Running with the Wild Dog - All Creatures Great and Small

Leaving the camp at the Himba village, near Kamanjab, we drove across to the spectacular Etosha National Park in Kunene Region for two days crammed full of game drives and watching animals big (animaximals) and small (animinimals) by watering holes. We stayed in Okaukuejo and Namutoni.
 Wherever we turned to watch, the scene before us looked as though Noah had just parked the ark and let all the animals out!  (As a random aside, I have just discovered that the word animinimals is in use by a techno band from Belgium).

This was my 13th safari in Africa after Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro Crater, Tarangire, Burigi parks in Tanzania, Hwange and Matopos parks in Zimbabwe, Naivasha, Nakuru, Maasai Mara, Baringo and Mount Kenya in Kenya and Murchison Falls in Uganda, so I wasn't really into striking off 'the big 5' of a ticklist. Instead I was keen to just 'be' in the midst of one of the most amazing creations of the natural world. And I have to confess that Etosha is easily one of the top National Parks in Africa for wildlife!

Here are some glimpses of the wonders of our creation, the rest you will find in the photo gallery in the previous posting or if you venture into the park yourself.

Zebra crossing

Two Oryx

The day of the jackal

Cat napping

The Lion King

They are not laughing

The amazing Etosha salt pan

Hartebeest

Giraffe taking a long drink

All too soon we left Etosha behind and headed south to Okonjima, home of the Africat Foundation, the largest cheetah and leopard rescue and release programme in the world.  We spent one night there and learned all about the work of the Africat Foundation and met some of the kitties.

Nature red in tooth and claw

Cool caracals

Bookends - members of the 'Adams' family

After dusk, I was able to catch up briefly with my friend Beth who leads volunteers at the PAWS project just down the path. Later my fellow adventure travellers and I enjoyed a wonderful braai and swapped tall travelling tales around the camp fire before turning in. 

Our band of happy travellers

The next morning we dismantled our camp for the last time and hit the road.

Soon we arrived back in Windhoek and, reluctant to say goodbye, we decided to enjoy a 'last supper' in style at Joe's Beer House among flaming schnapps and a variety of game platters (feeling a tad guilty after observing these beautiful creatures in the wild....) a great way to end a spectacular Namibian Adventure!

From left to right: Ian, John, Vikki, Me, Jonathan and Petr

Running with the Wild Dog - Coast and culture

Up at virtually the crack of dawn to shower and pack away our dome tents, down a hearty breakfast and climb back into the tour truck, the happy band of travellers set off on another leg of the Namibian Explorer Safari. Safari-so-goody! All too soon we waved goodbye to the magnificent dunes and desert landscape and headed down to a quirky one horse town (more of a hamlet) called Solitaire , vaguely recalling scenes from the Texas chainsaw massacre remake, where we stopped off to try some of Moose MacGregor's famous apple pie (more of an apple crumble without cream or custard) in the midst of a graveyard of wrecked vehicles. Bizarre! Thankfully no chainsaws, only a few sad looking camels...hmm camels and car crashes.....what a mix.

Come on in for apple crumble!

Where old bangers go to rest!

Leaving Solitaire we headed towards the coast where we stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn line for obligatory photos and then towards Kuiseb where we stopped again to admire the unusual geological mica schist formations....

Well I just had to have my photo taken here.

View from the Kuiseb pass

Soon we caught a glimpse of the Atlantic as we swung into Walvis Bay and enjoyed a bracing pre lunch walk along the lagoon, famed for its birdlife, before attempting to sit down next to the tour bus and eat sandwiches and salad al fresco in gale force winds.

Wot no birds?

That was not our last stop of the day though, we drove onwards to Swakopmund where we enjoyed two nights at the Amanpuri traveller's lodge. Having spent a weekend in Swakopmund a few weeks previously I decided to use this opportunity to chill out instead of running around trying to see everything. I treated myself to a delicious morning coffee at the Garden Cafe, wandered along to the Die Muschel bookshop and bought 'Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" by Richard Bach and "Conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsch and settled into a spot on the sand to begin my literary foray. In between reading and watching the world go by I sampled a tasty veggie lunch at the Strand cafe and strolled up and down the sea front a few times until the sun set.

