Etosha

When does the sun go down if the earth is a spinning ball? How can It move through the sky so silently as a mute orb? This African plane arcing out behind the water hole is actually so vast that it reveals the arc of the planet.




I am here at the main water hole waiting for the critters while the crew is cooking dinner. The Impalas and Oryxes this afternoon were lazily dining on knee high grasses.





We found two towers of Giraffes while wandering the roads of Etosha.-








We heard lions roaring close by all night long, but the only meat eating mammals seen the first day were the Jackals.

Welwitschia

The amazing Welwitschia plants live over 1000 years on the high desert plateau of Namibia.





This is a young 800 year old female plant.







This is the male. These plants are normally the only greenery on this plateau, except this year, of course. The plants support a large environment of critters.

Doubtful Spring

In the middle of the red sandstone mountains going north in Namibia from Swakopmund to Etosha there is a spring that is sacred to the Nama peoiple.
They used this spring for thousands of years. The Nama carved drawings into the red sandstone here in respect for the spring.




One European man tried to use the valley for raising cattle and went bust. Today the valley and the red sandstone formations are a protected national treasure of Namibia.









These petra glyphs represent spitit animals, footprints of migration to the spring, and some mythological creatures.







Some of the live creatures here today are th agama lizards, male and female.







The Rock Hydrax and the desert flowers. Did I say, Namibia is all green!!?

Wall of Peace

In the coastal town of Swakopmund, Namibia there is an eclectic wall of pease surrounding the youth hostal.






There are about 100 different panels with themes of peace, freedom, and love.

Namibian Dreams

Namibian Dreams

If my mother could see me now.
The only Africa she new was missionaries.
The weekly Sunday morning, Sunday evening
Plea for coins.
Coins I could have used for movies.
But they were forbidden.
This Namibian Africa is
Quiet music
Vast still views
Little white and brown dogs
Jackels in the evening
Upside down milky road.

If my mother could see me now
She would know a different Africa
Not the place to be rescued,
The place to be lived
Absorbed through the skin,
The feet.
It holds me with its rose glowing arms.
The sun now is not harsh as I was told
But it is filtered with shadows climbing
Up the tables, mesas rojas
The beetle that walks with its head down
and its rear in the air to catch the morning dew.

If my mother could see me now
She would learn why we are different
and it would be okay.
There would be no right and worng
No blasck and white
There would just be.
When the questions come
They are easily answered.
There are no wrong answers,
Only answers.
Answers both original and mundane
The stuff of what I am.

Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, Namibia

Walvis Bay is the major port town in the middle of the long stretch of Namibia from South Africa to Angola. The first Europeans here were the Portugese in the mid 1400's. Long before them it was the land of the Topnaar people. The British colonized the Walvis Bay and the Germans colonized the Swakopmund further north primarily for a military presence. Walvia Bay is the major port and was part of South Africa until, I think 2004?, when it was given to Namibia. The name Swakopmund comes from the Topnaar word for diarrhea, because of all the debris washed down the Swako River to the sandy beach resembles the spew of a lose bowel.


There are an extraordiany number of marine and shore birds along this bay.





Greater Flamingoes





Pied Avocets





Caspian and Fairy Terns, Black-headed Gulls, Common Greenshanks, Black-bellied Plovers, Bar-tailed Godwit, a Curlew Sandpiper, and Ruddy Turnstones.

The Crew

The journey I am on from Cape Town to Nairobi, if you didn't know, is put together by the Canadian Company, Gap Adventures. Gap has a unique niche in this touring market that includes low cost camping trips such as this one. We have three South African guides along for most of the 40 days. Jeanene is training to become a leader in her own right. She is a bit shy here trying to run past the camera. She will be leaving us at Livingston, Zambia. Several of the travelers are only going that far as well.





Jan, our driver extraodinaire, is here bare foot demonstrating the length of a Black Mamba we found along side the road. Hopefully, it really is dead, but you never know with these guys. We saw two 6 foot long live Yellow Cobras along this same route. One was on the road beside the bus trying to climb onto the axle, and the other was going through a very large Social Weavers' nest hunting for eggs and chicks.




And this is our ever working, always taking care of every passing need, Maretha. Maretha spends 300 days a year on the road camping with groups like ours all over Eastern and Southern Africa. Here Maretha is holding the cameras everyone has loaded her with for a photo op at the Tropic of Capricorn.




Finally, this is part of the crazy goup hanging out at the Tropic along side the "Truck" as it is fondly know.