It's a Long Bumpy Road to Zimbabwe - Part 1

Cape Town was a lovely time with warm weather, good food, friendly people, cheap prices, and of course widely spoken English for the first time since leaving home. Much as we loved it, it was time to keep moving along. We'd explored a number of options for our time in southern Africa, but found we were having a hard time focusing in on just one or two key things we wanted to do. In the end, this led us to go for the "all of the above" sampler platter choice, which was an overland trip. Basically, we spent three weeks on a big rugged truck rumbling from Cape Town to Namibia to Botswana to Zimbabwe ending at Victoria Falls.

The truck was a big custom beast, with a semi-type cab up front, and in the back a big seating area. Behind that was a wall of lockers for everybody's stuff. The side of the truck was a fully equipped mobile kitchen and all manner of other tools in various outside lockers. Most of the crew we were with camped every night, but we decided to spend a bit more to stay in a hotel every night (because three weeks of hot rainy season camping seemed like not a lot of fun). Basically, every day we'd get up, pack, and head out. We'd see various sights along the way, stop along the road and cook lunch on the side of the truck, then keep rolling. Days tended to be long, setting out at 7 and often not getting in until 5-6. Then we'd set up camp (and/or go to our rooms) and cook dinner from the truck again. There were six other folks as we set out, Pichaya (Thailand), Lee (South Korea), Sonja and Uli (Germany) and Fraser/Jessica (siblings from Scotland). Our guide/driver Roland was from South Africa and cook Tembe from Zimbabwe. Off our multinational crew went, heading north from Cape Town.

Namibia here we come

Cooking lunch from the truck by the side of the road

As we were wrapping up the boy on the fence (perhaps 5?) appeared out of nowhere. He might have come from a small tin shack we could see about a quarter mile away. We sent him back with lunch, which he seemed pleased with. He wore no shoes, despite walking across scorching hot sharp rocks.

Playing cards in the truck with Tembe - cook extrodionare

The first day and a half was spent rolling north through South Africa's citrus growing region, then crossing into Namibia. The authorities were insistent that we needed physical, original, copies of the boys' birth certificates, which thankfully Carol had right on hand. They also had all manner of signs threatening dire consequences for anybody caught smuggling plants. Namibia is home to some very rare archaic and slow-growing plants apparently highly sought after by rich plant collectors (this is a thing, apparently). Some of them are so valuable that there was a break-in a few years ago at the Cape Town botanical gardens and about 50 got stolen, setting off an international manhunt. The remaining plants are now microchipped and protected with laser sensors like a bank vault. Who knew?

The first night in Namibia was on a spectacular bluff overlooking the Orange River, which we canoed the next day. The river forms the border, so naturally Tim and Fraser decided the best way to experience the river was illegally wading from the South African side to the Namibian side, shortly after a police helicopter raced overhead.

Illegal river crossing complete

That completed, we were on our way again. Namibia, as it turns out, is a spectacular place, but in a stark, desolate, nothingness kind of way. It was great. It also turns out that way, way, back in Pangea days it was pretty close to the same region we were in in Argentina, so much so that the petrified wood is pretty much identical in both locations.

We made a stop at Fish Canyon. At 100 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 1500' deep it's Africa's biggest canyon, as well as one of Namibia's most visited sights. We saw exactly nobody else. Namibia doesn't see a lot of visitors, as it turns out. It's a parched, hot place and despite boasting Namibia's longest river, the river was only a few small pools without any actual river. We decided to pass on the 5-day hike down it, due to the extreme heat, lack of water, and frequent deaths from the sun. Oh, and also the cobras. If you are a real masochist, there's a great ultra marathon waiting for you.

The mighty (dry) Fish canyon.

From there we made our way to the Quiver Tree Forest. Quiver Trees might look like trees, but are actually of the Aloe family and well adapted to the arid life in this dry land. Apparently, they also make a hot target for plant smuggling. In amongst them, we spotted quite a number of Rock Hyrax (locally known as Dassies). Despite looking like a cross between a prairie dog and a marmot they are actually the closest living relative to the elephant!

Carol admiring a quiver tree. Or contemplating smuggling it out of Namibia. Hard to be sure.

Tim making time for his daily quiver tree workout.

The odd looking nest of a social weaver. A small bird, they will build up to a thousand individual nests all lumped together in one big mass, like an appartment complex. Entrances are on the bottom side, to make life difficult for snakes.

Neil wanted a photo of "me sitting on a rock looking like a cell phone obsessed teenager." Thembe looks sutably confused.

The rock hyrax. Don't think much of the elephant's closest relative? He doesen't think much of you either.

Having become quiver tree experts, we rolled towards Sossusvlei. Sossusvlei is basically a large region of sand dunes that formed when sand from the Kalahari river blew in and covered the riverbed of the Tsauchab river. As it did so, the dunes killed the river and with it, the trees that used to grow there. The remaining dunes are some of the largest in the world, with many over 1000' high. The area at that point became so hot and dry that these now dead trees slowly baked in the sun but never decomposed. They still stand, slowly cooking in the desert sun, almost a thousand years after they died.