Swakopmund pier

The next day we followed the skeleton coast past a floating ship wreck, (sadly no Captain Jack Sparrow in sight aharrgghhhhhh) and on to Cape Cross where the famous portuguese explorer Diego (sometimes spelt Diogo) Cao set foot on Namibian soil for the first time in 1485. Nowadays, Cape Cross is home to a large colony of fur seals and they don't half pong I can tell you!

Cape Cross seal colony - what a racket!

A few jackals skulked about in the background but were too elusive to photograph on this occasion. After breathing in the seals' pungent aroma for far too long, we piled back into the relatively pleasant-smelling tour truck and hit the road again, away from the coast and on to the Brandberg mountain (or 'Fire' mountain) in Damaraland where we left the truck behind to trek through Jurassic Park like terrain and foliage, wending our way through elephant grass, jumping over steams and scrambling over boulders, past monkey rock. I half expected to see a pterodactyl swoop down upon us from the lofty mountain heights but instead we came across a few lizard relatives, the agama. 

Cute little chappie isn't he?

The heat clung to our bodies as we scrambled further up through the boulders, reminiscent of scenes from the film Picnic at Hanging Rock, towards our goal, a glimpse of the white lady. Who is she? A ghost? A goddess? A barking mad witch living in a cave? She is actually none of these apparitions. She is in fact a 'he' and an ancient rock painting, of great spiritual significance to the San people.

A slightly 'off-white' White Lady

As the sun began to set over the mountain top, giving it its burnished glow and name of Fire mountain, we returned to the truck and drove to our camp where we put up our tents among the trees and settled in for the night.

Wild Dog camp

Unusual carvings of animals at Twyfelfontein

The next day we toddled off to Twyfelfontein, home of the famous rock carvings and enjoyed a guided tour of plenty of animal and half animal/spirit carvings. Early signs of shamanic shape-shifting? Carvings weren't the only features to stand out from the rocks, we noticed plenty of white hyrax poo as well. Hyrax or Dassie is the closest living relative to the elephant but you wouldn't guess that from looking at it as it resembles a guinea pig. Anyway enough of poo, from Twyfelfontein we travelled on, taking in a short stop to admire some more ancient wonders, this time of the vegetable kind, which are also important cultural symbols as this species has a special place in the Namibian Coat of Arms. It is the great Welwitschia mirabilis.

Can you see it?

 Welwitschia looking a tad leathery and shrivelled

It's a unique plant by any stretch of the imagination, with only two leaves which split into many ribbon like structures and a longevity of on average 500-600 years, and some larger specimens are thought to live for up to 2000 years. Well no wonder it looks a tad leathery and shrivelled - so would you be if you grew up in a desert for a couple of thousand years! It is an endangered species and requires fog to survive. In homeopathy this plant symbolises duality.

Onwards forever onwards to our camp among some impressive rocks next to a Himba village.

Happy camping!

After putting up our tents (again....getting very good at this now, in about 5 mins) we were taken on a guided tour of the Himba village to learn about the culture of the Himba tribe. Although this was fascinating, I also felt uncomfortable because the 'project' seemed very staged and I did not see evidence of how the women and children of the village benefitted from the income from tourism. 

Hairdressing Himba stylze

So our coast and 'culcha' filled days were nearly done, remembered over a evening camp fire before the final leg of our adventure.

Namibia Explorer Safari photo gallery

Running with the Wild Dog - Desert, dunes and dead lakes

Towards the end of September, I approached the half-way point through my mission. My colleague at NRC kindly reminded me that I had accrued some annual leave and encouraged me to use it otherwise I would lose it, so I arranged to take a ten-day break. It was a gift! I decided to use the time to go on an explorer camping safari around Namibia with Wild Dog Safaris, an excellent value for money, responsible tour company.

I joined my fellow travellers Vikki and John (from Canada), Ian, (from the UK), Jonathan (from the US) and Petr (from the Czech Republic) plus our brilliant guides Clifton and Joseph in the tour truck and we set off on a sunny Tuesday morning from Windhoek, south through Rehoboth and on to Sesriem in the Namib-Naukluft National Park where we set up camp for a couple of nights.

After putting up our tents, we visited the Elim dunes, just a short drive away, where we could climb up the sandy slopes and watch the colours change over the plains while the sun set.

