Sad goodbyes

It is our last full day in Namibia and indeed being with my daughter, it will soon be back to Skype and WhatsApp… as they say, ‘every silver lining has a cloud’. I have tried with some success to keep the cloud out of mind, but it is getting more and more difficult. Still there is some lining left and the nine km hike through Khomas Hochland Hills remains un-hiked, by us at least.

Francolin, nicely camouflaged - Khomas Hochland Hills

We manage to rise and shine a little later than intended, eat a hurried breakfast, grab whatever bottles of water we can find, about 2 liters, and head out. Though it is still early in the morning it is already ominously warm, not the slightest of breezes troubles the air and not a single cloud drifts across the sky. The thought crosses my mind that this is the sort of day better suited to lazing next to swimming pools under canopies, sipping sweet cocktails with silly names like ‘Pink Nipples’, but we are here at the start of the trail and I am strictly a beer, wine and whisky guy anyway. It is a little over an hour later than I had wanted to start, but what the hell, nine km is not really a long distance, it is trivial. I have walked further than that in a shopping mall with my daughter, seeking the illusive perfect pair of jeans.

For some distance the trail is quite easy, it follows a dry river bed (it seems that dry river beds are the only type of river beds in this part of the world). We see lots of small bird life, it is still early enough for the birds to be out and about, as well as ostrich and a few warthogs before we stop for our first rest. I am hoping to see giraffe, oryx, red hartebeest, zebra, impala and kudu as well. I am hoping not to encounter hyena, buffalo, rhino, elephant, lions, leopards or any of the poisonous snake species that inhabit these parts. I have been led to believe that we are unlikely to encounter any really dangerous creatures here, except possibly snakes. This is black mamba country which is a pretty venomous creature and the fastest snake in Africa. I remember one Sunday morning, while serving in the South African Field Artillery in 1978 not all that far from here. Irrespective of religious affiliations, we conscripts had been gathered under a tree to listen to the Padre preach his stuff, when a black mamba slithered through the congregation. Well, a hand grenade could not have broken up the proceedings as effectively. I recall feeling a certain satisfaction at the serpent getting a tiny bit of his own back for all the centuries of slander at the hands of preachers like this one. Anyway, today I keep my eyes peeled for this sucker.

Follow the arrow... trees grow where ever they can

Delightful spider web

After a short rest we follow the trail upwards and the going gets a bit tougher as we get into the hills. It’s steep enough and challenging enough for your regular city slicker to feel a little like a Camel man, without having to actually suck on a cancer stick, but not tough enough to make the slicker regret doing the hike – ‘nice balance’, I think. The scenery is nothing short of magnificent once we reach a high enough point and get to look down on the valleys and sides of other hills. We even get a view of the city nestling in a valley far below. There are small groups of nervous zebra that run away when they notice us. These are not the usual plains zebra one finds in most game reserves in Southern Africa, I believe these are Hartmann’s Zebra, a vulnerable or possibly endangered species. It is fabulous to watch how they manage to pick their way, at a considerable speed, over rocky and steep terrain. We have a particular thrilling moment when we flush a baby (kid?) kudu resting in the shade of a stunted bush.

Baby Kudu flushed from the shade 

Mamma Kudu 

I realize that the kudu is doing the sensible thing and we are not. It is not midday yet, but the ditty ‘only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’, comes to mind.  We have been walking now for two hours, we are about half way, it is getting seriously hot and our inadequate water supply is nearly done. I should have known better, one litre of water each in this temperature is just not enough. The nine km is measured on a map from point A to point B and ignores the effect of elevation, if you flattened out the route it may be closer to 11 km and going up and down the hills is quite tiring. But we have passed the point that returning is further than pressing forward. The nice feeling of satisfaction, of intrepid Camel person has evaporated somewhat and a small sense of suffering is creeping into the picture. Still, the scenery makes up for the pain, that is, until the trail takes us down to (another) dry river bed and we have to do rock hopping. Now rock hopping wearing proper hiking boots is miserable, doing it with trainers is really nasty, but we persist, there is no other option. Our water is done and we still have about one third of the distance to do, and that includes another steep climb, it must now be very close to a murderous 40 degrees Celsius. I will spare you the full saga of the final climb, it is not pretty. After what seems like an age of short hops between shaded bits on the route we finally make it back to the lodge. Hallel-fucking-ujah. 

