Namibian Deserts and South African Townships

We are in Namibia at the moment, it must be one of the least densely populated places in the world. We are in a place called Swakopmund, the adrenalin capital of Namibia. It's a happening little town plonked on the Atlantic coast in the middle of lots of sand dunes. It's obvious from the architecture and the restaurant menus that this town has a strong German influence. It was colonised by Germans in the late 19th century.

Today we are off to Cape Cross, where we will see a huge seal colony (I'm not looking forward to the smell), then we will be heading to Spitzkoppe, where I'm hoping to get some climbing in (thanks for the tip Sezza).



On our last day in Cape Town we went on a township tour, where we visited a black community that was the first black settlement that was established in the 60's during the time when apartheid was enforced. It was interesting to learn that of the 60 000 people that were forcibly removed from their homes in the area known as district six in Cape Town only appox 200 people has re-settled back there since the SA government allowed them to re-locate. These communities have such a strong bond that most people don't want to have that sort of disruption again. The houses that were built for the black communities are appalling! There were a stack of men's only hostels built, that we got a chance to visit. The idea was that the men and women were kept separate in an effort by the government to reduce the black population. These men were used in the cities for manual labour. The hostels housed 3 men to small room and each had 6 rooms to a communal living space, all with no electricity. To this day people are still living in these cramped hostels, however families are now allowed to live with the men, which means that up to 3 families share 1 tiny room! I don't even know how that is even logistically possible. The government are trying to do something about it though and are renovating these into proper family sized apartments, but it's a slow process. The one positive about I witnessed about their situation was that due to the cramped living conditions most of their time was spent talking with their neighbours and people in their community, I guess that's why there is such a strong sense of community here, compared to big westernised cities. There are so many great community projects that are run here from recycling to educational and skills programs. Bill Gates and his wife have donated a lot of computers to these areas, so they can have access to the internet. Another horrible thing that the South African government did in the 60's apartheid era was to disguise the horrible living conditions by surrounding the black settlement with much nicer houses that surrounded the main roads...in defiance to this the black community built their informal settlements between the main roads and these nicer houses.

Since our visit to Cape Town we have been on the road heading North and into Namibia. As we approached the Namibian boarder there was a dramatic change in the scenery. Namibia is very barren, but strikingly spectacular. There really is no-one here. For anyone who loves wide open spaces this is the place to be. We have visited Fish River Canyon, one of the worlds largest and least visited and Sossouvlei, which is where the really big red sand dunes are. We climbed one of the dunes early one morning to watch the sunrise, that wasn't a bad way to start the day. Nick has been sick with the flu, so we have been taking it easy and he seems to be getting better now. Yesterday we tried quad biking on the sand dunes here, what a blast! Anyway, that's it from me.

Months in the planning and we have finally started this trip. It was an eventful start to the trip, we had a traffic jam getting to the airport, then a 1 1/2 hour wait just to check in (from all the Qantas strikes I guess), by the time we got through customs and security the plane was already boarding and after over 24hours on the go we eventually arrived at our lodge near Pretoria, South Africa.

We have been very busy so far, our first stop was Blyde River Canyon, which is the worlds 3rd largest. It was really beautiful and it reminded me a lot of the Blue Mountains, we camped there before we headed to Kruger National Park for some wildlife spotting. I can't believe how much we have seen already, within a day and a half (including a night drive) we had spotted lions, giraffes, elephants, monkeys, hippos, crocs, baboons, zebras, hyenas, wilderbeast, warthogs, jackals etc, etc. We also spotted some white rhino across the Sabi River where we were camping. Amazing!

We spent a day travelling through the kingdom of Swaziland, which was interesting. The king here has numerous wives who all live in various houses around the capital city. I was surprised by how western the capital looked on the surface but the culture certainly wasn't. We stayed at a private game reserve here that had heaps of animals that wondered through the campsite...impala, warthogs, zebras, various antelopes etc. We went for a walk around the park to see the wildlife and got to see some hippos and crocs. On our way back to the camp we got to within maybe 10 meters of a croc...luckily it was on the other side of the water. My heart was pounding!!

After this we spent a few days visiting a Zulu tribe who still live their traditional lifestyle (apart from fighting at war). It was a great experience and interesting to find out about the Zulu culture. Like the King in Swazi, the men here many a number of wives and must pay 11 cows per wife, which is a fair amount by Zulu standards apparently, and most marriages are arranged.

Our next stop was the Drakensberg Mountains for a few days. It was absolutely stunning! Then we made our way towards the Wild Coast. We stopped off in some really remote villages on the way, one of them being a place called Tsitsa Falls. It was an amasing waterfall in the middle of nowhere. South Africa really has some wild, untouched places here, it's great to see. We caused a big commotion on our way to Tsitsa falls, a group of the local women were all very excited when we drove through...I guess they don't see many tourists through this part of the country. We got to camp right next to the top of the waterfall, it was amasing! We also stopped off at Mthatha (the birth place of Nelson Mandela) to see the Nelson Mandela museum. That was a moving experience. This Friday is actually Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday and apparently he will be in Mthatha to celebrate, what a pity we have already been through there. All the major cities here will be celebrating his birthday, I'm in Cape Town at the moment and there will be huge celebrations here. Everywhere we go here there is evidence of the recent history of apartheid. Cape Town is probably the first place I have seen where blacks and whites integrate on an equal level. Most places we have visited, the contrast is really striking and confronting...one side of the street will have big expensive looking houses and right over the other side will be what they call informal settlements...which are basically poverty stricken shanty towns. SA has a long way to go in terms of equality here, apartheid was only abolished in 1994!! We did a tour to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point today and the guide was talking about his personal experience of apartheid here...his grandmother was forced to leave her house in the area known as district 6 which was a multi racial community back in the 1960's...now that land is worth a fortune.

After visiting the Wild Coast we visited the area called the Garden Route, which is a stretch of coastline that still has large areas of indigenous forest. We camped at a place called Tsitsikamma National Park for a few nights, it was a beautiful spot, we got to go hiking, see dolphins swim by, sit and watch otters and dassies, one night while we were eating dinner by the campfire some Southern Right Whales started jumping out of the sea right in front of us about 50-100 meters away. Amasing! Here we also took a canopy tree top tour...where we zip-lined through the tree tops and learned about the native South African trees, it was heaps of fun. On our way between there and Cape Town we managed to fit in some kayaking and caving at Wilderness NP and Cango caves.

I could go on and on about what I have seen, done and learnt since being here, but I won't bore you anymore than I already have. Namibia here we come....