The changing colours as the sun set over Elim dunes

The next day we were up before dawn and drove further into the Park to climb some dunes to watch the sunrise. It was a breathtaking site watching the sun rise, turning the dunes into a deep red, gold and russet. 

Dunes at dawn

After breakfast out in the open air, Clifton took us on a desert walk where he explained the different plants, identified animal tracks and told us stories about the ways of the indigenous peoples, such as the Khoisan, and how they were able to survive in the desert. 

Clifton squeezing some ostrich salad to get water

He led us onwards and upwards to a series of dune ridges where he left us to scale their heights and then run down the slopes to Deadvlei, a dead lake which eerily resembles an out of this world landscape containing a salt pan and dead tree stumps reaching up to the sky.

Me climbing the dunes

Me and fellow traveller John running down the slopes

Eerie Deadvlei

Toasted in the sun, the happy band of travellers trekked onwards through Deadvlei and made their way to the road where we hitched a lift  to Sossuvlei and then back to the campsite. A few of us chilled out with an ice-cold drink in the bar in the afternoon and swapped travel adventure stories, one of the best bits about travelling in a small group! Then when the afternoon had cooled off a little, we piled back into the truck and went down to the Sesriem canyon, a small but nevertheless impressive gorge carved out by a river over thousands of years. 

A glimpse down in Sesriem Canyon

Missing things

Hello readers! Slacking again aren't I? I've got a few posts to catch up on. I've been pondering for a little while on good Old Blighty. It's funny how I really miss England when I'm out of the country and yet there are things that drive me round the bend when I'm there. Goes to show you don't know what you have until its gone.....well gone temporarily......or rather I mean England hasn't gone anywhere, its me, I have gone away from England. Am I making any sense? Forgive me, its late on a Friday night and I've overdosed on a bar of Cadbury's Caramel.....yes they sell it here in Windhoek. Good old Cadburys.

And that brings me to other things I miss about England. Apart from obviously missing my family, friends and good neighbours in Bloomsbury House in Battersea there are three other things I miss. Having spent the last four months in an exceptionally arid country where much of the vegetation resembles a vision in all shades of beige, or brown or straw yellow.... I have to confess I am missing GREEN. Yes the colour green. England's green and pleasant land. That's not so say there are no green trees or bushes anywhere here, no there are but not many and with bare earth, or dry grass or rock in between. I miss green grass and especially the smell of freshly cut lawns in summer.

The second thing I miss about England, wait for it, wait for it...yes you guessed it, like many a Brit, I'm going to mention something about the weather. I miss CLOUDS. Who would have thought it? I'm living in a country where the sun shines almost every day in cloudless blue skies. What bliss I hear your cry? Well it is. I'm truly grateful. But every now and then I miss being able to spot the different types of clouds and notice their shapes and how they change the light, especially a steely grey sky in a thunderstorm with lightening cracking through the clouds looking like it would split the sky in two. Well the rains are coming and I did notice one or two clouds on their way, so perhaps I will be able to indulge in more cloud spotting soon.

The third thing I miss is a bizarre one and perhaps seemingly somewhat trivial but I do miss TRAFFIC LIGHTS at pedestrian crossings that actually work to the advantage of the pedestrian to help him or her actually get across a two or four lane road safely. By contrast traffic lights here at crossings are different. The green man flashes for barely five seconds, luring the unsuspecting pedestrian out into the middle of the road, only to immediately flash red and hey presto he or she is caught like a proverbial rabbit in headlights as cars, lorries and pick ups whizz past, running the risk of turning said pedestrian into road pizza. NOT COOL!

On on

Sue and Hector picked me up on Sunday afternoon and we went down to the Roof of Africa Hotel in time for 4pm  to meet other folk who also belong to the Hash House Harriers, Windhoek Chapter. I hadn't heard of the Hash House Harriers before, or H3 for short. Apparently it is a global running and social club which originated in Kuala Lumpur in 1938 when a group of  British officers decided to meet up and run on Monday evenings to work off the excesses of the weekend! There are 1984 Hash Groups registered in 1295 cities around the world. The Windhoek chapter was set up in 1990. The group meets every two weeks to do a Hash trail which means the "hare" sets a trail and the group has to find it and follow it. "On on" means the group is on the trail.