As I said, follow the arrows - the last climb is hell on earth 

 We had thought of doing lunch here, but neither of us have any appetite, just a raging thirst. There is a kiosk where we have parked the car that sell tins of fruit juice (Liquifruit), refrigerated to bitterly cold temperatures, at extortionist prices. I empty the wallet and buy... polishing off two cans right there and then.

On reflection the hike is one of the high points of the trip, and I can recommend it to anyone that is fit enough to walk twenty km on a city sidewalk. We saw plenty of wild life, albeit no giraffe which I particularly wanted to see. The best part of the game viewing experience was to feel like part of their world and not see them from the bubble of a vehicle. A little better planning on my part would have improved the experience, like taking enough water and starting off early enough so that we could cover more distance before it becomes too hot, and wearing decent hiking boots.

By the time we get back to Arebbusch we just want to sleep for a few hours, but I have another errand to run. The rented VW Polo is in dire need of a clean, it is encased in several layers of salt and sand and the interior has starting to look (and smell) a little like a cesspit. I have been warned of extra charges that will be levied against my Visa account in the event that I return her in this state. I am not a person that is in favour of extra charges on my Visa account, I am cheap in that regard. So I leave my daughter to sleep and drive towards the city centre, certain that I will find a car wash, which indeed I do. I’d thought that I would push the thing through one of those places with revolving brushes that squirt soap and water and then blow it all dry, perhaps spend another five minutes with a vacuum cleaner and be done. This, however, is not the way things work here. For the princely sum of fifty Nam Dollars (five US dollars) I leave the car in the care of a team of about five people that spend the better part of an hour hand washing and polishing the thing to within an inch of its life, inside and out. While I wait my appetite returns and I spot a Nando’s Portuguese Chicken franchise. I have a (hot) peri peri chicken quarter with chips and coleslaw and wash it down with a couple of bottles cold Tafel Lager, not the worst way to spend an hour.

When the cleaners are done, the car is indeed spotless, unbelievably so. I feel as guilty as sin and give the crew a tip of fifty Nam $. They seem to be ecstatic, which make me feel even worse. There is something to be said for cheap abundant labour, unless of course you are one of the cheap abundant labourers. We passed a settlement on the way to the Daan Viljoen Game Reserve where these cheap and abundant labourers live with their children in makeshift homes of corrugated sheet metal, cardboard and any other scrap materials they can find. Can you imagine how hot these houses must get when the mercury registers 38 degrees Celsius?  This is not news to me, I am familiar with these settlements and the poverty this is indicative of, it is the ugly side of Africa, probably the underlying reason why I left. It is here that life becomes cheap and violence can so easily become a way of life. I do not know the answer, I do not think there even is an answer. I do know that where some people own several luxury homes, drive several cars, have several servants and take several trips overseas every year and others eke out a living as cheap abundant labourers then the system stinks. The existence of billionaires and people dying for want of a meal on the same planet just does not seem right to me. The fact that George Clooney’s wedding cost several million dollars (to a human rights lawyer for Christ’s sake) while people live in shitholes like this bothers me... am I alone in this wilderness? Communism has demonstrated that it fails to produce a just and fair society, but has capitalism? Oh well, let’s move on, I can’t change the way of the world, merely comment on it, and in my own way I am as guilty as Clooney.

 Where the cheap, abundant laborers live 

The rest of the day we do the relaxing thing and just enjoy each other’s company, swimming pool (sans Pink Nipples cocktails)… salad and BBQ for dinner. Then getting everything packed up so that we can slip away early to get to the airport, my daughter’s flight is at the crack of dawn and mine is a little later. Goodbyes are never easy, and this one is tougher than most. I wish I had another few weeks to explore more of this incredible country with her, we have covered such a tiny piece of it, and she has grown to become such good company, but at the end of that there would still be a tough goodbye. It is the way of the world we have made.

