One Day, Four Countries
From Katima we drove to the Botswanan border where we had to go through a Foot and Mouth disease check, a relic of the UK disaster. There was no hassle at the border post and we drive through the Chobe National Park to the last town before the Zim border. We stop to top up our tank but baulk at the two hour long queue - a sign of things to come with severe fuel shortages in Zimbabwe!
My three year old guide book told me that Zimbabwean visas were free for Irish citizens, a fact I used to slag Frank for not being Irish. So I strut into the the Zim border post, full of national pride, when I am shocked to hear the official tell me that not only did I have to pay for a visa but, furthermore, at almost double the rate of the other E.U. countries! Initially I refuse to believe him, thinking he's trying to pocket some cash but after much insistence he tells me that this visa exemption was revoked last year.
Frank, laughing at this turn of events (deservedly, I must admit!), goes to pay customs for the car, a US$16 charge. Knowing there would be a 30 dollar charge for insurance he hands the official a fifty expecting $34 in change. He takes about two minutes to count and recount the change slowly and then promptly places it on the floor behind the counter upon which he rests his hands with a faint smile. After a pause Frank asks "What about my change?" to which the reply was "I already gave you your change"! This dialogue was repeated three or four times before the official, recognising we were not giving up, looks to the ground with a surprised expression, picks up the change and says "Can I keep it?"!?
After grabbing the change we drive 20km before being stopped by the police who told us they were looking for Zimbabwean currency. When we said we had just arrived and had no cash they proceeded to search our bags. Instantly assuming they were trying to supplement their meagre (and oft unpaid) incomes I started to sweat that they would find my US$500 but managed to conceal it before they searched my things. Satisfied that we had nothing we passed through with a sigh of relief... if our first hour in Zimbabwe was anything to go by we were in for a tough time!
After settling in our hostel I crossed over to Zambia to see their side of the falls and the Natural Wonder did not disappoint. It was incredible how much water flowed over those cliff, even though it wasn't anywhere near the peak season flow. The water was being kicked back up so that there was a fine rain coming horizontally and from below. This mean that the rainbows were inverted producing a fantastic effect. After a hectic day I was delighte to have dinner back at the hostel I was delighted to have dinner back at the hotel, watch a film and hit the sack.
Break for the Border
From Etosha we had to cover 1200 kilometres to reach the Zimbabwean border. Since we left Etosha in the evening we set up camp in the town of Tsumeb, a two hour drive away. The fact that I hadn't been able to buy a mat with the tent, the use of a rolled up hoodie as a pillow and the freezing nighttime temperatures were all compounding to make it fairly difficult to get a decent nights sleep and after only getting three hours I woke determined to rectify this. When leaving Tsumeb I stopped in "Pep", the equivalent of Pennys/Primark and bought a pillow, blanket (which doubles at a mat) and, the icing on the cake, a hot water bottle! That night I never slept better!
The road towards Zimbabwe gave me my first taste of real Africa as we drove through what seemed like the same village ad nauseum. There were huts made from mud, sticks and straw; animals roamed freely around the village and over the main highway and kids played with footballs made from scrunched plastic bags tied up with string. At the rundu, the last major town in Namibia, we stopped to buy supplies and saw what looked like a hundred strong mob starting to riot but wisely enough we didn't stick around to investigate!
Further along the road we stopped to help some fairly well heeled locals with a tyre change (they didn't have a spanner or jack in the car). While Frank was trying to loosen the ridiculously tight bolts one of the guys asked me for my address and contact details. At first I thought this was so that he could send us a present or thank you card but, no, he wanted me to help him get a visa to work in Ireland! (You get a lot of this around here)
After detouring to stay in the fantastic Ngepi campsite we start to head back onto the main road when we pass a herd of goats. Slowing down to a stop we let the goats cross the road and when the last one is across we start off again. However, once we started moving one of the goats turned around and ran right in front of the car braking his leg. We wait for the owners to come and half their initial compensation claim to N$100 (about €11). They are still delighted with this and as we leave it looks like the village is gearing up for a feast that night!
Driving along the Caprivi strip is quite surreal, it's a thin strip of Namibian territory with the land on our right being Botswana and the left civil war torn Angola! Our final stop in Namibia is at Katima Mullilo, camping on the bank of the Zambezi river. Even the armed guard patrolling for illegal Zambian immigrants crossing the croc and hippo infested river couldn't ruin the spectacular sunset and the mist rolling over the river in the morning.
