Day 26
Kelsey, Kelly and I woke up at 0600 in our hotel in Swakopmund because I had to be back at the ship for my Namib trip at 0730. By chance we found a taxi at that time, and I made it just as the vans were about to load. Kelsey and Kelly decided to skip their trip and sleep in on the boat. We made plans to meet back at the hotel at 1430.
I wasn't expecting the 4x4 exploration of the natural and geological wonders of the Namib to be too exciting. And at first it wasn't. I thought we were going to be on four-wheelers, or at least in jeeps, but we were in mitsubishi vans. But along the way they proved themselves, climbing over big rocks and through tough places.
We stopped first to look at the Moon Landscape. It is an ancient river bed stretching from South Africa to Angola that looks like the surface of the moon. It was formed by the erosion of the quartz rock. Quartz is made up of several different minerals. In the intense heat and cold variations between night and day, the minerals expand and contract. But if one type of mineral expands faster or more than another one, the rocks break. We could also see injections of basaltic rock, which is made up of one or few of the same minerals, so it didn't erode much at all. [Clarification from my dad, a geologist: Quartz is formed by the weathering and erosion of the probable granitic source rock, which contains quartz and plagioclase. Interstitial water causes weathering of the plagioclase into clay, which will expand and fracture the rock. Quartz is highly stable and winds up constituting the surrounding dunes. The granites were also veined by intrusions of younger basaltic dikes, which are slower to weather. When you hit two of the basalt rocks together it sounded like a bell. And basalt looked like hot fudge poured over quartz ice cream.
Our next stop was to look at the desert plants. As we drove up, someone saw an animal run over a hill. So, we climbed the hill and saw a gazelle-type animal that was sand colored with a single black stripe on his back. They said it was called a springbox.
The plants were neat. One was called a dollar bush. It had big circular leaves that looked like silver dollars, but green. They had a wax coating to protect them from evaporation. When the guide picked a few and crushed them in his hand, a lot of green water came out. It was the same thing with a dried-looking plant.
The next stop was a surprise for me. We got out, and they set up a table with a big box of oysters. I was so disappointed that I didn't get to taste oysters on the sea, salt and sand trip because that was the main reason I signed up for the trip. Now, I could taste the oysters. They were really good. I put lemon juice, pepper and tabasco on the first one, but there was too much tabasco, so I stuck to lemon juice and pepper for the next two. They also gave us Simba chips and orange juice.
After enjoying the view for a few minutes, we filled the vans again to go see a special desert plant called Welwitschia Mirablis. The plant is a single stump that can be more than three feet thick and five feet tall. From right out of the stem come two leaves. At first glance, there seem to be many leaves, but the two are split into many sections by the harsh, dry winds. They can be up to ten feet in length, and they hover a few inches above the ground at the stem to protect them from the intense heat coming off the ground. This weird plant produces its first flower after about 20 years and has a lifespan of at least 500 years. Of the millions of seeds released, most have a disease which rots them. Others are killed by a toxin released from the leaves, which prevents plants from growing too close together. Usually only one seed turns into a plant.
Our last stop was at Dune 7. I elected not to climb it again; we didn't really have enough time anyway. I was a little panicked that I wouldn't get back in time to be in Swakopmund at 1430. The Namib trip was supposed to get back to the boat at 1230, but we got back at 1300. I still had to get a new change of clothes off the boat and some cash out of the bank. Plus I didn't want to take a taxi by myself, so I had to find some people to go with.
Luckily on the long walk from the dock to the port gate, I found a big group who also wanted to hit up the ATM. They were also making me a bit nervous because they were puttering around, taking their time. They had been on a long trip and didn't know how much money to get or how much to pay for a taxi. I was put in charge.
The haggling with the taxi drivers was especially hard that time too. One wouldn't go for less than N$50 a person. I was not willing to pay that much. Finally we got two that would take us for N$25 per person. I gave the first car the address of my hotel, which was the Hotel Pension d' Avingnon. And our taxi met them there at exactly 1430.
I rushed into the hotel to our room and knocked on the door. No answer. I was a little nervous, but figured Kelly and Kelsey had just gone out for a minute and would be back. So I went to ask the lady at the desk if she had seen them. She told me they had left at about 1300, which meant they had gone to lunch and hadn't got back soon. That was a relief. I went to wait for them on the deck by our room. They got back about 15 minutes later, and we were all so happy that I had made it.
We quickly went to the grocery store so I could get some lunch before being picked up to go on a cultural township tour. Our guide and driver, Beetle, was warm and welcoming, like most of the people we had met in Namibia. We picked up a few other SAS kids before driving out to the Damara, Mara and Herero townships just outside of Swakopmund.