As Windhoek is at altitude and very hilly and the climate hot, "hashers" hike the trail rather than run, which is a big relief to me! Afterwards the group gathers for drinks and songs (down down) and food.

Enjoying a shot of sake at the half way point!

I've been on 3 hash's so far, two were in the hills starting in Ludwigsdorf in Windhoek and the other one took place, unusually at 8.00am on a Saturday morning (groan, no lie in) in Dan Viljoen park just outside Windhoek. The group attracts people of all ages and nationalities and is really friendly.

On on!

S.. in the City

No, this isn't a spoiler about a third movie with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda suddenly descending on Windhoek in designer animal print safari suits ready for sundowners and game drives.. (and I don't mean in Etosha National Park).

However S.. in the city could stand for Sarah, swimming and spa instead! A few weeks ago on a sunny, Saturday morning I joined two glamorous ladies, Elham and Anamaria,  for a girls morning out at the newly completed and opened Hilton Hotel where we tried out the pool and spa facilities on the roof sun-deck for a very reasonable day pass price (100 N$ which is about £8). Going up to the top floor in a glass lift was a bit of a shocker but, thankfully, on the roof the wall surrounding the sundeck was high enough to prevent me from succumbing to vertigo and plunging over the edge into the carpark below. We arrived quite early and had the pool and comfy sun loungers to ourselves for a while. The temperature soon soared and it was time for a dip in the cold water.

 The pool is long, narrow, attractive and has two waterfalls running into it from a mosaic wall but realistically no more than two people at a time can swim in lanes before it gets a bit crowded! A few minutes warming back up in the steam room finished the morning off perfectly.

In the evening I went to a leaving party for a colleague from UNICEF, Madhavi and her husband Robert who were going to move to Kenya after 5 years in Namibia. It was a lovely evening. Plenty of guests turned up to give the well-respected couple a good send off and it was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet some new people and make a few more friends. A couple called Sue and Hector invited me to join a group for a hike the following afternoon...

A little four letter word update

Yes...that little four letter word called WORK, which is what I'm actually here for in Namibia and not on an extended holiday or foodie fest, honest! I thought I'd better mention a couple of sentences about how things are going here.

My colleagues and I circulated our joint UNFPA/NRCS Regional Field Visit Report on Protection in Flood Relief and Recovery to a wide range of people in agencies and National and Regional Government and have used it to generate discussion and planning for activities we can carry out in the coming months to strengthen the protection sector before the next rains.

The report has been well received and we are in the process of planning a national level protection in natural disasters training workshop for a range of actors with support from the Global Protection Cluster Working Group (GPCWG) and regional trainings together with the Namibia Red Cross Society (NRCS) which will take place in November. In addition we have been working closely with our colleagues in the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to provide some input into their Camp Coordination and Camp Management training of trainers course, specifically two protection chapters. The ToT course was launched this Wednesday and will commence in the northern regions of Namibia in the first week of November. It is really good to know that protection will be covered during capacity development of camp managers.

National launch of IOM's ToT course

I've continued to participate in various UNDAF activities including assisting a small editorial group to edit the Country Analysis paper and attending a validation workshop for said paper. I still can't get my head around the fact that it can take almost 2 years to develop an UNDAF (United Nations Development Assistance Framework) that will cover a 5 year development cycle, so no sooner is one completed then the next one begins.....

Cafe culture x 4

I thought I would tell you about a few more finds. Sometimes, during my lunch break from work I go across the road from UN House to the Portuguese Pasteleria Lua del Mel for a toasted sandwich or a delicious pastel de nata and coffee.

A week after my weekend in Swakopmund, I met up with Beth, who I met on the Botanic Garden guided walk a few weeks previously, for a late lunch at the Craft Cafe. The Craft cafe is situated on a balcony in the older Brewery complex off Independence Avenue which houses some of the very best Namibian crafts from all over the country including wood carvings, paintings, leatherwork, clothes, soft furnishings, jewelry, photos and household items. I enjoyed a citrus keffir drink (like an orange lassie)with a rolled greek salad with olive tapenade and health bread while listening to Beth's adventures as a field guide at the P.A.W.S project in Okonjima. It was good to catch up!

