Thursday, April 9, 2015

Namibia

How do you describe an African nation that feels like a German beach town with sand dunes, wild animals, and half a million seals?  Very carefully, I suppose. 

Namibia was originally not on our itinerary for Semester at Sea.  Ghana was.  But, as you know, Ebola hit West Africa, and so we steered very clear of that part of the continent.  When SAS put Namibia on the list, all I knew about it was that Brad and Angelina went there on their honeymoon.  Today, I know a lot more about this stunning country just northwest of South Africa., and I love it.

Namibia is a former German colony.  It has a sordid past -- the Germans attempted a genocide of a Namibian tribe in the early 1900s.  Terrible things happened on the very beaches that many Germans still visit on holiday.  In fact, there are so many blond, blue-eyed people in Namibia, our children fit right in -- something we never expected in Africa!

Its checkered past aside, Namibia is an incredible place. The size of California and Texas combined, it only has 2 million people.  That means you can drive for miles and miles and never see another person.  It's like one giant national park with everything from deserts, to mountains, to misty beaches, to endless sand dunes.  In short, it's stunning.

Our first adventure was to go camping in the Namib desert with 11 friends.  Traveling with Wild Dog Safaris, an outstanding budget safari company, we drove six hours on a dusty, dirt road to Sessriem, on the edge of the world's tallest sand dunes.  This was not an animal safair per se, but we were amazed to see many wild animals along the way.  Mountain zebras blended in with the scrubby desert landscape.  Springboks were hardly visible -- their coloring so camouflaged -- even though there were entire herds of them near the road.  Giant ostriches ran through the open savannah -- often in threes, for some reason.  Once we had to stop the car to let some wildebeests run by. "They have a face only a mother could love," Kerry noted.  Even a jackal made his appearance and ran off after a few oryx in the distance.  For a simple car ride through the country, we were downright spoiled with all the beautiful wildlife we saw.  And if that weren't enough, we saw a complete double rainbow glowing over the desert!

On the way, we stopped at an outpost called Solitaire.  It only has an inn, gas station, and bakery.  The place is a total time-warp.  Old rusted cars from the 50's stick out of the sand.  Cacti grow up around rusted out tractor equipment.  A chalkboard lists the amount of rainfall in the area -- 58 mm in all of 2013!  But most important of all is the little shop that sells Moose McGregor's world famous, hot apple pie. Moose apparently was the guy who put Solitaire on the map.  He died last year, and you overlook his grave as you enjoy your pie in the open air.  It genuinely is the best apple pie around mainly because it's the only apple pie around.  I mean,you're out in the middle of the desert, for goodness' sake.  Whatever the case, it's delicious, and just like every other car that drove by, we had to stop and have a piece!

Just before sunset, we arrived at our campsite with a stunning vista of rocky mountains jutting out of the savannah.  The kids jumped in the cold pool while our guides started making dinner, and I tried to capture the brilliant sunset with my little camera.  It was woefully insufficient for such a task.  Alas, Namibia is one of those places "you just have to be there."  It's views are far too vast to ever be captured on film. But I tried anyway.

As night fell, a full moon illuminated the sandy ground of the camp, but even so, we could easily identify Orion and the Southern Cross above us. Dinner was rice and a chicken, vegetable stir fry that was so tasty, Austin had four servings!  As you know, everything tastes better when you're camping, but this was downright delicious.  A large scorpion made dinner extra exciting, but thankfully someone's shoe took care of it.  Giant round beetles called talkie talkie bugs were crawling around in the sand, and other unidentifiable creepy crawlies inspired us to zip up our tents completely as we went to bed early.  Little did I know we would have an adventure that night.

