Day 17: "Diamonds are Forever"

Although both of us woke up with cramped legs and cricks in our necks, it was nice to finally wake up warm, almost too warm.  Before we left, I was under the impression that it was going to be much warmer than it actually was, especially at night.  Some nights it was really cold even with all my layers.

After making breakfast and converting our car back into a mode of transportation instead of bed, we went into Keetmanshoop.  We walked around town for a little while and tried to get into a cool old church, but it was locked up.  We got back into the car and started heading west, towards Luderitz.  On the way, we passed the wild horses of the Namib, which essentially was a herd of horses that roamed free on the side of the road.  It was kind of strange to see horses in the middle of the "highway."

Luderitz is right on the coast, and is a large port town.  It is well known for its colonial German architecture.  The town was founded in 1883 by German settlers and became one of the sites of concentration camps that were used to exterminate around three thousand native Africans.  The labor from these camps helped build the city and the surrounding railroads.  In 1909, diamonds were discovered and there was a subsequent diamond rush.  Luderitz is on the outskirts of the main diamond mining area in Namibia.  Although this area is closed to the public, we did hop a fence and tried to find some.

When we arrived in the city, the first thing we did was stop at a lighthouse.  We wanted to climb around on the rocks and possibly go into the building to check out the view from the top.  As we climbed the stairs to the door, however, a woman came out and told us that it was actually a private house.  We apologized and left right away.  Since we couldn’t go in the lighthouse, we figured the next best thing was to find a beach.  We drove around the coast a little ways to Agate Beach.  On the way, we stopped at a sign that said on the other side of the fence was diamond mining area and was off limits.  Obviously, we wanted to get on the other side to see if we could find some diamonds.  We hopped over and did a quick search, but found nothing, unfortunately.  We did, however, find the beach and enjoyed the sun and surf.  The weather was perfect and it was so nice to put our toes in the water, but it was a little too chilly for swimming.

We headed back into the town to find a place to stay and ended staying in a beautiful campground right on the water at the end of a point.  We climbed on some of the rocks, watched the sun set and hung out for a while.  After dinner, we listened to the ocean lullaby and were thankful that we could fully extend our legs.

Our "mobile" home.

There was one road that went to Luderitz.  It essentially just shot off west and was straight forever.

Wild horses.  It was strange to just be driving along and then all of the sudden, in the middle of a very  arid environment, see a bunch of horses.

Our first view of the water!!  It was beautiful.  We hadn't seen that much water, beyond the jugs we used for drinking, in a few days.

The lighthouse.

We had stopped at the campground we ended up staying in earlier in the day.  This was the view of the campground.  It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever slept.

 

We did read the sign...but the temptation was just too great.

A diamond?  Nope, just a rock.

Neil, the pensive diamond hunter.

Our tent site.

Disclaimer:  Neil took all these pictures too.

Day 16: The days of old...

Our campsite was located on the "foothills" of the volcano, which is located in southern Namibia.  It's called Brukkaros Mountain and is about 1600 meters at its tallest peak.  About 80 million years ago, the volcano erupted leaving behind a ring of mountains with a large "crater" in the middle.  There are now several paths that one can follow around the perimeter as well as in the interior hollow.  We starting hiking and climbing upwards so we could get a view of the middle as well as the surrounding ring.  It was beautiful hiking and the rocks were really neat and like nothing I had ever seen before.  The view from the top was amazing.  Not only did we have the beautiful view of the mountain ring and inner-depression, but the surrounding landscape and the vast nothingness that surrounded us, made me feel incredibly small and insignificant.  If we had had the time, I think we would have hiked all the way around, but we got to the top of the first little peak, hung out for a little and then made our way back down.

After we packed up the car and headed out of the empty campground, Neil suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, turned the car off and asked me if I was ready to drive.  I never learned to drive stick when I was learning to drive and the cheapest cars were all stick (one of the reasons why Neil was invited because he could drive stick), but I had told him that I would love to learn.  Given the straightness of the road and the fact that we were the only car for miles, it seemed like a pretty good place to learn.  So, we traded seats, he gave me a quick lesson and I was off.  I would be lying if I said I was good at it.  I stalled a few times, made it a little ways down the road, and decided I had had enough.  Neil got back in the driver's seat and we headed off towards Keetmanshoop.

