Namibia Pt 1: The Land God Made in Anger

I haven’t blogged in a while and honestly didn’t know how I would go about writing this post. This past weekend Matt and I drove up to Namibia on a spontaneous journey to the second most sparsely populated country in the world (only beaten by Mongolia).

While we had talked about the trip, I don’t think either Matt or I were confident it would actually happen. Instead of “planning” and “thinking about it” we pulled a line from the Nike handbook and “just did it”. On Saturday morning we hit the road like we were breaking out of from jail. We just wanted to get as far along as possible with only a vague idea of what lay ahead of us.

We drove 6 hours up the N7 to the border town of Noordoewer. After filling out a few forms and slipping the customs official R180 (for the car registration) we were allowed safe passage into the heart of the country. I don’t know if I can adequately convey the desolation. There were times when we drove an hour and half without seeing any sign of civilization besides the road lying in front of us. Cars would wave at each other simply for a chance at human interaction. With absolutely no light pollution the stars at night were some of the clearest and most visible I’ve ever seen. We would pull over to the side of the road (not that it mattered) just to experience the natural beauty of this part of the world.

That first night we drove two hours in to Keetmanshoop. We asked the gas station attendants where we could find lodging and they pointed us in the direction of an old German fort. The gate was closed, but after a few honks a security guard came running down the street towards us. After a brief conversation he ran to wake up the lady in charge of registration because it was so late. It was 8pm.

The next morning we visited the Quivertree Forest and Giant’s Playground (both ridiculous names, it felt like we were in Lord of the Rings or something). Quivertree Forest was not so much a forest but a field with some quivertrees growing. Giant’s playground was not so much a playground but a field with some balanced rocks in it. Coincidence or just Africa?

After exhausting the thrills of the above two attractions we headed West to the coast. An hour into the drive we saw a sign for wild horses, quickly followed by actual wild horses. We pulled over and approached the feral equines as closely as was comfortable. No one is really sure how these wild horses came to be in Namibia, although rumor has it they came off of some shipwreck. I was surprised by how close they allowed us to come; I guess they didn’t think we posed much of a threat. Continuing on our journey the tufts of grass and rocks gave way to sand dunes and cacti. We had made it to the Namib Desert. After pulling over to the side of the road I couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was. It was so quiet my ears actually hurt. A local later told us “This place is so quiet, even the deaf can feel it”.

To combat the uncomfortable silence we started exploring and climbing on the dunes. Noticing shiny stones we would pick some up, examine them, and throw them deep into the dunes. After a while a car approached and started to honk at us. At the time we couldn’t explain this behavior. Later on, as we drove into the coastal town of Luderitz we saw a sign for Namdeb (Namdeb = half Namibian government, half DeBeers) urging people to stay on the road. We had been trespassing on a restricted diamond area*. Perhaps my favorite part of this experience was seeing a sign that read, “Diamond theft hurts us all. Don’t do it”.

At Luderitz we checked into a backpackers (hostel) drove to the beach. The scene was unreal. The desert literally emptied right into the Atlantic. A desert is the extreme absence of water (specifically precipitation) and an ocean is, well, all water. That these two things could exist simultaneously was baffling. While we struggled with this contradiction, the locals didn’t seem to mind.

The next morning we drove to the ghost town of Kolmanskop and learned all about the diamond industry. Unfortunately we had to wait around for an hour and a half for the tour to start; apparently, despite being directly north of South Africa Namibia is in a different time zone…although I’m quite impressed it took us three days to figure this out.

Our next destination was Ai Ais – located approximately farthest from everywhere else in the world. Nearing the freeway we noticed a young woman about our age sitting on the side of the road. Hitchhiking is standard practice in this part of the world and the sight of her with her bags was nothing out of the ordinary. With a wave of Jack Kerouac-inspired adrenaline we pulled over and asked where she was going. It turns out she was heading to the only other city this road went to. We told her there was room in the back. Unfortunately not much exciting happened after that. She was very quiet and mostly just slept. What we did learn from her revealed a jumbled description of a troubled life. Although it’s one of my pet peeves when travelers attribute broad generalizations to a group of people based off a few select interactions with locals, it’s hard not to find some truth common to other Namibians in her situation. Her name was Marta; she was traveling home to live with her family; her father died; her uncle worked in the diamond mines; she failed out of matric (high school); and she didn’t have a job (Matt later admitted he was about to ask her how she made money but thought better of it. Good call, Matt; sometimes less is more). After dropping her off at a gas station, we hit the road again for what was to be the greatest test our little Polo had ever seen.

*If you’re reading this and happen to be an employee of either the Namibian government or DeBeers, consider this my formal apology…and you should probably invest in better signage, or a fence.