Swakopmund, German for ?Mouth of the Swakop? 2/15/09

I woke up at 8 AM for breakfast, which was mainly granola and milk for me. The buses were supposed to come at around 10 to take us back, but at 10, no buses were to be seen. So, what did we do? That’s right, you guessed it, we played cards. The buses FINALLY came at 12:30, and we got back to the ship at 1345, over an hour late. It was a little frustrating, but we did have fun playing cards.

After coming back, we were starving and felt disgusting from 2 days of hardcore sweating (the shower facilities were not quite ideal, and most of us did not shower that morning). So, I took a shower, which felt AMAZING, and then I went to the grill on the ship, and ordered a pizza with a bunch of other SAS students. We found out that a group of ppl were going to Swakopmund at 1500, so we joined them.

Swakopmund is only 35 km from Walvis Bay, and the taxi driver drove FAST. We were dropped off near an open market, and we walked as fast as possible before we were attacked by a mob of locals to buy their products. We walked around the city, and I was amazed at how beautiful it was. It was very, very clean and very nice. However, it was Sunday and almost everything was closed. We walked through some shops, and then climbed a small tower to get a panoramic view of the city.

From the top of the tower, we had an excellent view of the city, the beach, and the sand dunes. Yep, I said sand dunes. Walvis Bay is located near the Namib Desert, which is a coastal desert, considered among the driest in the world. So, you get to see something very unique: sand dunes right along the beach. We could see Dune 7, which is the tallest dune near Walvis Bay. After taking a lot of pictures, we headed down. Then, a group of us went to the beach. It was a really nice beach with one important difference that made it stand out from the Cali beaches: the sound of the waves. There were a lot of rocks, so when the waves crashed, it made a long, hissing noise. It is very hard to describe, but I did take a video which I will upload eventually. At the beach, we met some SAS students who were staying in a house on the beach. I must admit it was really cool, but at the same time, that severely limited their cultural interaction. As we were about to leave, we saw a group of 3 people with a huge video camera, and we figured they were filming for something. We found out they were from Spain, and they were doing a film on Namibia. They interviewed the SAS students who were staying in the beach house. We left and walked back to the market.

At the market, I bought a few gifts/souvenirs made by the locals. I found a really cool necklace that had an elephant on it, but it was too short. The guy selling it made me a new one that was longer, so I gladly bought it. Once again, it was a lot of fun talking to the locals, just like in Marrakech. We talked for quite a while, and eventually Achal and I took a picture with all of them. I got one of the guys address, and he told me to send him 10 Euros for each person. Achal and I laughed and left. We went to see the sunset by the beach, which was gorgeous, and then went to a pizzeria for dinner with some other SASers. The food was AMAZING, some of the best pizza I have ever had. I ordered a 35 cm pizza (hehe you will have to convert it to inches yourself) and almost finished the whole thing. Very content, we headed out and looked for a taxi. It was completely deserted, but we FINALLY found one and headed back to Walvis Bay. I went back to my room, uploaded pictures, and crashed.

Seal and Dolphin Encounter: More seal than dolphin, and SAND DUNES! 2/16/09

I woke up very early, and got ready for our trip to see some seals and dolphins. The buses left at about 0830, and it was a short ride to Sandwich Harbour (no, I’m not spelling it wrong, that is how it is spelled outside the US). As soon as we got there, we saw tons of birds, and pelicans…HUGE pelicans. They were everywhere. We boarded our boat, the Flipper, and were off. After a short while, a seal swam up to our boat, jumped onto the back, and climbed onto the boat. It was AWESOME! We petted the seal and our skipper fed him, and after a few minutes, he was forced off the boat…lol. Some pelicans also flew up to the boat, and ate fish out of the air that the skipper threw. We went out into the bay to find some dolphins. We found a bottlenose dolphin, which are rare, and sailed around it for a while. Then, we heard that another boat found a moonfish, which is extremely rare in those waters. We sailed out to sea and found it. All you could really see was the fin, but when it got very close we could kind of see the fish, which weighs over a ton. After that, we sailed back towards the harbour, and had lunch on the boat, which was a bunch of seafood and some vegetarian rolls, which Achal and I devoured ravenously. We got back to the harbour at 1230 and headed back to the ship.

