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.