Careful With that Axe Eugene

Brandberg

Some other "berg"

 30.03.2012 Aus, Namibia

So, another week has passed, and it has been another good one. The responses on the blog have not been so good though. When not even my most faithful man, Haaland, has left a comment, then it is a sign.

This week has been filled with enormous landscapes above all. The few people I have seen have almost all been friendly and nice, and even gave me a fish. Namibia is so beautiful.

From Khorixas I went down to Brandberg, but did not visit the white lady. I went around the mountain, and slept at the west side of it, so that I could see the mountain in the evening light. Saying has it that the Brandberg-massif looks like it is on fire at sunset, but it was not really on fire. The evening was beautiful and the scenery stunning. From there I took a small fantastic road down to the sea (myl 105) and along the coast to Hentisbay. I slept on the beach, and in the afternoon I met some fishermen that gave me a fish. They said it was the best fish around for barbecuing, and it was very good. I left the coast the following day though, because it is cold.

From Hentisbay  I headed towards Spitzkoppe, slept in a desert/rocky place full of lizards, where I had the most amazing sunset I have ever seen. Next day I spend some time online, to get tickets back to Europe. I fly to Germany on the fifth, pick up my bike there, and leave for Norway a small week later.

Then there was a very rainy day, but then there was a beautiful day, and I happened to be at the Naukluft-Mountains, so I went trekking for a day. I trek much too seldom. It’s such a different and beautiful way to see the world. I felt like Bilbo Baggins. The scenery was not spectacular, and I met a very scary snake.

The scenery has generally been very beautiful though, also along the Namib Desert. I have taken so many landscape-pictures, as you can see. It has been hard to pick the good once. Tomorrow I’ll be heading down to Lüderitz, have Wombosi serviced, and then I’ll go slowly up to Windhoek to meet Mparany on the seventh.

Overlander

Wild horse in the evening-light

Rainy day

Wombosi near Spitzkuppe

Sunset

The Naukluft-Mountains

Coming Back to Life

Early morning in the desert

Hot tempered elephant

 21.03.2012 Wilderness, Namibia

What a fantastic week! What last week had of nothingness, this has had of fullness. Everyday has presented me with something else, everything as beautiful or interesting in its own way. The spring arrived on Friday around noon, and Wombosi was ready to hit the road 20 minutes later.

First I got to tell about the most touching thing that happened last week in Ongwediva. I had been street musician for one day, and earned 47 Namibian Dollar in more than four hours, which means about one euro the hour. So, I did not get rich by being a street-musician in Namibia, but there was one very sweet incident that happened. While I was playing, three young school-boys who were on their way home from school stopped some meter away from me. They stood there for a long time, maybe twenty or thirty minutes. When they figured they had to go, they started digging in their pockets to find some money. It was evident that these boys did not have too much money. In the end they found some coins and put them together, and one of them came over to me and threw them into the guitar-case. I muttered “thank you”, being in the middle of a song that was all I could do, but it really warmed me to get those coins. Compared to money in general, what they gave was nothing, but compared to what they had I think it was a lot. It is good to see that part of Africa also, and remember it when people stop me, and I think they want to hitch, and then they ask me for cigarettes, and when I say that I don’t have any, they ask for sweets.

Leaving Ongwediva made me very happy and First stop was the Ruacana-fall. There is a dam above the fall, and normally in the rainy-season it should be open and the fall full of water, but because of lack of reins, the dam was locked. This meant little water in the fall, but the possibility to swim in it. That was very refreshing after living a week on some dusty parking-lot.

From Ruacana I went south to Opuwo to hook up with Morne from the tourist-information in Ongwediva, and three Norwegians he guided around northern Namibia. Together we went to a Himba-Village. The Himbas are a people closely related to the Herero-People, but the Himbas have preserved their traditions and way of living uncommonly well. Visiting a Himba-Village with three Norwegin tourists is like going to a zoo, only with humans instead of animals. I tried to keep distance, and be modest and polite, at the same time as I of course had to shoot plenty of pictures. I had after all paid for visiting the village (something I do extremely seldom).

