Day 92 - 106: Namibia

Namibia is self-drive heaven. Two weeks on the open roads beckon. My preconception was that Namibia would be just an adjunct to South Africa albeit a massive, empty, destertified one. Almost immediately this was dispelled. How could I have forgotten that this used to be German South-West Africa. English comes in a poor fourth, to German, Afrikaans and whichever indigenous tongue you might prefer. The capital city of Windhoek is full of German beer, wiener schnitzel and twee churches. Some black ladies dress in the fashion of the turn of the 20th Century - no crop-tops for these gals. The music radio, our semi-constant companion around the country is all guttural Boer songs, perms, rolled up sleeves and blouson jackets. There's even a channel that on first listen might sound like a satellite war-report from Iraq, all clicks and quacks, but no, it's Damara or Bushman or one of the many other impenetrable languages where the exclamation marks come mid-word.


- Overtaking on the left is perfectly acceptable

We head North, stopping first at the Waterberg plateau, where we experience the first of a series of incredibly clean and efficient restcamps. This is a camping trip, so we pitch tent and fire up the hired gas stove to create our first pasta/rice and sauce combination. The plateau is quite beautiful, and Namibia, from here, looks relentlessly green. Disappointing. Not what we expected. Not complaining though.


- Getting ready to dive into Namibia from the Waterberg


- Lucy inspects dinosaur tracks

Next it's Etosha for some more game viewing. The rain has joined us here and it means business. The puddles it leaves render the much-lauded watering-holes around the great salt pan redundant. The animals scatter, leaving us with mud and few sightings. The highlight is a proper up-close look at a lone black rhino. It really doesn't like the sound, smell or, on closer (too close) inspection, the sight of us. It runs away, swaying its great arse like a prop forward dodging tackles. Then it returns, ears swiveling manically as I try to start the car without making a sound. He could turn the car over if he's in the mood. Eventually he decides we really are quite boring and shuffles off. For us two it's a bona fide fight, flight or, with neither option available, stifled-giggle situation.


- This Black Rhino got way too inquisitive for comfort


- Wildebeest yoga

Etosha is just too muddy, so we run the clouds and enter Damaraland. The landscape becomes dramatically mountainous and sparsely vegetated. Some peaks look suspiciously like giants' caches: piles of boulders. Others are tormented magmatic things turned at funny angles. Little tuberous bushes grow on them. The rain does not try to follow us here. Our camp site is more basic than the average, but that's forgivable as our pitch is on the banks of a dry river bed. Our saloon is joined by a few 4x4 campers, almost exclusively driven by old Germans. The 6000 year-old rock art at Twyfelfontein, just down the dirt road, is magical. Equally interesting are the organ pipes and Burnt Mountain; it's in this territory that Lucy comes over all geological. Her collection of stones begins.


- Rare first edition hunting guide at Twyfelfontein


- Damaraland vista


- This is elephant poo, next to our tent!

Deeper into Damaraland we go, towards the coast. Apparently this used to be covered with a great sheet of lava, and the mountains are the remnants. On our drive to the skeleton coast we pick up three lonely hitchers. One is going to the "shop", another is looking for his cows, the third needs to go 50km to get home (a twelve-hour walk, he informs us solemnly, clearly having made that journey before). He turns out to be the son of the gatekeeper of the Skeleton Coast park. Can't imagine being a teenager in this kind of inhospitable environment. Even broadcast radio gives out well before here (actually, a relief for us). Beyond the park gate is hard desert to the sea. White sand and rock. Yellow sand and salt. Gravel and gems. Perversely, the driving improves in this ultra-hostile environment. The gravel roads we've been getting used to, with their layer of grit, and sickening losses of grip are replaced by a quiet, smooth salt road, glistening with crystals. Our stop for the night is Mile 108, a desolate row of ablution blocks on the beach, supporting a couple of hundred camping pitches. Magically, we are the only guests. Walking off down the coast utterly alone is pure liberation with a measure of fear mixed in.


- Torra Bay, the skeleton coast. This gets a great big dot on the map


- Shiver me timbers!