Decent Internet at Last!
Hey all,
The blog is quite badly out of date but I'm hoping to rectify that this week. I'm currently in Zambia after two great weeks in Zimbabwe and am heading to Malawi next week. I've managed to get photos up on the web for the first time in ages so hope you enjoy them. The website is:
www.flickr.com/photos/niallotuathail. To whet your appetite here's a hungry pelican I saw in Walvis Bay!
Hope you're enjoying the blog and are having fun wherever you are in the world,
Niall
Etosha Park
In Swakopmund I saw a postcard of Okaukuejo waterhole in
Etosha showing a ridiculous density of animals. Thinking this would be much like a Big Mac advertisment we arrived in Etosha with much lower expectations. However, our first sight of Okaukuejo was even more incredible - there were about a though or so zebra, springbok, wildebeast and oryx packed into an area the size of a football pitch all waiting their turn for a drink.
We spent three days driving around the park from
waterhole to waterhole spotting black rhino, giraffe, elephants and even a rare leopard. Some of the more noteworthy scenes included a magpie incessantly biting the tail of big lizard that was too slow to retaliate, a pair of giraffe
fighting in a matrix-style flurry of neck swings and being stuck on the road for about twenty minutes behind a herd of sixty elephants!
With the elephants in the way we thought we weren't going to make it to our rest camp (they close at sunset and it's illegal to be outside a camp after dark) when a truck of locals came speeding
towards the elephants. At first our only thought was that they didn't see the elephants (how this could have been was another matter) but as they approached they started swerving the truck and beeping the horn. The elephants had no option but to hightail in order to avoid a collision and using the temporary gap in the road caused by the chaos we were able to make it back to the camp just as the sun hit the horizon.
The Road to Etosha
From Spitzkoppe we started heading towards Etosha stopping first at the coast for a swim in the sea (the last time I'll see oceans until the Indian Ocean at Tanzania). On the beach we see three youths walk towards something, take turns to whip it for about five minutes and then walk away. Once they're gone we discover a seal, thankfully long dead but quite a disturbing scene all the same.
At every petrol station we stop at we are subjected to a barrage of gemstone traders who tell you they are selling precious stones from the local mountain ranges but they are actually fake imports from the United States! One group, once they see we have no interest, return to their dice game
trying to multiply their day's takings.
As dusk approaches, we see a family of eight elephants drinking from a waterhole about thirty metres from the highway. It's a fantastic sight watching them pick up dust with their trunks and pour it over themselves and rolling around on the ground. A jeep approaches from behind us
beeping and flashing his lights so we move off. About 400m up the road he pulls alongside us and claps his hands as if praying and says: "Did you not see the elephants? Look, we love you but these are wild animals - while you are looking one will come creeping around the other side and attack - you won't even have time to start the engine". With this not too subtle warning we move on and get to a camping site a few hours after dark.
Spitzkoppe Mountains
Frank and I had two nights to burn before heading off to Etosha park so we buy a tent and head to the Spitzkoppe mountains
about 70km from Swakopmund. It felt great to be driving again, especially on the Namibian roads where you can drive half an hour without meeting another car. Most of the secondary roads are gravel surfaced which can be great fun to drive but quite dangerous as it's easy to overcorrect the steering and turn the car! We arrive at Spitzkoppe to meet the campsite manager, a local women who runs the project under a women's empowerment programme. She pronounces all the placenames for us in the local language (which involves clicking sounds!) and
shows us the road to the campsites.
It's a beautiful area with bungalow-sized boulders everywhere that have rolled down from the mountains during various
rockfalls. We set up camp and go for a hike up the mountain which turns out to be a tough climb. On the way we see lizards, rock dassies (rodent like animals that scream like little girls), loads of different birds and desert mice. The mountain itself is beautiful and a lot of the rockfaces look like animals (gorillas and sharks!). The place is so quiet with absolutely no sound except for the wildlife. After the climb we cook up a stirfry and hit the sack.
The next morning we go for another climb through a boulder field and see the precariously balanced boulders that are destined to add to the field. The climb was extremely enjoyable, despite the constant fear of an earthquake!