Postscript:

As I write this I am sitting at my desk in Southern Ontario, looking out at the garden still covered in a few inches of slushy snow and ice, the aftermath of the coldest February on record in these parts. Spring is actually in the air, although the weather is still fairly miserable. Early spring is the ugliest time of year, mounds of dirty snow melting into muddy pools, leaving rubbish and petrified dog turds to litter the sidewalks, like some ghastly moraine.  Brown and grey are the dominant colours. The transformation that happens from this nastiness to the glorious summer never cease to amaze me, despite the 0 degrees Celsius (feels like -7), and some icy rain, I feel the process starting and my spirits lifting. In the mornings just before sunrise you can hear the first tentative strains of bird song, and the squawk of Canada geese returning home is unmistakable. The dachshunds, roly-poly from the winter, have already embraced the walkies season.  

Early spring in Southern Ontario, just beautiful , fucking beautiful. 

I know that I must not wish the days of my life away, but I can’t help longing for the moment that the weather is good enough to fetch the Boulevard from storage, and finally for when it’s hot and the forests turn to green and I can ride from sunrise to way after sunset. 

Windhoek

Windhoek Airport was my entry point to Namibia, it is also the exit point, where we’ll be catching our respective flights to return home and to reality. Windhoek Airport is also the scene of a pivotal moment in my life, I alluded to it in the first post about this trip and I quote my words, “I am only a few kilometres from the spot where my mother lost her life 46 years ago when SA 228 crashed…”  Now this blog is about my travels, and not a tear jerker, nonetheless I cannot write about Windhoek without referencing this event. It was 1968, the day after my ninth birthday, Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson was already getting airtime when we waved goodbye to my parents as they took off from the (then) Jan Smuts International Airport en route to Europe. I recall, without knowing a thing about the story, toasting my mum in my mind thinking, "Here's to you Mrs.Williams," not just anyone got to fly to Europe in those days. I have a clear picture in my mind of my mum, a bit overweight, but still very pretty, wearing a bottle green skirt and jacket, black blouse with pearl necklace, those were the days that you dressed up to fly. She hugged me then walking away through the doors that led to the departure lounge. I recall standing on a balcony and watched her as she climbed the steps to board the plane, I imagine that she turned and waved to me, it was the last time I saw her. I have no idea how much of these memories are actually true or simply confabulated, it does not matter, it is as I recall it.

The Boeing 707 made a stop at Windhoek, to refuel and take on more passengers before heading north to Luanda, Las Palmas, Frankfurt and finally Heathrow. However it didn’t get much further than the end of the runway, crashing minutes after takeoff killing almost all aboard, of the 128 passengers and crew only 5 survived. Wikipedia (where else) has a reasonable account of the incident, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_228. My father was one of the 5 survivors, he suffered severe physical injuries including temporary insanity and brain damage, which for the most part reversed and returned him to a more or less normal state within three years. He was, however, never quite the same person again. Perhaps it is a romantic thought that almost everything about me was determined in those few seconds, but I believe it actually is so… my sense of independence and distrust of religious doctrine and authority was forged in the furnace of that experience. For years afterwards my family referenced everything to pre or post the air cash. My sisters and I were extraordinarily lucky to have grandparents that were willing and able to step in and take charge, they effectively raised us, hence sparing us the awfulness of separation and foster care. Of course at the time I did not consider myself to be terribly lucky, and did not even think that my dear Gran and Gramps had the option of washing their hands of the whole problem. In retrospect I have no doubt that this must have been an attractive choice for them, they were old retired people and my grandfather was rather sick with stomach ulcers, yet they uprooted their lives and took on the task of raising us. THANK YOU GRANNY AND GRANDPA.

Today we are travelling on the same route to Windhoek that we came by, it is sad that we don’t take the more scenic road, the C 28 is definitely the way to go... I hanker, I want this road, but I know that it is too risky. My sister has a 1 p.m. flight and having suffered one flat tyre on just such a stretch of road, I realize that the adult thing to do is stick to the tar… damn. There is something I love about my travels on the Boulevard, I am alone and have only to consider one person, me. If I get lost it is only me that can bitch, if I choose a lousy road, it is only me that can be angry with me. However today I have passengers and I have no option, I must choose wisely, there is a plane to catch.