As we drove through them, Beetle explained that during apartheid the British employed a policy of divide and rule. They put the Damara in single-room houses, the Mara in two-room houses and the Herero in three-room houses to give them a sense of inequality. He said the tribes remained separate until recently.
We were allowed to take pictures of the streets and children, but we had to ask before taking a picture of an adult. As soon as we climbed out of the van, the children were surrounding us, holding our hands and climbing on us. They were so excited to see us. One girl had me swing her around and pick her up. She wouldn't let the other kids hold my hand or be held. The boys in the group usually had three children hanging from them.
We had a chance to shop in a small craft store for things that the villagers had hand made. I bought a leather rhino for N$100. Then we drove to meet and talk with the Damara chief. She was wearing a traditional dress and hat and holding her adorable baby grandson. Her main jobs were to give couples therapy and settle familial disputes.
Next we visited a Mara shaman who told us the different uses of desert plants. She had a root that is used as an appetite suppressant; it's called Hoodia. They also had plants for things ranging from colds to muscle pain.
Beetle took us to a Damara settlement outside of the township next. These people were living in shanties while waiting for permits from the government to build homes in the township itself. They didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity. Trash was put in a pile in the middle of the street. All the houses were numbered, and two houses shared one bathroom. They went to a pump in the middle or ends of the street to get water.
We went inside a brightly painted, multi-colored house where a boy named Daniel lived. Daniel showed us around because his dad was gone somewhere. His dad was an artist who made t-shirts for children. They were very cute shirts. Daniel showed us the house. The kitchen also functioned as the art studio. His bedroom, which he shared with his three siblings, had a bunk bed, a desk and a wardrobe. It was very clean. He had pictures of rappers like 50 cent hanging up. In the living room the floor was covered with animal skins. The walls had several pictures of the family, Jesus and American pop culture posters.
Daniel was such a mature kid. He had just turned 13, could speak four or five different languages. He could speak, read and write English. His favorite subjects were math, science and writing, and he wants to be a doctor. I asked him if he was going to find a cure for AIDS, but he said it would be very hard because the virus changes. He knew so much about AIDS and the problem in Africa, explaining that the rate is so high in Namibia (almost 22%) because people didn't want to wear condoms.
Daniel told us he didn't want to leave Africa because he wanted to help there. I couldn't blame him. The people were so poor. Children were running around in the street. They played in trash. This shockingly polite, mature boy had been forced to grow up quickly because of the environment in which he lived. He told us a fourth sibling had recently died. He knew about the AIDS problem and lived in the poverty. But he was still so happy and positive. I was especially impressed by him.
Before leaving his house, we got a lesson in Xhosa. The Damara have four click in their language which change the meaning of a word. We learned all the clicks and a couple endings, so 10 words. Om meant smile with one click; nam meant love with one click and death with another. It was neat to be able to do it.
Next stop was at a tiny bar where some women were dancing. They gave us beer or pop and let us play pool until the traditional meal was ready for us. Soon, we were led outside behind the bar to a hut with a table and chairs set up inside. We got to taste their home-made beer. For dinner there was a pudding-type thing–kind of like cold cream of wheat–wild spinach, beans, a dried fruit like raisins, a date-like fruit, a harder fruit that tasted like ghram crackers, baked chicken and finally...caterpillars.
The caterpillars weren't chewy as I had expected. They were so grainy; it was like eating sand. The other food seemed so bland or small. There was barely any fruit on the raisins, dates, or big fruits. I should describe these big fruits. They were almost the size of a tennis ball. They had an outside peel, and you had to hit them together to crack the outside and peel it off. Then there was a thin layer of fruit inside. It was flakey like a cattail, but harder. Then there was a huge seed inside. They often carve animals into the surface of the seed and sell them to tourists. I bought one for our tree and one to send to vicarious voyage.
Overall, the meal made me glad I did not grow up in a tribe in Africa; there was hardly any sustenance or flavor in the food at all. You would have to work so hard gathering a huge amount of all these small foods that were mainly seeds not food.
After gorging ourselves on this meal (we barely touched anything, tasting it all only once), the young girls did a traditional dance for us. There was a lot of stomping and head bobbing involved. The girls then asked us a bunch of questions about ourselves–how old we were, what we wanted to be, who our favorite actresses were, etc. We asked them about school, their families and AIDs.
The trip was so eye-opening. We didn't see much of the poverty within the city, but we knew it existed. The unemployment rate is around 40% right now. But the people in the cities are usually white shop owners.
We decided we were still hungry for a small bite and went to a local pizzeria. The food was nothing really special; we split a greek salad and a pizza. There was too much meat on the pizza, but it was good other than that.
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