Keetmanshoop is a largish town which was founded by German missionaries in the mid 1800s.  Outside of town there are two quiver tree forests, one of which is a national monument.  The area, according to our guidebook, was also home to some interesting sounding fossils.  The fossil site also had quiver trees, so we figured if we went there it would kind of be like two for the price of one.  We pulled in to the site, met an elderly gentleman named Geil and headed off to the site where he would give us our tour.  The fossils had been discovered by his son in the 80s, while they were working on their farm.  While we walked around and saw the fossils, which had been left where they had first been spotted and covered with small metal roofs, we got a history lesson.  The Permian Period, which started around 280 million years ago, was the dawn of the amphibians, as land reptiles began evolving in favor of more aquatic lifestyles.  One of the first known amphibians was the Mesosaurus, which means "middle lizard" in Greek.  The largest were around 70cm long and had broad tails and webbed feet which helped propel it through the water.  They had a thin snout with small, sharp teeth.  It is unclear however, whether or not these teeth were used to chew or to filter pray.

This period was also categorized by violet dust storms that would leave heavy deposits in the water, essentially drowning the creatures.  The cool thing about the Mesosaurus is that it is used to help justify the idea that the continents were all once connected.  The southern mega continent, which has been named Gondwana, was thought to have a large lake, Lake Gai-As, that was the home of the Mesosaurus.  Around 120 million years ago, the land mass started to split, into the continents of the Africa and South America.  Very similar fossils of the Mesosaurus were found in Namibia as well as in Brazil, which helps show scientists that the two lands may have been connected at one point.

It was super interesting to learn about the fossils and to see them so up close.  We got to hold them in our hands and look and touch the imprints as well as some of the fossilized bone that was left behind.  After our tour, we went to see the quiver trees and the dolerite rocks.  The quiver tree is an aloe species that is endemic to Namibia.  The branches were traditionally used by the San people to make quivers for their arrows, thus its name.  The trees themselves are kind of hard to describe, so you should probably just look at the pictures below.  Around the quiver trees were interesting dolerite rock formations.  These formations were formed around 180 million years ago as the continents began to drift and the surface of the earth went through huge changed.  In this area, magma forced its way through cracks in the surface.  Over the years, because of erosion, the dolerite has been exposed, which is what we were seeing.

Before Geil left us to watch the sunset, he showed us a fun fact about dolerite.  He went over to a specific formation, took two smaller rocks in his hands and then started "playing" the rocks.  I say this because each different spot he struck had a different pitch and when struck in succession, it sounded like music.  He played the South African national anthem for us.  After he left, Neil and I played some rock music, climbed around on the rocks and found a good one to the watch the sunset.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we headed out of the park to find a place to stay.  We found a potential location for parking the car, but as we started to drive off the road, we realized it wasn't going to work.  When Neil turned around, our car started to get stuck.  I got out and pushed, while Neil drove and we made it out.  We found a different place behind a bush, but really close to the road.  We decided that it would probably be better if we didn't have our white car way out in the open, so we camouflaged it by draping my tent over it and we would sleep in the car.  It was a little bit smaller than we were expecting, and much warmer than it usually was in the tent, but without the violent wind we had experienced on the volcano, both of us slept much better than the night before.

This was taken as we approached the interior and started climbing up to get to the top of the ring.

Looking down into the crater in the middle.

Some interesting rocks.

Looking out.  It's a little hard to see, but the horizon is just so flat.  We were the tallest things for miles.

Mesosaurus

Mesosaurus.  If you look close, you can see the different colors inside of the imprint.  Those are remnants of bone.

Up close of foot.

Quiver trees and dolerite.

Disclaimer:  Neil took all these pictures.

Days 14 and 15: Days of Rest...and then Nothing

Because we had nothing major to do the next day, we slept in a little bit and had a leisurely and delicious egg breakfast.  We chatted with a guy, who's name may have been Michael, but who we dubbed Dr. Pangolin, because he had spent around a year studying an animal called the pangolin.  The pangolin is a mammal that kind of looks like an armadillo.  It's covered in scales and curls into a seemingly impenetrable ball when threatened.  Fun fact:  The pangolin is the only mammal with skin that is also covered in keratin scales.  They eat ants and termites, although they do not have any teeth.  Stones that accumulate in their stomachs help break things down.  We had heard about these before we had gone into Etosha, but they're incredibly hard to find.  Dr. Pangolin was one of a handful of pangolin experts and had only a few sightings over his year of research.

We spent the read of the day hanging out and reading before going shopping in what seemed to be a deserted mall.  Neil and I needed to make sure we would have food for ourselves after Thomas left the next day and Thomas needed to make sure he had snacks for his ride back to South Africa.  We decided to find an interesting place to celebrate Thomas' final night with us.  We ended up going to Joe's Beerhouse.  It's kind of hard to explain the kind of character this place had.  Let's just say it was full of knick-knacks of all kinds, had a large fire pit in the center, and served things like Zebra, Kudu and Oryx.  I had either Kudu or Springbok (I can't remember) on top of spatzle with mushrooms.  I was a little hesitant, but it was surprisingly good and it was nice to have something different than rice or cous-cous with beans.