En-route to Windhoek  

The journey passes quickly, far too quickly. We pretend to be cheerful, but there is a melancholy atmosphere that none of us can dispel. Already I miss my sister and wonder when I will get to spend a decent chunk of time with her again. It’s a strange thing this South African diaspora, not the way we expected things to turn out. The desert turns to yellow grasslands and then to thorn bush and the hills surrounding Windhoek materialize. To get to the airport we have to cross through the city centre and witness some of the worst driving I have ever seen, but we make it there in time and without incident, even have time to spare to get some lunch before her flight. By this time we are all hungry, despite the delicious farewell breakfast provided by Tilla and Tula at the guest house. The little restaurant in the airport serves a tolerable lunch, but the complete lack of windows just adds to the general ‘down’ of the moment. The time comes for her to pass through the security portals and after a quick hug she is gone. I keep my tears in check, no good for an old guy like me to be seen crying, I’m old school, ‘cowboys don’t cry’. Still I wipe tear away before anyone can notice.

Lilac-breasted Roller - photographed at Arebbusch Travel Lodge

The big lump in my throat is still coming, when my daughter and I must say goodbye, but for now we have a few days left to enjoy each other’s company, and whatever Windhoek has to offer. The charms of Windhoek are more in the nature of the traditional expectations of a western person of an African experience, thorn tress, grasslands and African game, ala Karen Blixen… zebras, antelope, baboons, elephant, giraffe, leopards and lions. Not to mention game lodges, being called ‘bwana’ and bare breasted African maidens dancing, actually this last bit is not seen much anymore unless it’s staged for tour groups at much expense. The impact of television has some regrettable consequences and of course you would not hear the word ‘bwana’ 'round here except in sarcasm, they don’t speak Swahili in Namibia.

I had pre-booked and paid accommodation at the Arebbusch Travel Lodge from Canada, (the same place we stayed when we arrived in Namibia a few weeks back, see earlier post, http://www.not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/01/nam.html). I suppose that I lacked some imagination when I was doing the bookings, and should have tried somewhere else to make the experience a bit more interesting. Too late now, I have already parted with the brass, so to speak, and it’s really quite adequate, if a little bit too close to the City of Windhoek. Besides spending some quality time with my daughter and doing some game viewing, I want to see the southern hemisphere night sky at a sufficient distance from light and other pollution so that one can actually see the stars properly. Star gazing and game spotting, the ultimate of African experiences.

Pumba - Daan Viljoen Game reserve

Most of humanity seems to have forgotten, and some may never have seen the night sky as our forefathers, and I presume foremothers, witnessed it whenever weather permitted, as recently as 250 years ago. Before Edison, Henry Ford and the industrial revolution turned the stars into little twinkly things, like sequins glued to a canopy of black baize, flat and all equidistant from Earth.  If you can get to a place on a clear, moonless, night that has clean air and far enough from city lights, you will be rewarded by the grandest of vistas that you have ever seen, and if you can do this in the southern hemisphere all the better. You can then start to appreciate the fixation our ancestors had for stars, you can see the depth of heavens, see that some stars are closer than others even though they may be dimmer and the Milky Way is not just a smudge, but you can actually see that it is made up of stars uncountable. The planets become visible, Mars is orange and Venus does have phases just like the moon and the stars really are not the same colour, some are blue, some are white, there are yellows and even browns. It is the most humbling, yet most wonderful experience imaginable. There was a time in my life when I drove between Johannesburg and Cape Town and on a regular basis, about an 18 hour drive. Usually I managed to time it so at least some of the part of the trip that took me through the Karoo would be at night, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoo ). If I was lucky I would encounter the Karoo on a moonless night and stop next to the road, to lie on the roof of my Jeep wrapped in a blanket and stare up for an hour or so. I remember doing this with my daughter on one of those trips, it was a moment in my life I will not easily forget. Sometimes I am asked, how does a godless person like me find any meaning in life? Looking up into the cosmos I have realised that there is more meaning to be discovered than my meagre intellect could possibly manage over several life times.     

Google, as always, is my friend, though the internet connection at Arebbusch is not entirely as reliable and strong as I would like it to be. There are a few options to do some game spotting - game drives, guided hikes, and there are several unguided hikes available. I choose to do unguided hikes, game drives are very pleasant, but generally expensive and terribly touristy and guided hikes you need to book well in advance. The Google machine leads me to a small national reserve with the unlikely name of Daan Viljoen, a very Afrikaans name for a post-independence Namibia, http://www.namibian.org/travel/lodging/daan_viljoen.htm. It is an absolutely fabulous little place, even though it is only about 4000 hectares, not much more than a large farm in these parts, situated on the Khomas Hochland Hills, on the western side of Windhoek, overlooking the city.  They offer the intrepid traveler several hiking options from an easy-peasy three km, to a more challenging nine km and a guided 27 km trail. We decide on trying the 3 km as a prelude to dinner at their restaurant, the nine km route we plan to do early on one of the days that we are here.