Achal and I wanted to go to Dune 7, and we talked to our driver, and he told us he would drive us there for free. Once again, Namibian hospitality wins. So, Achal and I got a ride to the sand dunes. We climbed most of Dune 7, and man it was HARD. Every time I took 5 steps, I would go back about 4 and- a-half steps. Also, the sand was scorching hot and it got inside our shoes and burned. Feeling accomplished after going up most of the way ;) , I ran back down. It was SO MUCH FUN! The sand was like having huge shocks on your feet, and the dune that took 20 minutes to climb took all of 20 seconds to descend. I felt like I was running in slow motion. We walked back to the lodge/tour station and got some cold drinks. After about 30 minutes, we joined a group of SAS students and took a cab back to Walvis Bay. We walked to the coffee shop we went to the first day and ordered some tortillas, which were delicious.

After lunch, we tried to buy a Namibian flag to add to our collection. We went to several shops, but could not find one. It was very frustrating. Finally, one shop guided us to another shop that carried flags. So, we entered the shops and I asked for a Namibian flag. The owner laughed and said we were too late, because the other SASers has raided her shop and bought all the flags. I was pissed off and we left to go back to the ship. I had a flag of every country so far, and it sucked not finding a Namibian one. We had a hard time finding a taxi to get back to the ship, and we finally found one, but she was asking for 25 Namibian dollars each, which is how much we had paid to go to Swakopmund. We were a little late, so we reluctantly agreed, and came back to the ship. I got on the ship, turned around, and waved good-bye to Namibia. This country really blew me away. It was very nice, clean, and the people were amazing. I am sure it changed several students’perception of Africa, as Morocco already did. So long Namibia…great times and so many memories. 2 days until South Africa! I am soooo excited. I think EVERYONE on the ship is extremely excited. Cape Town should be amazing, and we will see what happens. Some extreme adventures and crazy stories are just around the corner. Ok, guys, thanks for reading about Namibia! It’s hard to describe with only words, so I will try to upload some pics and perhaps videos from South Africa. Until later, this is Yash signing out. Take care!

Arrival in Namibia and camping/stargazing sans stargazing 2/14/09

We arrived in Namibia a little later than we expected. We finally pulled into port and the diplomats got on board to stamp our passports and clear the ship so we could all depart the ship. We had our first diplomatic briefing for the voyage. 2 diplomats from the US Embassy in Windhoek (Namibia’s capital) got on the ship and talked to us about safety/logistics. The 2nd diplomat told us to be safe and told us a story about how he got attacked by someone while staying in a hotel. The point was: attacks could happen to anyone, so be careful and travel in groups.

Next, we had a little surprise. A local school choir performed for us on the port (we were watching from the deck of the ship). They sang several songs and danced too. They must have been 4th or 5th grade students, and the performance was very good. We all cheered after every song from the deck. Then, we heard that the ship was cleared, so I went back to my room to get my stuff, and Achal and I left to walk around the city of Walvis Bay (pronounced Walvish Bay).