Our tents were arranged around a large acacia tree which had strange, half moon-shaped seed pods all over its branches.  Once these pods dry out, they fall off the tree, and they rattle like maracas when you shake them.  Even though these pods are so hard you can barely break them, they are the favorite food of springboks and oryxes.  Well, around 11:00 p.m., I woke to the sound of bones crushing.  At least that's what I thought until I looked out our transparent tent door and saw a springbok chomping on an acacia pod.  He was about 18 inches from my face, and he was the cutest little guy!  About an hour later, I awoke to more chomping, but this time it sounded like a monster was outside.  I looked out to see a large oryx. The oryx is a majestic animal, sort of like a horse with straight, three foot long horns that slant back on its head.  This one crushed some pods, checked out our cooking area, banged around our food trailer, and ultimately wandered off.  I woke Kerry up for the animals, but he was sleepy and growing tired of the interruptions.  I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of our visitors.  I stayed up listening and waiting for more. At one point, I saw an oryx walking on the horizon, and it was so tall, it looked like a giraffe!  Finally around 1:00 p.m., we were awakened again ... this time by an enormous, six foot tall oryx who came right up to our tent . Mesmerized, we couldn't move, except when he came right toward our door, and we slowly backed our faces away from the canvas.  We watched in awe, and he watched us, probably not so much in awe.  After loudly chewing his pod, he ambled out of the campsite. Kerry and I just looked at each other and grinned, aware of the special moment we alone shared with this gorgeous creature.

We awoke in the dark to hurredly throw on our shoes and head out for the day -- to Namibia's iconic red sand dunes.  After driving half and hour, we arrived at Dune 45 -- the famous dune already filling up with climbers who would watch the sunrise from its ridge.  We huffed and puffed, amazed at how hard it was to climb the 175 -meter hill, but the view was more than worth it!  We sat down in the cool red sand and watched as the sun peeked over the mountains and turned the beige dunes into brilliant reddish-orange pyramids.  They literally glowed in the early morning light.  

If others were hoping for a contemplative moment in the desert, I'm afraid my boys took care of that.  They had a ball playing, rolling, and diving in the sand.  After watching them run down the dune, with sand flying up behind their feet, I couldn't help myself and also ran down with abandon.  My feet sank as if in snow drifts, but it was impossible to fall, as the sand was a constant cushion.  At the bottom, my shoes were so full, they felt three sizes too small!   At the foot of the dune, our guides had prepared a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs, so yet again we enjoyed delicious food in surreal surroundings.

Our next adventure was a trek through the desert to Dead Vlei.  It would take two to three hours in the brutal heat and sun, so many opted to take the open-air, four-wheel drive shuttle.  Kerry, Charlie, and I decided to hike with some of our friends. We traversed the desert sands (which now appeared yellowish-beige in the midday sun), climbed more dunes, and crossed cracked river beds, long dry from the lack of rain.  The sun beat down mercilessly.  Now as the sand filled our shoes, it was hot and uncomfortable, and we stopped often to dump them out.  On our way, we passed Big Daddy, the world's tallest sand dune, stretching almost 1000 feet into the air.  We climbed part of it, then descended into Dead Vlei.  Vlei means Valley, and this is truly a barren valley.  Stark black trees stand almost petrified in this old river bed where rain has not fallen in ages.  We stopped in the Vlei, then quickly returned to camp to jump in the pool.

With all our tromping around, I almost forgot it was Good Friday.  I've always thought Good Friday was a strange name, for it commemorates the day that Jesus died on the cross.  It sure doesn't sound "good" to me, but when I think that He was dying to pay for all the things I have done in life that I'm ashamed of ... when I realize that He died so I wouldn't have to ... then I understand the "good" in Good Friday.  Shoot, when you think about it, it should be called Amazing Friday or something like that.  When your sins and guilt are washed away, a strong adjective is in order.

Anyway, as I was hiking in the dunes, I noticed the acacia tree's long spiky thorns all over its branches.  I remembered Good Friday and thought of the crown of thorns piercing Jesus' brow.  Kerry and I wanted to do something special on this day, so we decided to have a little service at our campsite.  We went to the camp store and found sparkling red grape juice in a can, then went to pay for it at the cash register where a lovely Namibian woman worked.  As we were leaving, I said to her, "God bless you."  

She looked up and said, "Excuse me. Do you have a minute?"  

"Sure," I said. 

She leaned over and said in hushed tones, "Why did you say, 'God bless you'?"

I said, "Well, we love Jesus, and we're remembering him today since it's Good Friday.  In fact, we bought the grape juice to have a little service at our campsite."

She beamed and said, "I love Jesus too.  May He bless you with his power as you live for him today."

Wow. Not your average camp store encounter.  

We gathered our friends and read from the Bible about Jesus's death on the cross, and shared how He offers new life and forgiveness of sins to all who call on Him as their Savior.  Then we shared bread and juice right there under the acacia tree. Forgiveness.  Freedom.  Good Friday indeed.