While Morne and the Norwegians returned to Opuwo to find themselves some lodge with a swimming-pool, I decided to stay camped in the village, and that was very good. The Himbas returned to their everyday-life and put away the handicraft they had tried to sell us. I did not really blend in, regarding that I don’t speak a word Himba-Language, and none of the village people spoke any English, and that I look pretty different. I stayed together with them, let them do their things, and did mine. In the evening I entertained them with playing some songs for them, something they seemed to enjoy. The next morning I shot some last pictures, before I headed north to the Epupa-Falls.

The Epupa-Falls were fantastic. Here, there was no shortage of water. I spend that afternoon lying in the shade of a tree on a small island in the falls, reading, smoking pipe or just closing my easy and daydreaming. A soft mist cooled me down occasionally when the wind came my way. Of course I had to take a bath both in the evening and in the morning. When you walk up on the hill from the falls you get a splendid view of the whole falls in the evening light (at least if you do the walk in the evening).

The following day was as close as you’d get to eventless, but on Tuesday I headed into the riverbed of the Hoanib-River to track down desert-elephants. The desert-elephants are thinner than normal elephants, because they have less to eat and to drink, so they tend to look bigger, but are just the same size as the once you find in Etosha. They have much bigger feet, to make it easier for them to walk in the soft desert sand. In the evening I only spotted one Elephant who was a bit boring, but the place I camped was about the most beautiful place you can imagine (see picture of Wombosi). There I read the book “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” by Mark Haddon, and what a book that was. I did not manage to put it away before I had it read through. Thank you very much, Elisabeth, to give me this book.

While the evening-encounter with the desert-elephant was rather boring; the morning-encounter was not. I was driving back, and was already out of the riverbed and on my way towards Sesfontein when I saw an elephant coming towards me on the road. I thought “perfect”, parked the car two meters away from the road, 25 meters away from the elephant and waited. First the elephant waited a long time too, but then he started to continue his walk straight towards me as I had hoped. I thought he would walk straight past me, considering that I had put the car out of his path, but at some point I realized that that might not be happening. When the elephant had reached Wombosi, he turned towards me and took a step forward. He was now about one meter away from me, and I could have reached out and touched him through the open window, something I of course did not do. It did not look too happy, and my heart was starting to beat very fast, so I started the engine, something that surprised the elephant, and made him take half a step back, and Wombosi soared off. Luckily the elephant was too lazy to chase Wombosi in the desert-sand, and continued his slow walk, so when my heart was beating normally again I pulled around and could enjoy him a bit more, this time on safe distance, and with the engine on.

Afterwards I figured how stupid I had been. I don’t have any insurance foe Wombosi here in Namibia, and elephants don’t usually buy third-party insurances either, even if they are a great danger to fellow travelers, so I’m glad nothing happened. An elephant can easily push a car over to the side or all around to the roof. These animals are big.

Today is today, and this will be posted tomorrow, after I have seen the Twyfelfontein (doubtful spring) rock-art. But, Today is today, and the 21^st of March is not any day here in Namibia. Today, 22 years ago in 1990 Namibia gained their independence from South-Africa. I celebrate it by camping in northern Damaraland close to a waterhole, where Zebras, antelopes and Gemsboks (Oryx) have tried their best to entertain me the whole afternoon. Life is good!

22.03.2012 Khorixas, Namibia

Just a small add for today. Twyfelfontein was not really much to write about, but I just wanted to make a remark about the rainy-season, regarding that it is raining heavily now. I’ve been mainly lucky with the rains, and they have been modest and not every day, and the sunsets and sunrises are just much more beautiful in the rainy season. Also, what I really wanted to say is that the night-sky here is absolutely magnificent. Namibia is famous for having one of the clearest night-sky in the world, but when we were here last time (dry season) it disappointed us. Now it is just stunning. The sky is full of stars from horizon to horizon, and due to the new-moon (today), they shine even brighter. 

The Epupa-Falls

Mist

Morning at Epupa

Himba-Girl

Dancing

Himba-Kids

Unmarried Himba-Girl, anyone?