Swakopmund's Scamsters
Swakopmund's tourists (myself included) attract a lot of attention from purveyors of crafts, gems, sunglasses and fake clothes. There are some funny characters who must make a fortune off the less street wise of the foreigners and here's how they do it:
Key Ring Sellers
These guys are geniuses! They come up to you all smiles, shake your hand and ask you your name. By the time the first syllable is out of your mouth they start to carve your name into a keyring and open the bidding at a ridiculous price! I was lucky that when I first met one
he didn't know how to spell Niall and had to write it out in the sand at which point I realised what was going on! Once he's carved your name in and you don't want to buy it he starts to make you feel bad for ruining his keyring and the price drops dramatically to about one
hundredth of the first asking price when you are about to drive off. It's all put on though - he just carves off your engraving and moves to the next unsuspecting walking wallet!
Animal Drawings
I was sitting outside having a meal watching a pretty talented sketcher finish off a sale with some tourists. When he's finished he comes over and starts talking to me, giving me his story so far - he's a bushman from Spitzkoppe mountains (more on these soon) and has made the transition from a poor farmer's son to a poor artist. 
He tells me an American tourist was looking for a drawing of an Oryx but he'd never seen one before and asked me if there was one in my lonely planet book. I lend him the book and he goes to draw it. Five minutes later he comes back which a good sketch and puts it down on my table -it's a present especially for me. I tell him that I couldn't possibly accept it as he'll need to look at it if someone asks him again for an Oryx but to no avail, it's a present.
We have a chat and then he starts telling me that times are hard for artists in Swakopmund and he wants to go back to his hometown to teach kids how to draw but he desperately needs supplies. Reckoning this is as likely as him opening a Parisien gallery I commiserate with him and again say I can't accept the drawing but that he should sell it for the kids. He changes his tune and now needs some bread, a shameless tug at the heartstrings given he's just watched me eat a nice meal! However, I'm fairly ruthless with this kind of stuff, offer to give him back his drawing, shake his hand and make my way back to the hostel where I hang the drawing up on the wall! Later I compare it to the lonely planet photo and realise that it is a replica of another oryx photo later in the book that I didn't show him!
On Going On
I start to think about how to get to Etosha Game Park, the big safari park in the North of the country and slowly come to the realisation that there is no possibility of getting there by public transport. My next thought is to hitchhike it but assuming I could hitch there (a big assumption!), it would be impossible to get around the park and I would be confined to the rest camp water hole to spot game. With this in mind I arrive in Avis and ask to hire a car. Car hire is pretty steep in Namibia because most of the roads are gravel surfaces which makes it easy to overturn the car. For a small car I am quoted about 45 euros a day which as well as petrol, park fees and accomodation would add up to about 120 euros a day to see Etosha park. I make the booking as this is a once in a lifetime thing and just as I'm about to hang up I ask whether there is any charge for being under 25 - an extra 20 euros a day, ouch!
I consider the financial impact of these 6 days on my year of travelling as I walk back to the hotel and I am told that I have a new roommate. He's a Dutch guy called Frank and has been travelling in South Africa and Namibia since finishing an internship in a university in Johannesburg. He was with a few friends who had to go home recently and was now having to pay the costs of his cheap South African hire car (about 20 euros a day) by himself (my ears prick up!). He tells me he is travelling north to Etosha, Botswana and Zimbabwe and at this point we start to discuss plans over a beer and within a hour of meeting each other I decide to call into Avis the next morning to tell them where to put their young driver's surplus charge!
An interesting journey and turned away at the inn
After my trip to Katutura I picked up my stuff and headed to a petrol station on the outskirts of the city to try to catch a minibus to Swakopmund. I duly pay my namibian 80 dollars (about 9 euro) for the four hour journey and am told to wait in the minibus where there is about 6 people waiting already. The funny thing about these minibuses is they don't leave until it's full to the brim and when 14 seated passengers (as well as two kids lying on the floor) arrive two hours later it takes off! On the way one guy tries to make the best of the situation by cosying up to a girl and chatting her up and it works because he leaves with her phone number. Another guy beside me gets a bit tired and falls asleep on my shoulder for most of the journey!
I arrive in Swakopmund well after dark (sunset is about 6pm here) and the B&B I was supposed to be staying in is full. It's about a twenty minute walk to the next hostel and after walking 10 minutes down the main street past some unsavoury characters I take my Dad's advice and hop in a taxi to the next hostel (which is closed) before finally arriving at a lodge with a spare dorm bed. I met my new room mates, a group of English guys about my age travelling through South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They were out fishing that day and were cooking up a storm. They kindly offer me a plate, a cold beer, a bit of craic in the hotel pub and a snowboarding session in the morning which was a vast improvement on my planned salami sandwich, warm water, early night and morning stroll around the town!
