went for a walk as the sun started to sink behind the mountains and a beautifully cool wind started to blow. We went to see some 2000 to 4000 year old bushman rock art, pictures in red and white ochre, of lions, rhino, people hunting and dancing and pictures of the ancestors (witch doctor visions). On our walk we found a dead sandwinder snake, a hare, a small Steenbok deer, loads more Rock Hyrax, a fishing eagle, several mice and loads of extraordinary plants. As the sun went down behind the mountains they glowed red... it was fantastic.
When we returned from our walk, Jason had set up a campfire, a lamp and started to cook a BBQ supper, pork chops, beef sausages, maize polenta and sweet potatoes. The darkness set in really quickly and it turned really quite cold. I had to write this before I forgot all the goings on. I'm sure Tris will remind me of some more before long though!