Two other cafes I tried for a change of scenery in order to get out of the office during lunchbreaks were Paprika and Fresh n' Wild. Paprika is a new cafe next to a small boutique in a large house around the corner from the Wild Eende nursery. It serves a limited range of light lunches, cakes and beverages and a couple of daily specials. Although reasonably price, I didn't think the food was as good quality as the Cicada in Wild Eende.

Fresh n Wild is a chain of cafes. I chose to try the branch in Utopia which is a health and wellbeing complex down on Nelson Mandela Avenue. They serve healthy lunches and revitalising or detoxifying smoothies. I found out about Utopia through a health, wellbeing and green-living newsletter called mind connections and went along one evening to listen to a spiritual talk on Ascended Masters at the Fresh n Wild one Wednesday evening. The event attracted quite a crowd of all ages and backgrounds. It was an interesting talk but not for me. I heard alarm bells ring when the speaker inferred that this was the only way to enlightenment and urged the audience to buy a series of 19 books to find out more. I believe that God or Universal Life Force has made all knowledge available to all beings. The skies proclaim the work of his/her hands and we already have everything we need to lead fulfilling lives, physically, emotionally and spiritually in harmony with all living things in the universe.

Swakopmund photo essay

Here is a slide show of my photos of Swakopmund.

Enjoy!

A seaside adventure

I slept like a log in Villa Wiese, it must have been the bracing sea air. I got up reasonably early and enjoyed a tasty cooked breakfast (somehow bacon tastes better by the sea!). Then I set off into the fog which had rolled in off the sea during the night and wrapped Swakopmund in a thick grey blanket. The town was silent. Only a few people and vehicles were about. The fog gave the streets an eerie appearance, like a German version of Brigadoon (the legend of a Scottish village which appears once every hundred years in the fog!). 

I decided it would be a good idea to do a photo essay. So off I trotted down to the lighthouse, as if I had stepped into a Virginia Woolf novel…, and wandered up and down the sea strand, along the jetty, waves crashing underneath, around the Mole and back into town. I wended my way through the still fog-shrouded streets. I snapped away, framing seascapes, street scenes, the German colonial architecture and every now and then captured some colour e.g. brightly painted benches in primary colours and arty murals along walls. I stopped for a latte in the Garden Café which is tucked behind an art gallery and craft shop and sipped to warm up a bit. Afterwards I continued my walk up the seafront and bought a few postcards on the way. I soon worked up an appetite and checked the menu at the famous Tug restaurant but it looked a bit run down and overpriced so I decided to go to 22^o South, a new restaurant in the bright and cheerful red and white lighthouse that stood proudly, like an oversized pepperpot, a sentinel looking out to sea. 

I chose hake, vegetables and new potatoes, a lime soda followed by ice cream and coffee. The food was excellent and the service impeccable. By the time I had drained the last few drops from my cup, the fog had dissipated and the sun had come out. And like any mad dog and Englishman, I strode out into the midday sun and plonked myself down on the beach in a sun trap and began reading the novel “What I loved” by Siri Hustvedt that I had bought earlier at Die Muschel bookshop and art gallery. I continued reading and soaked up the sun’s rays, lifting my head up now and again to watch the waves crashing onto the beach and children playing on the sand and a few brave souls who paddled out to sea.

The water looked too cold for me and the current too fierce. Signs on the beach indicated ‘swim at your own risk’. Later on I wandered idly along the strand in the other direction, took more photos and then returned as the temperature cooled. I stopped off at the Strand café for a warming pot of Five Roses tea and watched the sun sink down behind the Mole.

When it was too cold to sit there any longer I slowly strolled back up town and popped into the 3 NAMigos Mexican restaurant for a burrito before going to bed. Although I woke up early, or so I thought, the hostel was busy and I thought this was strange so early on a Sunday morning. I checked the time with the receptionist and discovered to my horror that the clocks had gone forward in the night by one hour and I had just 10 minutes to grab my bags and sprint across town to catch the bus back to Windhoek! Thankfully I made it in the nick of time. The journey back was smooth and Townhoppers dropped me home by lunchtime. I popped down to Checkers to stock up on food and then sat outside in the sun for a while in the garden.