Wombosi

Evening over the Hoanib-River

Any Color You Like

Green

Blue

 15.03.2011 Ongwediva, Namibia

One week without moving is a new record. In Giseniy, we could at least go on day trips, but this week, Wombosi has not moved a millimeter. I have been lazy myself and have not moved too much either. It’s not been that bad though. I’ve met lovely people here, so I’ve been offered house and bed from several different people. I have said no to all of them, because I don’t want to leave Wombosi alone, and he simply cannot move with only three tires.

Half my days I’ve spend in the tourist-information-office. It’s run by an incredibly friendly and helpful man, so I’ve been able to use internet and electricity here and even got myself a hot shower. To have internet has given me the opportunity to catch up with my friends a bit, so there has been some skyping and some mailing.

Red

The rest of the time has been filled with reading, playing the guitar, taking pictures and talking to the folks around here. Due to the lack of spectacular photo-motives, I’ve chosen to do some more artistic shots this week.

I've used a small part of my time as a street musician. Income was not to high, but people seemed very happy about it, and had fun. 

Today I would have a lot of space to elaborate on some strange philosophy or African mind-set, but I can’t think of anything, so you’ll have to figure out something for yourself. 

Red II

Blue II

Green II

Orange

Blue III

Stop

I am a stupid German tourist... haha

Baby

 09.03.2012

And finally Wombosi let me down properly. Not as bad that I’m stuck in no-man’s-land with guerilla and wild animals all around me, but still. I am stranded in northern Namibia in a town called Ongwediva because of a broken spring. It broke quite close to Rundu I think, but I couldn’t locate the strange sound the car made in bumps before 100 km later, so I continued here.  There are plenty of garages here, but no Land-Rovers. The new spring has to be ordered from South-Africa, and apparently it takes five working-days to transport it here. It is supposed to arrive next Thursday. I hope it does. Before we decided to order from SA we searched all the scrap-yards in the area to find a similar piece, but without luck. It seems Wombosi’s suspension is bigger than anything you have here in northern Namibia.

Before the spring captured my attention my week was rather unspectacular, but nice. The whole Caprivi-area and northern Namibia (with the exemption of the very west) is uncommonly flat, so you see the straight strip of tarmac in front of you, and to the two sides you see five to ten meters of cleared land, and then the forest and the fences start, so then you see no more. The nice thing is that you can stop anywhere without being bothered. You can camp along the road. There are resting-places (see picture) every twenty kilometers along the road where you can take breaks or even sleep safely.

Namibia is very different from the rest of Africa. It is so ordered, like South Africa I presume, but the big difference to South-Africa is the lack of criminality. Not that there are too many people that can be criminal, but still. Namibia has a population of about two million, and a big country. As a matter of fact, Namibia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. As soon as Wombosi is good to go again I’ll be heading into the Kakoaveld (North-West), one of the last remaining great wildernesses of Africa. There you can still camp around and stumble across desert-elephants and lions without paying for it.

The majority of the pictures are from Zambia. I spend two evenings in the village close to Livingstone with this incredibly friendly man named Louis, and the pictures are from there. It was nice to become part of the village-life the tourists usually only see from outside. And ugali can be VERY good!

When I wrote last time I still had planned to do Botswana, but it didn’t make sense in the end. It is rainy season, so I would have been bound to the main-roads, and those I’ll do with my father in less than two months, so I left it until then. Namibia has so much to offer anyway, so I won’t be bored. It’s a shame that the Fish-River-Canyon is closed until the first of May.

That’s it for today. Not too exiting I guess, but the week has simply not been too exiting. I hope I can do some good here while I wait and that Wombosi will be cured until next time you hear from me.

My camp the next week

Nice roof

Me and the ladies

Hut

Laundry

Hut with solar system

Properly old lady for Zambian standards

Oxen drink in the Kovango-river. 

Lady

Cock

Camping alongside the road

No spring for Wombosi in this scrapyard

Delicate Sound of Thunder

Laundry Camp

Rainbow

 Livingstone 02.03.2012

Zambia! Zambia is a nice place to be. The once who said that the Malawians were the most friendly people of Africa missed by some kilometers. My time in Zambia has been filled with mainly rain and “boredom” seen from an attractions-aspect, but I’ve met nice people wherever I have been. Zambia has two big attractions, the game and the Victoria Falls. The game is no good in the rainy season, because you don’t see it, and you don’t even get to the parks because roads are of the bad kind, so that leaves the falls, which you don’t watch forever. But Zambia has so nice people that you can spend some time here really on the cheap, and have good time.

