Leaving Namibia (12-19)

Sunday afternoon I took the shuttle back to Windhoek and stayed at the same guesthouse with my little cottage and great view.Since this was my last day alone, I decided to hang out at the guesthouse all day. Then I remembered that there is a botanical garden I hadn’t been to; so I had a taxi take me there. Even though it is very dry and many of the plants are dried out, I enjoyed walking along the trails for 1.5 hours. 

I was especially attracted to the small leaves on trees, 

the bottle trees, 

and plants that are in the grape family but one would never guess it.

 It was a pleasant outing for the last day of my Namibia holiday.

The time to leave Namibia has finally come. After traveling for 2.5 weeks and seeing Fish River Canyon and Sossuvlei as well as the desert in Aus and Swakopmund, I am ready to leave the country. This holiday was like a dream come true, and now it’s time to move on. I decided to see more of Africa before leaving the continent. I’ll join a truck tour like the one I did in South Africa in May for two weeks to go to Botswana, Victoria Falls, and Malawi. Then I’m off to Ethiopia, Egypt, and Morocco.

To follow my journey out of Africa, go to the Jackie Travels blog: jekehl55.blogspot.com.

Swakopmund part 2 (12-18)

Saturday I went to the third destination: the ocean. For this, I took the ocean tour to see dolphins and seals in Walvis Bay harbor. First we stopped at a place where there were a lot of flamingos. 

Then we embarked on our catamaran for the three-hour ocean experience. As we were embarking on the boat, there was a pelican on the pier. 

When we left, a seal followed in the boat’s wake and then jumped onto the boat. They know that the guides have fish for them. 

As the guide fed it, he pointed out that it has external ears, a distinguishing feature of the cape fur seals. When the seal returned to the water, the guide threw fish for it to fetch, which it did and then returned for more. 

Next a pelican joined us on the boat. Pelicans came and went during the trip. Toward the end of the morning one was near where I was sitting; so I decided to pet it, which we had been told was OK. It was interesting to feel the different textures on the neck and body.

We saw the oyster beds. Namibia produces a lot of oysters because they grow at least twice as fast as they do elsewhere due to the high level of plankton in the water and the currents. Some of the oysters are imported from other countries to be grown here and then exported. 

Since the oysters are grown in baskets, they do not get cleaned by the moving around in the current; so every six weeks they are pulled up to the oyster cleaning boat and cleaned. Millions of oysters are exported.

There are a number of tug boats in the harbor and oil rigs from Angola. They are brought here for cleaning and repair because of the piracy in Angola.

The next site was Pelican Point where about 13,000 cape fur seals reside. The area is literally covered with seals. 

The females and babies are on land while the males are in the ocean. 

We could see the small, dark babies, especially with the assistance of telephoto. Even from our distance offshore we could hear their loud noise.

Then we stopped for a while waiting for dolphins that did not oblige us with an appearance. This was my first dolphin tour on which we didn’t see any, but it was still a nice outing. As we started back to shore, we were served snacks which included fresh oysters.

On the way back to Swakopmund, I was fascinated by the water and clouds along the coast.

Other than the three outings, Swakopmund was a time for slow, relaxing days, which I needed. I visited the small museum and aquarium, which has only Namibian fish, 

and Kristal Gallerie, which has a collection of crystals found in Namibia. One is the largest quartz crystal cluster on display in the world. It weighs 14,000 kilograms. A special gem is pietersite, which is unique to Namibia. Being a combination of tiger’s eye, hawk’s eye and jasper, it is marbleized gold, blue, and brown.

Christmas decorations are minimal. There is a tree in the center of the town arcade, and some shops have a few decorations in the windows. At the home where I stayed there was a tree and there were a few decorations in the living room. The daughter had made a gingerbread house from scratch, as kits are not available here. She and her friends baked cookies one afternoon.

I specialized in eating seafood and relaxing at restaurants with an ocean view. One day I had kabeljou, the catch of the day which was a new fish for me, served over vegetables. 

Restaurant at the end of the jetty where I ate twice. 

Another day I had a grilled seafood skewer served over a fish fillet. 

And another day I had grilled calamari served over grilled veggies. 

I had raw oysters once 

and a combo of a tempura oyster, an oyster baked with cheese, and one cooked with lemon garlic sauce. All were very delicious. 