- Seals at Cape Cross. Individually cute, en masse, disconcertingly rat-like


- Mile 108. Surely one of the most desolate camp sites on the continent? We get it all to ourselves


- WWI tank tracks in the Namib - closest thing we could find to weaponary

Nothing much lives out here, but the Little Shop of Horrors has been at work, coming up with the improbable Welwitschia Mirabilis, a great shambling mess of waxy leaves, solid-looking flowers and a woody mid-section that might make Georgia O'Keefe blush. The oldest of the bunch, at 1500 years old or so, is fenced off for either it's or our safety.


- Welwitschia Mirabilis, 1500y-o desert success-story

We emerge into civilisation in the form of Swakopmund. It's a sleepy seaside town with a touch of style. Nice German architecture, a good restaurant in the form of a beached tugboat, and a cool beach bar built on the sand from palm-fronds. Our camp-site is luxurious, with a private toilet. Later, after another gruelling driving session, we crawl back here to recuperate and drink wine.

Rather splendidly, whiling away an hour over a coffee at Wimpy, we double-take at the sight of four Himba women, all ochre skin, leather, matted hair and bare boobs. Dunno why, but we kept seeing them shopping at the Spar. They, as with all the people we meet, are a friendly bunch, but this is in the face of grinding poverty and really tough living conditions. Begging is almost non-existent but the sight of a small present of food would light up a face, even of those with jobs.


- Shopping trip in Swakopmund

Further South, the iconic Namib desert opens up to Sossusvlei, a dead-end river that peters out in the face of relentless red dunes. It's a relatively expensive day-trip, and irritatingly, we have to bribe a local guide to drive us the last 5km in his 4x4 - nobody told us we couldn't get all the way in our Polo. Franz, the guide, was born in the vicinity, and grew up with the oryx, ostriches, impala and sand. He tells us that the dunes don't walk like others, but are fixed in place by the !Nara (start practicing that click folks, otherwise they won't know what you mean!) bushes. It really does look like the postcards eh?


- Desert chic at the magnificent Sossusvlei


- Dune, tree, Oryx


- Turns out that the Japanese have the secret to posing successfully in front of landmarks after all

Next time we visit we'll be needing a 4x4 expedition to seek out the really obscure spots. Any volunteers?

Day 87-90 - Luanda

We touch down in this old Portuguese colonial capital fearing the worst. "It's more expensive than London", "hours stuck in traffic", "they still have the plague you know", "take your own bodybag" they said. With no Rough Guide or Lonely Planet entry, and a nonsensically difficult visa requirement, this is a mysterious city for the casual tourist. But that makes it more interesting, right? And anyway, we've come with a special purpose in mind.


- A part of Luanda from the Fort. Check out the unfinished Soyuz-style mausoleum on the horizon

Our first challenge is getting around. Only the day before we were struggling to confirm a car and driver for the weekend. We are not 100% sure that he'll be there. But he is! And he's a fine chap, trustworthy and cheerful. The car is in one piece too. Chivela, for this is our driver, is NOT an expensive luxury, as we discover a minute into our drive out of 4 Fevreiro airport. For a start, a map of Luanda is nigh-on impossible to procure. For a second, the roads are mostly not named, or incorrectly. Finally, the roads are a battle zone and everybody on them is fighting for that 1-second advantage, net result being a lot of aggro and not much progress. Half the vehicles are spanking 4x4's, many with non touche pas diplomatic plates, the remainder a mixture of European rejectmobiles, complete with their national stickers, and mopeds. Oh the mopeds. Even the police don't dig them, and on Sunday we see scores of them sitting glumly by their machines at one the main roundabouts, arrested on the principle that being on two wheels is a bad thing. Our driver pulls out some truly hair-raising stunts to beat the queues of traffic, taking on potholes, trucks and even the maniacal candongos in head-on contests for priority. A Roman driver would think twice about taking to the wheel here...