The next day was a little less relaxing than the day before.  We could no longer procrastinate the financial business that needed to be done in order to make suer everyone was paying equal parts.  Thomas and Neil tried to come up with some intense spreadsheet and equation on Thomas' computer, but we finally went old school and did some serious multi-digit addition to figure everything out.  It was no fun, but it needed to happen and we got to sit in the sun by the pool of the CBB.  The three girls who were bringing Thomas back to South Africa in order to take one of his final exams, met us at the hostel in the early afternoon.  We heard a little bit about their adventures and their multiple flat tires, before we said good bye to Thomas.  Neil and I said one last goodbye to the Card Board Box and headed out on our much less direct journey back to South Africa.

We had already decided on some key places we wanted to go and our first stop was an extinct volcano.  We had seen that there was a campground on the outskirts of it, but when we arrived there was no one there.  The buildings were completely empty, the windows gone and the floors were covered with feathers and bird dropping.  Because we had no where else to go and we really wanted to hike into the volcano, we decided to stay at one of the campsites.  It was a beautiful location, but it was a little bit spooky to be staying in such a deserted place.  We climbed to the top of a small hill to watch the sun set and could see only one town on the horizon of our 360º view.  We literally were in the middle of nowhere.  After that, we made dinner and buckled down for an cold and EXTREMELY windy night.

Our home!

We could not leave without sneaking a picture of the van that the Brits were driving.  I think this picture pretty much speaks for itself.

While we were driving, we randomly came across this sign.  We drove past, looked at each other and asked if we had really just passed a sign that said "Tropic of Capricorn."  Obviously, we turned around.  This is a picture of Neil, pretty must being Neil.

Me.  We clearly had been in a car for a while.

The view from our tent.

Before heading up the hill to watch the sun set, we walked for a while in a ravine-type thing.  This was what we were walking on.  Neither one of us knew what kind of rock it was, or what would have made all of the lines, but it was pretty neat.

Sunset.

This picture barely does justice to how deserted of an area we were in.  When we were trying to find the road to the volcano, we drove through a tiny village.  There was a school and a tiny store and some, what I would call, homesteads.  It's crazy to think about how isolated these people were, where they got food and what would happen if there was some kind of emergency.  You can see, perpendicular to the horizon, the road that Neil and I drove in on.

Neil took these!

Day 13: Home. Sweet. Home.

We made it through the night with no lion attacks or questions from our neighbors, who were having a grand old time until the wee hours.  After breakfast, we packed up and drove into the Waterberg Platear National Park.  This park is dominated by flat-topped mountains and has beautiful views and some rare species of wildlife, like the white rhino and sable antelope.  They also are home to Namibia's only breeding colony of Cape vultures.  However, we did not see any interesting wildlife other than a troop of baboons.

We decided that this would be a great place to do some hiking and because Neil and Thomas are, well...Neil and Thomas, we ended up spending a while climbing around on some of the large boulders towards the beginning of the trail.  After they tried several times to get to the top of one boulder, I told them to stand aside and give me a turn.  I must disclose that there is a little debate over whether or not the route that I took included some cheating, but all that matters is that I got to the top before they did and had a great view of their continued struggles!  We continued climbing to the top of the mountain and had a wonderful view of the valley below and Namibia that stretched on all sides.  We hung out for a while at the top, watched a large group of tourists summit as well, and tried to figure out if we were actually hearing someone call for help or if it was only monkeys.

We hiked back down, drove to the entrance, did our dishes in the bathroom and played some frisbee in the parking lot before getting back in the car and making our way home to the Card Board Box in Windhoek.  It was actually like coming home.  The woman who checked us in recognized us and made us feel very welcome and we ended up seeing the crazy Brits who were driving from England to Cape Town that we saw the first time we were at the CBB and who's car we spotted as we were leaving Etosha as well as the two girls from Botswana that we saw the first time and when we were in Swakhopmund.

I don't have many pictures (OK, I only have one) from our hike.

Waterberg Plateau National Park

Day 12: Rocks from Space...ace...ace...ace!

The resort that we were staying at was incredibly fancy, at least compared to our tents on the side of the road.  There was a regulation-sized swimming pool where we swam and did some laps before showering and getting back on the road.  Although we had done a fair amount of activities, we had still done a ton of driving and it felt nice to get a little exercise in.  After repacking our car we headed off towards the Hoba meteorite.