Since Swakopmund has a large population with German heritage, there are several bakeries; so I had to try baked goods as well. I ate very well in Swakopmund and enjoyed every bite. Relaxing and eating in Swakopmund was a wonderful finish for my southern Namibia holiday.

Swakopmund (12-14)

Tuesday I headed to Swakopmund on the shuttle from Windhoek. I was ready to not be driving even though the whole trip was on a tar road. After ten busy days, I needed a day off. In Swakopmund I stayed with a family in their home (airbnb) for the first three nights. I got along well with the woman and her husband and enjoyed talking with them. It was nice to hang out with compatible people for a change. 

Then I moved, as the woman’s sister was coming, to another place that was quite unique for the last two nights. I had a really large, bright room with a tub and a rocking chair. I had to indulge in a bath on night.

Swakopmund is on the Atlantic coast with the ocean on one side and the dunes and desert on the other. Of course I needed to experience all three: dunes, desert, and ocean. It is where Namibians head to get out of the heat, as temperatures are much lower there—in the 70s most of the time.

Wednesday I ended out taking two tours to two of the destinations. Because I am one person, I have to join others who have booked, and, since both tours had other people booked I didn’t want to take a chance that the afternoon tour would be booked later in the week. So it was a full day. The morning tour was the living dunes. We went to the dunes just outside town with the goal of seeing the Little Five, five small animals that live in the dunes. We did very well, only missing a chameleon which apparently has been elusive recently. The vehicles stopped at certain places where the drivers/guides know an animal often hangs out. Then one man talked to us while the other two went scouting for the target animal. Since the early morning rain had erased any tracks, finding the animals was challenging. They looked for disturbances in the sand patterns. Since the first two animals are nocturnal, the sign of their underground site was a very small mound of sand. At our first stop, the guide dug a deep hole and then called us over. 

He then dug farther until he found the palmatto gecko, which he brought out for us to observe. It is translucent; so what is visible is its organs. It is web-footed to make digging easier. After showing us the gecko he put it back in the hole so it could dig in and return to sleep. All the animals they found and showed us were returned to where they were found.

Our next animal was the white lady spider, which is venomous; so the guide handled it very carefully with a hook at the end of a pole. When he found it, the spider was a lump in the sand because it was sleeping. But then it woke up and he got it to ”dance” for us before putting it back in its hole, as it, too, is nocturnal.

Then we saw two lizards—a shovel-snouted lizard 

and a wedge-snouted lizard. 

The former is also called a sand digging lizard because it uses its shovel-shaped snout to dig into the sand, which we watched it do.

They also found a skink for us to observe. It was fun to see the interesting patterns in the sand when it moved around.

They had a hard time finding a side winding adder, which is also quite poisonous. They hide in dollar plants, and the first one they search in had no snake. Later they found one. Its tail has a black tip that sticks out of the sand to lure other animals that think it is small food; then it kills and eats them.

Dollar plants are abundant. 













Their leaves are filled with water; so they provide water for some of the animals. The guide picked a small bunch and squeezed it so we could see the amount of water, which was surprising. 

When they get too dry, they drop their leaves and look dead.

It was really interesting to see and learn about all the animals. It was also fun to ride through the dunes on back trails.

In the afternoon I joined the living desert tour. We stopped several times to photograph views and to see special sites and plants. The first site is called the moon landscape and is a badlands landscape. 

As we were driving off road through the desert, the guide told us that some of the Mad Max movies were filmed there. 

The main special plant is the welwitschia, which is unique from this part of Namibia north into Angola. It can live up to 1000 years. The guide thought the ones we observed are 400-500 years old. 

The plant has a woody stem in the center and two leaves, one on each side. It looks like they have more leaves because they split as the plant grows. Because of the drought, the plants are very dry, and it was difficult to determine if a plant is male or female. 

On one plant we saw the welwitscha bugs that enable fertilization between plants. 
Later we stopped to see lichens, which were also very dry. The guide poured a small amount of water on them, and it was amazing how fast they filled out.

The guide pointed out white streaks of uranium in the rocks. It mined in the area. Namibia is the fifth highest uranium producing country in the world.

All in all it was a very fascinating and beautiful day in the dunes and desert.