- It's not 1917 you know, get over it already. I guess "Communism" is still a great excuse to keep the masses down


- Typical roadside activity - selling stuff

Our first taste of Angolan cuisine is on the Ilha, a 3km long island forming a natural breakwater for the busy harbour. We ignore Wimpy and Bob's burgers, and an array of swanky restaurants on the Atlantic beach, who are owned by President dos Santos' cronies. We head right to the tip of the island and the open-air stalls on the beach. There is much grilling of fish, which we eat with sweet potato, banana, salsa, and fearsome Jindungo. The beer (Cuca) is cold and good. No concession is made to hygiene, so just shut your eyes and accept that it's all damned tasty. This meal costs a mere 600 Kwanzas, about $8. This is a pretty cheap meal by Luandan standards. In one of the resturants it would have three or four times as much, or more.


- Beach on the Ilha, queue of transport ships on the horizon. Most things are imported, hence the ludricrous prices.


- First meal


- The Boavista market. Pricey as Waitrose

The second challenge is accommodation. Finding a hotel is no mean task. Your local travel agent will not be able to do it, and only calling and negotiating in Portuguese will suffice. Even then, we were not convinced that the room we had managed to book was really there. In steps Sergeant Brandon Doyle, thanks to CouchSurfing.com. Brandon works at the embassy and lives in a big house with a slightly neurotic cat and several geckoes. He cooks a mean chicken and is a great host for our four-night stay.

The primary reason for our trip is a nostalgic one. Having been born here, Lucy wants to revisit the places she used to toddle and hasn't seen for many many years. Furnished with some sketchy information from her parents, we point Chivela in the direction of the Bairro da Cazenga to look for the shop of Paulino Bumba. Sr. Bumba was a close friend of the family back in the 60's and 70's before the civil war and a stray bullet forced the family to flee. As we live the city and head North to the Bairro, the roads become rutted and a pall of dust fills the air. The roadsides cram with pedestrians selling all manner of goodies. The architecture is best described as rude, and the public works are non-existent. Kids swim merrily in stagnant water surrounded by burning rubbish, Girls play football hilariously, all g-strings and bouncing boobs. Everyone seems happy in the main, and extremely pleasant and helpful. We stop on the first corner of Cazenga and ask a bloke for directions to the shop. He knows it! We get closer and ask again. This time we hit the jackpot, this guy is Sr. Bumba's son-in-law. It couldn't have been easier.


- Tragically common sight on Luanda's streets


- Lucy with Sr. Bumba outside his little shop.

He takes us in and begins freely to reminisce about the family. Later, he brings out the photo album and Lucy and he have fun spotting who's in fading black and white snaps. Phone calls are made to Portugal to Mum and Dad; one can imagine their reaction! He guides us to the house they used to live in, clearly much changed over the years, and then to an even older one, where the mango tree that Lucy's brother used to get a spanking for climbing still stands. A group of young men are standing nearby and overhear Lucy's "this used to be my house". They don't look very pleased to see us. Their spokesman, hiding behind dark glasses steps up and questions us brusquely: "Why are you here? We've had trouble with your sort before. You come with your papers to reposses the houses you left behind. We live here now". Lucy tells them politely that she used to live here but she doesn't want to move in, that she's just remembering. It's true, everything's changed so much they could never return. Our interrogator thinks about it for a moment, then his frown evaporates, he shakes hands with us all and, as with almost everybody in this city bids us farewell with a smile.


- Sr. and Sra. Bumba on their wedding day. The Godfather-looking fellow on the left is Lucy's uncle, and Sr. Bumba's Godfather!


- Sr. Bumba as some of the family (the 8 kids and 6 grandkids were too many to round up at short notice)


- Lucy's artillery is getting bigger

Day 80-81 - Kraalbaai by land and sea

Kraalbaai is a fine sheltered cove just across the lagoon from our house in Langebaan. By road, through spartan National Parkland, it's a 40km drive, by sea it's 10 minutes over the sandbars.


- Looks like greece, the lagoon in the rear


- The arrow's pointing the wrong way surely?

Lucy and I drive around there on a sunny but prodigiously windy afternoon. The bay is a picture, dotted with permanent houseboats and sporting delicious turquoise water.


- Kraalbaai, houseboats and all


- A comprehensive list of do's and don'ts. It probably says you use the beach "at your own risk", the most common signage in all South Africa, seen from restaurants and fun-parks to the international airport.