The Hoba meteorite is located in northern Namibia, kind of near the middle of the country.  It fell around 80,000 years ago, weighs about 60 tons and is the largest known single piece that has fallen.  It is made up mostly of iron. The chunk has been turned into a tourist destination and visitors can climb around on the meteorite, test out the different metallic sounds made when it is struck, and experience the strange echo that can be heard when standing at a specific point on top of the meteor.  A kind of amphitheater has been built up around it which, I'm pretty sure, made this possible.

It was neat to be able to be so close to space rocks!  And it also provided a lovely setting for our picnic lunch.  We befriended some local dogs, climbed around, and made fools of ourselves testing out the echo.  As we continued on our way towards Waterberg, our trusty bird-spotter, Thomas, spotted a secretary bird and a scarlet breasted roller, both of which are beautiful birds, and are pretty difficult to see.

Although our gas tank was uncomfortably low, we were able to make it to outside of Waterberg Plateau National Park which is situated between Etosha and Windhoek.  We found a spot on the side of the road to pitch our tents and hung out for a little while before getting ready to make dinner.  Thomas swore that he heard rustling noises near his tent and we had some very noisy neighbors not too far up the road.  We made dinner rather quickly and kept our headlamps dimmed.  I have to admit, that out of all the things that we had done on this trip and I had done over the course of the semester, this night was probably the only time I felt a little bit uncomfortable.  But I was a little comforted after I figured that if a lion (or other large animal) came they probably would want to eat Neil or Thomas first because they were so much bigger than me!!!!

**We weren't allowed to bring our cameras into the meteor sight.  But I found a picture on Google images to give you an idea of what it looked like.

The meteor.  (Thanks Google!)

I can't remember the name of the town that this is.  But most of the towns we drove through had this kind of feeling.  All the buildings were low and there was really on one main street.

Day 11: Babar, the Elephant King

We got a pretty early start the next day to continue our search for the elusive feline species.  We spent a few hours driving around without spotting any cats, but still seeing species we had seen the day before like giraffe, zebra, oryx, hornbills, and red hartebeests.  We saw SO many elephants!!  Bunches were spotted while we were just driving, some we saw in watering holes, but we also get caught in the middle of a large herd.  Elephants of all sizes were crossing the road in front of us and behind us and the bull stared us down for a while before deciding that we weren't worth charging and crossed several yards in front of our car that he could have easily stepped on.  It was exciting, but also a little nerve-racking.  Neil was ready to make a run for it, but we convinced him to stay put and maintain our ground.

After our last (fruitless) attempts to see a lion, we threw in the towel and headed back towards Windhoek, where we had to drop Thomas off in a few days.  On our way South, we tried to find some interesting looking lakes Lake Otjikoto and Lake Guinas.  They looked like large sinkholes that had been filled in, but we got lost and never found them.  We drove for a while along a dirt road, with an amazing view of the stars, but it was a little scary to be unsure of whereWe couldn't find our way out of the town of Otavi for a while, but eventually, we made it to Tsumeb and found a resort-type place where we could pitch our tents.

This was how close we were.

Wildebeests.

Jackel

My comrades and some of the terrain we were on.  Part of the park is a salt pan, and I believe that this was on the way to the salt pan.

Ever wonder how giraffes drank?  Now you know!!

Dik Dik.  The cutest deer ever!  You could pick this little guy up and carry him with you.  We thought about it for a second, but we figured that we wouldn't be able to get him across the border.

Day 10: Hello Kitty!

We spent the next two days driving around Etosha National Park looking for animals.  Although we searched and searched we didn't see any cats (big or small), but we saw tons of other species.  Thomas is an avid bird-watcher and with his keen eyes we saw tons of birds.

We got to the gate as soon as it was open just as the sun was coming up.  We drove in on a long flat road to get beyond the borders of the part.  Within the first 5 minutes of entering, we saw our first animal.  A large rhino.  It was a little hard to tell whether or not it was a white or black rhino (distinguished by the horn) because it was a little far away, but it was still super cool.

We spent the day driving around the park in their several different environments - vegetated, more desert - hoping that our little car would make over the roads, some of which were in pretty rough shape. It's a little less exciting to listen to me talk about everything we saw, so below are a bunch of pictures!!

I took these pictures with my phone, so the quality isn't that great, but it gives you the general idea. We saw around 20 different species, but I didn't get pictures of all of them.

Our first spot of the day!!

This is one of the watering holes in the park.  We counted 8 or so different species all hanging out around the water.

The condition of the roads!  But our little car managed just fine.

Giraffe!

Herd of Zebra!

We interrupted this elephant in the middle of taking care of an itch on its tuchas.

So many Springbok!

Gembok

"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba

Sithi uhm ingonyama"  (For those of you don't speak Zulu, this is the beginning phrases of The Circle of Life from the Lion King.  That's all I could think about when we were passing this part of the park.)

Sociable weaver next.