The next bit I urge everyone to read (for all you people who are skimming, read this part, you will like it). We walked around the city and it was very clean and everyone seemed very nice. We went to a bank and ran into several other SAS students, all of whom were converting dollars to Namibian dollars, or South African Rand (both currencies are accepted in Namibia). We waited in line for a LONG time, and finally exchanged our money. By this time it was 11:30, and we had to be back on the ship by 1330 so we decided to go to lunch. We crossed the street and saw a restaurant called Crazy Mama’s Pizzeria, which I had read about on wikitravel. But, it was CLOSED, which was very strange since it was a Saturday around lunch. So, we walked around, and saw a store called The Crazy Store, so we decided to check it out. Let me tell you, it was anything but crazy…everything inside was very much “normal”so we left and Achal saw a coffee shop that said Pizza on the building. We were starving, and I hadn’t eaten pizza since leaving home, so we went in. We ran into a bunch of SAS students and joined them. We all ordered pizzas, 6 total, and the waitress told us it would take a while (20 mins). It was noon when we ordered. We still had over an hour, so it was fine. We talked for a while, and no pizzas came. 12:30…I mean, these people had no reason to do this and they could have just boxed the pizzas and said good day. No, instead they boxed our food, and drove us back to the port in THEIR OWN CARS! The girls all got dropped off first, and then they dropped us guys off. The problem was, it was a 15-20 minute walk from the port entrance to the ship, and it was 1325, so we were screwed. We started running. After a bit of running, a big truck drove by and we joked about jumping on the back and hitching a ride, but that, of course didn’t happen ;) Then, a scene started playing in my head about is hitching a ride on some truck and riding it to the ship. Right when I came out of my reverie, a white pickup truck pulled up next to us, and the driver said, “Get in! I take you to ship!”We all just looked at each other, then at the driver, and said “Really? For how much?”And he said, “for 10.”We jumped into the back of the pick-up truck and were off. After about a minute of us cheering and screaming, we saw the girls up ahead, and told the driver to stop. The girls all saw us, and screamed and cheered and jumped into the pick-up truck with us. And then, akin to a scene from a movie, we pulled into the docking area with 9 students in the back of a pick-up truck! It was classic and epic and awesome! Luke aka the Voice, saw us, and I won’t forget the look on his face as his jaw dropped and then he just shook his head and chuckled. We got out of the truck, paid the driver, and ran onto the ship. We got to the union at 1332, just on time! And that is how we got back to the ship and just made it for our trip. Phew!

On that note, I just want to say that people in the US need to step it up a notch. The hospitality we got was very, very nice. We all talked about it later, and we all agreed that we would not have gotten the same treatment in the US…people treat you more as a stranger, and here in Namibia, they thought of us as their own, and helped us out when they were not obligated to. So yea, Americans need to step it up to keep up with the Namibians. If Namibians came to the US, they would not feel as welcome as we felt in Namibia. It is kind of sad, but it is something all of us in the group realized after we reflected on what happened.

Ok, so our desert camping and stargazing trip departed shortly after that. We were on “vehicles which were actually huge vans with 4 wheel drive…lol. Achal thought we would be on ATV’s…hehe. It took quite a while to get to the camp site, and it was HOT in the vans (the A/C didn’t work too well). Anyways, the camp site was really cool, and there was a line of 2-person tents. I was rooming with a guy named Cameron. It was about 1530, and we had nothing to do until dinner, so we roamed around the canyon area. There was a rock we climbed, a wash area, and that was about it. I sat down in the wash and closed my eyes and it was absolutely SILENT. It was pretty amazing. Then, we came back to the camp site and pretty much played cards until dinner. All in all, a good bonding experience. I made some new friends, and found out a girl I had met on the ship had a twin sister, which was interesting. Both girls, Victoria and Stephanie, were very nice and the only way I could tell them apart was that Victoria had short hair, oh and Stephanie’s boyfriend was also on the ship with her. So, we played cards and word games for a few hours. Next, a local band showed up and performed. They were wonderful…they were an a capella group that sang local songs and English songs (they sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight) and we all loved them. I took lots of video that is def going on Youtube at some point.

Then dinner was served. It was pretty good, nothing special for Achal and me…that is, until dessert was served. The dessert, how can I say this, was absolutely amazingly wonderfully good (and yes, Rel, you can eat it because Johnathan was freaking out if it had nuts in it since he has allergies and he forgot his EpiPen on the ship and he was fine :) ). I ate a LOT of dessert..mmmmm.

After dinner comes the sad part. It was completely cloudy, and NO STARGAZING was going to happen :( I was very, very bummed out. I was definitely having a lot of fun, but stargazing in Namibia was up there on my top 2 things for SAS. So, I was very upset naturally. We ended up talking and playing cards until about 1 AM, when I went to sleep.