- Beach furniture

Just a couple of klicks further West across a verdant dunescape is the atlantic, wildly smashing all and sundry against rocks and a 16-mile long beach. A wreck just down the coast is testament to the sea's power. We stay huddled in the car, behind glass.


- More rugged coastline

The next day the wind has died, so we travel en masse in Michael's pleasure-cruiser, the Knot Enough. It really is a 10-minute journey, and we pull up almost on the beach in time to braai off the back of the boat. A couple of drinks and a nap later, the boat has stopped swinging slowly in the mild current. That's because it's standing in knot enough water. Nice one!


- The "Knot Enough". Grant mans the cooler, ready with the rum-ration


- Beach-seal


- Up to the ankles, knot enough water for several displacement tons of boat ...


- ... I'll pull it! ... no, I won''t ... we stuck


- Looks nice though

We are informed that the tide will ebb at 8pm and we'll be afloat at about midnight. In seven hours. Lucy and I lose our sense of humour at about this point. Redeption for the afternoon and evening comes in the form of a superlative sunset, hunting for guitar sharks in the few inches of water, and feeding logs into an impromptu fire under crystal clear star-fields.


- Kum bai-ya etc

When finally we refloat and head for port, navigating between the dark houseboats, it's cold and we're a bit tired: are we nearly there yet? No. The boat's stopped working. Altogether. The manual is thrust into my hands. It's in Korean ... no it isn't but it might as well be all the advice it provides. Anyway we're now being pulled by Michael in the inflatable tender, accompanied by an inquisitive seal. Some deft pushing and pulling of the drifiting vessel eases us into a mooring and the seal buggers off. It's 2am by the time we pull covers over weary bodies.

Earlier in the day Michael suggested that "the people back home wouldn't believe the photos", perhaps he was right?

Day 79 - Paternoster

Hello and Happy New Year. Under normal circumstances, the 2nd of January might be a time to start implementing those New Year's Resolutions: a quick trip to the gym, a shot of Aloe Vera juice with your low-GI cereal, sign up for a life-drawing course, put your Tesla coil on eBay. Over here it's just another excuse to booze booze booze! It was a Wednesday after all...

So we troupe to to Paternoster, a little fishing village just a little further up the wild West coast. Apparently the Afrikaans spoken here has the equivalant of a West Country burr, and the local fisherman are famed for their crayfish and drunkenness.

Of course there is another gorgeous bit of coastline to gawp at.

We stop for lunch, about 15 of us, at the Paternoster hotel, and eat various indigenous fish biltong, bokkum (an extreme sardine salt-lick), rollmops, squid steak, prawns and so on. Then, with glass in hand, crank up the 4x4's for a crazy spin through a dune road to the next watering hole at Stompneusbaai.


- Crazy angles on the dune road behind Paternoster beach


- Lucy discovers all the glass holders in the back of Grant's Land Rover

At the next jolly place, the St Helena Hotel, Anton, father of Lucy's new best friend, the imp-like Jakobus, makes a mysterious pact with yours truly: "if you shave off your mustache, I'll shave off mine". This man has had his face-fur for twenty-two years! Marlene's brother Neil does the honours with his Philishave. That's what Captain Morgan will do to you...


- No 'tache, must dash...


- They all think it most amusing


- The little terror, Jakobus, who Lucy has eating from her hands


- Pulling up to the bottle store (the Drankwinkel), West coast style

Enough drinking, I hear you cry. But no! There is still the wonder that is Vlakvartgat. Try saying that with a mouthful of crisps, you'll make lots of new friends. Apparently it means shallow pig hole. Promising.

Inside, there's a warthog's ass (is that the hole?) on the wall. A pint-sized pony wanders, whinnys and craps at the bar. Insert "horse walks into pub" joke here, please.

Good, clean South African fun. And now it really is time to take a break from the drinking!


- Grant and the totem go head to head


- Horse walks into a pub...


- All that Jaeger: it's the hog's bollocks.

Coincidentally, the worst thing one can say in Zulu is "ma senten bongo"- the balls of the donkey. Over and out.