 Interesting art at Daan Viljoen Game Reserve

We arrive at about 5 p.m. after losing fifteen minutes to an error of route selection (aka, I got lost because I took the wrong turn). There is a surprising amount of red tape involved and hidden fees, forms to fill with several carbon copies and so on, in order to finally park the car and take off into the wilderness. The 3 km hike is a 1.5 km walk along a dry river bed to a silted up dam, and back again. It is not terribly challenging, but still a decent hike with enough game to make it very worthwhile. We see gnus, including males fighting over breeding rights, warthogs and a troop of Chacma baboons, not to mention a good selection of bird species. My daughter even manages to be almost in the path of a small herd of gnus doing a little stampede. Being in close proximity to baboons is quite a spine tingling experience, though they are not usually aggressive if you don’t interfere with them in any way and you have no food with you. The big males are a study in primate strength, lean and muscular, almost like cartoon depictions of a body builder, huge shoulders and tiny waist, and armed with surprisingly large and lethal canine teeth. Though they weigh less than half I do, I would be utterly no match in a straight fight, not even when I was at my peak strength in my mid-twenties.

Small stampede of gnus 

Bit of male competition 

I think the game we managed to see, though not from the big five, isn’t bad for a short walk along a dry river bed, after all I would not like to encounter anything more dangerous than the animals we saw. Dinner at the restaurant is reasonably good, not quite as good as I had hoped for as the venison fillet (known in North America as ‘tender loin’) that I order tastes suspiciously like beef rump steak, nonetheless it is tasty and by this time we are pretty hungry. So all is well, there is a sunset, a few Scotches and soda, a full moon and the chance to spend time with my daughter. Shit, I realize, a full moon presents a problem to the star gazing ambition – full moon equals too much heavenly light to see the stars properly.

This graveyard was on the path we walked at Daan Viljoen 

The next day we just chill out at the lodge, my daughter swims in the pool, while I experiment with building a sundial using a water bottle, the tiles on the floor and my cell phone’s GPS. Adjusting for the actual longitude from the start of the time zone, I manage to get the shadow of the water bottle sundial to show the time to within only a negligible error. I am such a nerd. It is now midday, very close to the summer solstice and a hair north of the Tropic of Capricorn, time to get out of the pool and the sun and head to the air conditioned sanctuary of the bungalow. I braai (otherwise known as BBQ) lamb chops and my daughter makes salad for lunch. It’s a wonderful feeling not having to do anything for the afternoon, a rare luxury for me, but I seem incapable of taking advantage of it. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way I have unlearned the ability to just relax.  

I have worked out that even though the phase of the moon is just past full, there might be a very brief window for us to see the night sky in all its glory between sunset and moonrise. Late afternoon we head out, south towards Rehoboth on the B1 in order to get some distance from the city lights. The sun dips below the horizon in a fabulous display of pinks, oranges and finally purples, we turn onto a side road and find a place to stop. I am disappointed as there seems to be a glow on the eastern horizon, perhaps the lights of a town I wasn’t aware of. Nonetheless the sky darkens and the stars start to reveal themselves. There is a very brief moment when I get a glimpse of the night sky I am looking for, it is only visible over a patch of sky above us, and then the glow on the eastern horizon gets brighter and expands across the sky. It’s not light from an unknown town, but the moon itself, from just a sliver of bright silver on the horizon to a shiny full disk takes mere moments. The moon may have robbed us of the stars, but this is one of the most magnificent moonrises I have seen. The land is flat bushveldt with a few mountains in the distance, it’s a cliché, I know, but no other way of saying it, the world is bathed in a silver light, it is breathtaking. The absence of pollution and even moisture in the air, I speculate, produces this clarity of light.

The drive back to Windhoek is in silence, I am not sure if it’s the moonrise or the realization that we have just two nights left and only one full day, perhaps both. In any event it’s to be early to bed. Tomorrow we will do the nine Km hike, and to avoid walking in the midday sun in 38 Celsius we’d better be up early.