Standing there cooking for nearly a millenium.

Beyond learning all this fascinating geology we also learned that climbing up the dunes uses some really strange muscles that we apparently hadn't used in a long time. We also learned that you wind up with a lot of sand in your shoes (in Tim's case, so much that I'm not certain how there was still room for feet), and apparently that if you are a kid the best way down is rolling. Carol and I elected to go back down on our own two feet but as we did so we were treated to a litany of muttered curses in many languages from those still struggling their way up.

Carol taking in the view on the way up.

The boys' prefered method of descent.

Tim...and the sand that was in his shoes.

Not wanting to spend all our time filling our shoes with sand we stopped by a game preserve to see black rhinos, among other fauna. A well-kept fact at these preserves is that they get most of their income from "hunting tourists" (which is to say, tourists that hunt, not the hunting of tourists) as our guide reluctantly admitted. Want a Kudu? It's about 5 grand by the time you are all done - and that's a cheap animal to hunt. I did learn that mountain zebra is delicious, but plains zebra taste like bad fish. Good to know, I suppose.

The next day was spent rattling along dirt roads without a car in sight. After a number of hours, we turned off that dirt road onto an even more obscure road marked only by a pair of shoes tied to a stick. There was nothing visible ahead, so I just assumed that our guide had decided to kill us and dump us in the desert. It was really hot, and we didn't have any cold beer, so I decided this was an OK plan. We then abruptly dropped off a lip and into the basin of what turned out to be a meteor crater with a fun little hotel in the bottom. They did have cold beer, so I decided that it was preferable not to be killed and dumped into the desert after all.

We spent the heat of the day watching the highly desert-adapted Oryx wander about, then at dusk went on a drive with a local man. Our guide is a member of the San people, or Bushmen as they currently prefer to be refered to. One of the oldest ethnic groups on earth, they have occupied their homeland for the last 100,000-200,000 years. Originally a pejorative term given to them by colonists, they now take pride in the moniker which was given to them to refer to their tendency to hide in bushes before ambushing passing colonists. Since that time, they have been on the losing end and have been gradually driven out and relocated by whatever means necessary. For many years, regional governments issued permits to hunt bushmen, just as we have elk permits. The last one was issued in Namibia in 1936, which seems not so very long ago. Our guide grew up in the area and taught us about how to find water in the desert, how to save it for later by filling ostrich eggs with water and burying them, and how to use hollow tree roots sticking out from the egg to the surface both to mark them and to use as a straw to have a sip as you pass by. He also told us of his recent stroll to the coast, a 7-day walk across the desert, and waking up with a puff adder coiled up on his belly for heat. As he put it, "I scooched a little to get away, but then he would scootch up again. Then I would scootch some more. Eventually, I got away. I was very happy, so I did a little dance." He also toured us through all the spiders and scorpions that can kill you. Armed with a new list of things to fear in the desert, we enjoyed the spectacular starry night while the Oryx refused to let the zebras near the watering hole. It turns out Oryx are the bullies of the desert, and zebras the chickens. Who knew?

Oryx, bully of the dessert. And also able to scratch his butt with his horns.

Leaving our meteor crater behind, we lumbered towards the Namibian coast, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn along the way. As we went, we found thousands of coastal flamingos, which was quite the contrast after the arid interior. We landed in Swakopmund. Now a bit of a touristy place, it was once a key hub in the German colonial period. It retains so much of this that the Germans in our group felt like they were right back in Germany and found most Caucasian locals preferred German to English. Not wanting to let the gimmicky tourist highlights go unappreciated the boys elected to go on an ATV drive through the dunes, go dune sledding, and attempt paragliding (foiled by bad wind).

Tim and guide using a magnet to collect iron particles from the dessert sand. Am I the only one reminded of the "comb the dessert" scene in Space Balls?

Oscar worthy performance?

Tragically, Swakopmund's current tourist facade covers a harder history. In 1904 the German colonial government unleashed a campaign to exterminate several local tribes, driving tens of thousands into the desert to die and imprisoning the remainder in concentration camps, including one right where we were staying. These camps were so brutal that inmates being checked in were issued preprinted death certificates listing "starvation and exhaustion" as their future cause of death. The downtown still has a statue commemorating the valiant German soldiers who did this - now splattered with red paint. It's no wonder that the Namibian genocide has been called "the practice run for the Holocaust." For those interested in reading more about this too forgotten chapter in our collective human history, Mama Namibia is heartbreaking book, but well worth your time.

With that heavy stop under our belts, we were off to part two of the long road to Zimbabwe....

Notable Quotables from Part 1:

Neil: It works best if you spin while you tumble. (advice on the best way to descend a dune)

Tim: Onwards to failure!

Carol: Oryx can scratch their butts (with their horns) without getting their hands dirty. Now that's a skill!

Tim: Its the cutest, most murderous thing I've ever seen! (referring to lions)

Carol: Tim, you have Nutella in your ear. Tim: Its an extreme art.