One nation, one Namibia

Well here we are in Namibia, joined by family Millward – sans Christina, sitting in front of a wonderfully hot fire and drinking variously beer, cider-  and nothing (poor neglected me). We are on a tour with two randoms – a Japanese ninja enigma (whose name I can’t pronounce let alone spell), and Baron (not ‘the Baron’, Baron is his name). Baron, it would appear, likes his booze and has a predilection for snakebites as well as having bought three bottles of wine.

We arrived a few days ago, expecting a driver to meet us at the airport. However there was no one waiting for us, just a few locals chatting. Our Kenyan phones were not working and it was quite late so we ended up running around for a good half hour looking for the guy. Eventually pity was taken on us by a lady who phoned our safari company. 5 minutes later, our driver (a fat, useless lump) disengages himself from his very interesting conversation (yes, he was there watching us run around the whole time) and tells us it was our fault he didn’t see us because the plane was late (it was early). Eventually, we arrive at our hotel. They haven’t heard of us. We stay the night before being told we have now been booked into another hotel. They too hadn’t heard of us. Not a good start, and fortunately a theme that does not continue.

So eventually, and with considerable relief that it exists, we get on our vehicle (which is not a matatu, joy!) and  speed south to the quiver tree (kinkerboom tree) forest . Of course, these are not trees but tree aloes, but let’s not permit semantics to bother us (especially seeing as we do not know the difference). More upsettingly, the quiver trees do not quiver and jive. The bushmen just made quivers out of them. As a consolation, they were surrounded by rock hyraxes (which I suspect would make a tasty snack).

Just round the corner there is the giants playground, a jumbled collection of basaltic rock caused by an old volcano where we went for a little walk. Again, there were many hyraxes. We then progressed to the Fish River Canyon. This is, err, a canyon - although I doubt there are fish in the river as it is more of a stagnant pond. Nevertheless, the view was amazing. Before we knew it we were in Ai-Ai, a name meaning hot water after the hot springs (as a challenge, try to work out which Ai means hot, and which Ai means water), for a night under canvas.

 

The next day started with a long drive, with periodic potters along the Orange and Fish river valleys. Namibia is a very dry country with many mountains but the locals, who are used to this, do not find this at all interesting. Rather they prefer to show us rivers, small oases of green amongst an otherwise desolate and unforgiving landscape. I very much wanted to jump off the bus and climb a mountain (and maybe find a diamond), but suspect I would quickly have regretted it in the heat. Finally we ended up at Aus and went to watch the sunset.

 

Namibia (which was called South West Africa) is a bit of a strange country –vast and empty. Many superlatives could be used to describe it, but let us just say that it is desolate and very, very beautiful. Whilst it is in many ways one of the poorest countries with many people living on practically nothing and unemployment at 50% it has amazing resources, Gold, diamond, uranium, zinc mines etc. And after Kenya, the towns are just heavenly. They have wide, clean roads (which have lines painted on them!!!), there are very few people, no matatus, cars which stop at traffic lights and even look roadworthy!

Okay, Namibia achieved her independence in 1990 and so is a very ‘young’ country. They have a very good and workable constitution (which the Kenyans could have just copied if they were serious about change - sorry, ridiculous suggestion - too many vested interests),  loads of natural resources and improving education. So is the future rosy? Who knows, but I fear there are storm clouds on the horizon.

Weirdly (at least for me) the Namibians have some strange fascination with words/names with double vowels, such as Keetmansdoorp. Weirdest of all (after Kenya anyway) is we have seen white people working. Eugh. We got to our hotel and there was a white person behind the counter – I actually caught myself looking round for the receptionist! Nevertheless, I shall try not to let this put me off too much and shall endeavour to enjoy myself, whilst stuffing myself with dried Kudu - delicious.

Let me leave you with our Japanese Ninja striking a Ninja pose…