Time Out in Africa: Part 15
Created | Updated May 5, 2004
This trip stems from a promise that El (my better half) and I had made to ourselves - when her exams were over we would take off for a while, travel the world, have a little fun. The aim was to do a wide variety of stuff – some touristy things, some mountains, see some friends and family. Most of this journal dates from notes I took in the evening - I have allowed hindsight to creep in in some places though...
Day 53 – Windhoek
Given the accumulating fatigue and El's sense of an impending cold, we postpone any travel east until Saturday. Instead we laze around, visit the history section of the national museum, the best one so far with a section on the armed struggle and independence that is quite evocative. Like the ANC, most of the SWAPO leaders are still in power and the question of what happens after that generation dies off is very much in people's minds.
In the evening we chat with a French tour guide who has just had a tooth pulled by a local dentist. She seems not too much the worse for wear and we have a good discussion. Apparently French speaking guides are in demand in the region as French is not often spoken by the Namibian guides.
Day 54 – Windhoek to Ghanzi – Hitching across the Kalahari
A challenging day ahead – hitching in Africa would seem to have its share of uncertainties, and we have 500 km in front of us, across one of the largest deserts in the world. We decide to start early and at 07:15 we are at the bus station. The minibus drivers are setting up and greet us but nobody is in the bus, always a bad sign. It takes two and a half hours to get to the usual degree of over-fullness – 19 in a bus built for 14. Unsurprisingly the driver gets pulled over at the road block outside town, although a bit of low level bribery with a coke and some food for the policeman gets him through.
At 12:15 we make it to Gobabis, a cattle town in the east of Namibia. We're turfed out at a crossroads and spend a few minutes looking around in perplexity as we get our bearings. There are lots of cars but very few going to the border, particularly with it being a Saturday. A friendly chap greets us and suggests we ask an HGV driver. He's full and after another 10 minutes dithering, the friend of the driver of the pick-up persuades him to take us to the frontier. The truck's completely full so we perch on top and make ourselves reasonably comfortable amongst the sacks of flour and the driver's dog.
The chap who interceded for us is called Alphonse, and he talks non stop on the back of the truck about how happy he is to talk to foreigners, how unhappy he is about the Zimbabwe situation, and how much he likes Tony Blair. The driver goes nice and slowly and we make it to the frontier without falling off. A cursory glance at our papers and we're through to the Botswanan side of the border, which is looking a bit empty. We get another slice of luck when an Afrikaner farmer taking his sons to a cricket match feels sorry for us. By happy coincidence he is heading to the same hotel where we are due to meet my mate, so we do the rest of the stage in air conditioned comfort, arriving with the last of the light.
There's still time to have an incredibly slow and not very good meal, for El to have a strange encounter in the Ladies with a woman wanting to know what to do about her stretch marks, and for a howling dog to disturb our sleep.
Day 55 – Ghanzi to Mabuasehube National Park
A few hundred kilometres of tarmac to start the long drive south. We take turns at driving Al's 16 year old Landcruiser, the Beast. Even with the power steering it's quite heavy, the clutch weighs a ton and the brakes and accelerator require a certain firmness. The road is good and the main hazard is the innumerable goats, cattle and donkeys that stand in the road or alternatively run across panicked. After a few hours the road gives out and the deep sand takes over. Al takes the wheel back – the trick is keeping momentum going as otherwise the front digs into the sand.
At the last village there would be tumbleweed if that grew in Botswana, and the park gate is equally empty. It is almost dark as we get to the camp, so we make a fire immediately, pitch the tents, and start talking about hyena attacks. As we shine a torch out from the fire, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pairs of baleful green eyes stare back at us. They're only jackals but it all adds to the general atmosphere and solitude. The nearest human being is at least 4km away, the rangers are 16km away and the village is 100km...
All of this plus the biting cold means we don't sleep very well and so get to hear the whooping call of the spotted hyena and the, probably distant, roar of the lion.