Our day ended with a short hike through a beautiful canyon, another spectacular sunset, and roasted antelope shish kebab (Eland, specifically), stewed butternut squash, and fresh Greek salad.  We played a rousing game of charades before heading off to bed.  This time, the boys carefully laid out acacia pods in front of their tent to lure oryxes and springboks in the night.  As it turned out, wave after wave of animals came throughout the night, but Charlie, Austin, and Sydney never woke up.  In fact, while Kerry and I got up four times to watch our wild friends eat their crunchy snacks, not another person in camp woke up. Either they're very heavy sleepers, or we're just imagining things.  I'm afraid we'll never know the truth.

On Easter Sunday, we were back in the port city of Walvis Bay and ventured out with some friends to find a local church.  After walking about 45 minutes, we found an unassuming building and were surprised to find 40 other students, faculty, and staff from SAS there.  We easily doubled the attendance of the church, and the pastor welcomed all of us "from the ship."  He did a beautiful job explaining the myriad proofs for Jesus' resurrection, and I know many of us were touched.

After church, we went with a student friend to Swapokmund, a German beach town about half an hour away. The air temperatures were in the 60s, and large waves were slamming into the shore, but my kids donned their suits and jumped into the frigid waters with glee. This Miami girl was happy to watch on dry land, thank you very much.

Our last day in Namibia, we went on a catamaran to see the wildlife in Walvis Bay.  Within five minutes of pushing off, a giant pink pelican landed on the boat, eager for a fish snack from our captain.  He reminded me of Kevin from the movie "Up," because every time you tried to pet him, he would stick out his neck and open his huge beak in your face.  

Next on board was Lippy, a large seal who also jumped on our boat for a fish snack.  Lippy liked to sit on the shoes of our captain and rub his head on the captain's blue jeans.  Lippy is a notorious biter, and the captain laughed as he told us, "In case you're wondering -- yes, it makes me very nervous to have Lippy so close to the crown jewels!"  We proceeded out into the bay to Pelican Point, where 20-30,000 seals live. They put on quite a show, wailing and crying like a bunch of babies. Namibia has half a million seals, and each one eats 20-25 kg of fish a day.  This is not lost on the fishing industry, so the Namibian government culls the seal population every year.  When Sydney asked how they do that, our captain said quite cheerfully, "With a baseball bat to the heads of the babies." Ouch.  No wonder the seal mommies were crying.  

We rode around a large new lighthouse on the point.  The old one used to be red and white, like most lighthouses, but this one was black and white.  That's because the old one blended in with the red sand dunes, and ships couldn't see it in the fog.  A shipwreck on the beach was case in point.  The new lighthouse is also made of cast iron because the blowing sand took out all the cement on the old one.  The only downside is that it has to be repainted every year.  Just some of the unique challenges of maintaining a lighthouse in the desert!  Our captain offered us oysters and champagne, and then we sailed back to the dock to prepare for our final adventure in Namibia.

Semester at Sea expressly forbade all the students from riding ATVs in the sand dunes.  And it worked -- I'll bet only 75% of the students rode them.  We, being the careful parents that we are, got ATV's for all five of us and headed into the desert.  Riding on sand is incredibly fun, but a bit tricky.  We learned that when going up the side of a dune, it's important to go fast.  Don't put on the breaks!  We learned that the hard way.  We also learned that when going down a dune, it's important not to hit the breaks either ... just let the bike carry you down.  Ialmost learned this the hard way.  Not surprisingly, Charlie had no fear and was constantly wanting to go faster.  

While I was having the time of my life, I also found myself full of emotion.  The dunes are strikingly beautiful.  And, like so many places in Namibia, you just have to be there to fully comprehend them.  Imagine yellow, golden sand as far as the eye can sea, in mounds and mountains all around you.  It's as if God took his finger and swirled it all around in a giant sandbox.  Off in the distance, the sun shines on the Atlantic, and it looks like millions of diamonds sparkling on a cobalt blue canvas.  The sky is a brilliant blue with cottony clouds drifting across.  This, my friends, is the Namibian coast -- one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. 

Now I know why Brad and Angelina came to Namibia on their honeymoon. 

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