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.