Situation one: You’re tired. You’ve been driving a couple of hours, and then been searching for tires in Lusaka, a city of 1.3 million people. Now you’re looking for a place to sleep, and because you live on the cheap, and want to meet people (not tourists) you don’t want to go to a hostel. So you cruise around town to see if you find a place that looks appealing, but haven’t seen anything good the 20 minutes you’ve been looking. About to give up you drive into a compound that looks a bit official and has an open gate and park the car. Straight after you, another car enters the compound, and a smiling man comes out and says “good evening, how are you”. You answer that you’re good, ask the other the same, and then you say you’re looking for a safe place to camp for the night, if you could stay. The answer is a big smile and “sure” (in beautiful African English).

You get shown around and meet the young man (20) who sleeps there as a kind of guard. You decide to make a campfire with the wet (because of heavy rain) wood you’ve brought, and after some time and help from the young man you get it burning nicely, so you take out your pots, and make macaroni and meat for the two of you. During dinner a second young man (23) comes with a guitar and joins you. He happens to have an amazing voice, fair skills on the guitar and also a talent for writing songs, not so unlike the writer of this blog, so you start playing. He plays his songs, and you add backing vocals and picking on the guitar (or you surprise with your melodica or harmonicas), and you play your songs and he joins in. Like this goes the evening around the fire (with the night sky and stars as a ceiling) until it is late and time to go to bed. That’s just not what you’d imagine would happen when you were out there driving, looking for a place.

Situation two: You have yet again been driving some hours, and you are sleepy behind the wheel, so you decide to stop for the night at a quite nice place along the road. You park, take out your chair, and sit down to enjoy the beautiful sunset (see picture). You’ve put on Eva Cassidy’s “songbird” and smoke your pipe while the African sky turns red.

It’s a bit later and you have retreated into your car to write an e-mail when motorbike comes and a friendly Zambian man greets you. He asks politely if you have planned to sleep here, and you say yes. He then sais that you are free to stay where you are, but if you want to you can come to the gate of the farm only 500 from the place in which you are, to be more safe. You accept and drive there. Without being more bothered you finish your writing and sleep well. The next morning you are offered a shower and a good talk before you set off to a blue sky (something that I have learned is not to be taken for granted in the rainy season).

Put shortly, Zambians are stunningly welcoming. What I’ve been doing since I came from Malawi is as follows. From Chipata (near the Malawian border) I went north for 250 kilometers to find game for free. The only thing I found was mud and rain, so I returned. From there I went slowly toward Lusaka where I did some shopping of food supplies and got myself a pair of new back tiers. The old once were really finished, with the metal looking out at some places already, but still, I did not get a single puncture on them. The new once are called Pirelli scorpion mud. They are real Pirelli, but produced in South-Africa, so unlike the real real Pirelli that last 60000 km, these should last between 30 and 40 thousand, but that’s the best you get it seems. From Lusaka I have cruised down here to Livingstone and the famous Victoria falls.

The Victoria Falls did not disappoint. The pictures are not that good, because of all the water, and thus smoke, but the falls were the more impressing. I’ve made some friends, so I actually sleep at the tourist village; for free! I also had to cross the bridge to Zimbabwe, so even if I haven’t been there officially, I have at least been on Zimbabwean soil.

Now the question is where to go. There are three options. I can go directly to Botswana via that terrible ferry. I can go to Botswana via Zimbabwe, which would be exciting for the stamp in the passport but expensive because of Visa and carbon-tax for the car. I could also go via Namibia to Botswana. What I’ll do is still open, but being shirt on USD, the only currency working in Zimbabwe at the moment, I think the route via Namibia is the most likely.  

So that’s this week. Rain, sun, nice people, long emails, muddy roads, guitar, a big waterfall and Wombosi with new boots. 

Dirt-Camp

Delicate Sound

Of Thunder

River

Grasshopper

Smiley

Over the Rainbow