Our tour guide Ernest of Turnstone Tours at (064) 403123 told us that he had been "born and breed in Namibia." As the youngest of six children, he had inherited his father's farm but he and his wife had moved into the city because she was a music teacher who needed students. He studied to become a tour guide and "loves it." The downside was that crime runs rampant in Namibia because of the 51.2 percent unemployment rate.
Our first stop was the Pink Lake to admire the 80,000 pink flamingos that achieve that color as they mature from their diet of brine shrimp that feed on blue-green algae. Unfortunately, the flamingos we saw were young and much more white than pink. When we were back in the vehicle, Ernest told us not to take photographs of the police. When Pat asked if the police enforced the law, Ernest answered after a very long, pregnant pause, "They try to." He told us that the country has many challenges such as HIV-AIDs and education. The country did not have enough well-educated teachers.
As we drove into the desert, Ernest informed us that the small sand dunes can move up to 100 meters per year. Tourists were climbing up Dune 7, the world's highest sand dune, that the country made the prisoners climb as a form of punishment. When we got out of the van to view the dunes that had dark streaks in them from the magnetic rock content, Sara could not believe that we were in the middle of the desert and she was freezing and feeling moisture on her face. Everyone else was getting cold by simply looking at her, and she thought that she had dressed appropriately with her sweater but who thought anyone would need a coat. When we returned to the van, the other passengers started a "Coats for the Cold Charitable Contributions Campaign" and handed Sara so many coats that she was afraid she would not remember to whom she should return them. Did Fodor's really give an entire paragraph to this port?
Ernest showed as what looked like dry twigs but were really lichen. When he poured water on them, the twigs started to come to life and bloom in shades of green. Ken's pun for the day was "I'm really lichen it!" Lichen was important because it holds the ground together and stabilizes it. Because it has no nutrisystem to hold moisture, it must react quickly when moisture is there. Then Ernest said, "Close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you to." This was a dangerous game to play with the cold and sleep deprived. Once he told us to open our eyes, what we saw was what we always imagined the landscape of the moon to be. Everyone was snapping as many photographs as possible of this spectacular terrain. When we climbed out of the van, the sun had come out warming us and causing the landscape to be even more beautiful. Suddenly this place had become magical. It started to remind us of the dunes at the beaches in Nags Head, North Carolina, one of our favorite vacation locations. Bev and Brent from Idaho said it reminded them of the Bad Lands.
Before we got back in the van, Brent, John-Guy and Ken hiked down the dune for a nature call to water the lichen so the dry twigs would sprout green vegetation. Ken complained that a couple took photographs of them that would probably show up on You Tube. But the women got their revenge when they had a rest stop in the desert and proclaimed that now a green plant had grown were they had relieved themselves. When on a trip in a third-world country, one should always carry toilet paper.
Ernest showed us the Welwitshia, the national plant that is unique to the Namibia Desert at higher altitudes so it can partake of the condensation of fog. This plant has only two leaves but because the trunk moved, the leaves were split into many long, thick strips. The female plant had huge cones that open up like pine cones. We also stopped to see the newest addition to the family, which probably started during the heavy rains in 1997. We also saw the quiver tree, which the bushmen used to make arrows, and the uphobia urosa, which looks like a cactus but has a white latex substance rather than a watery see-through liquid. In addition, this plant forms a hump before the leaves bloom out unlike the cactus that grows straight out. The plant also is extremely poisonous to anyone that touches it. When miners came to the area, they used the dead branches for roasting meat. Their memorial was 26 graves.
Our guides then set up the perfect lunch in a desert--Italian lasagna, to-die-for bread, salad and apple crumble for dessert. We ate in chairs they had set up for us under a rock, while admiring the sand that sparkled from the quartz. Ernest and his partner even poured water in a scooped out area in a rock for the birds. We could have stayed there enjoying our surroundings for hours.
On our drive to Swakopmund, the name of which is a combination of Swak for dirty brown water and mouth for the mouth of the river, Pat spotted two kudus and Ernest pointed out at least 10 springbok. These deer-like animals have adapted to the desert so they do not need to drink water but get 80 percent of their moisture from the evaporation of the fog. However, they pay for that trait through dry stools and constipation.
Swakopmund seemed to be a very prosperous, resort town with many boutique shops. On the main street, we had to ring a bell to gain entrance through a barred gate to many of the shops. Prices seemed very high. When we returned to the van, a man was screaming at our guide that he wanted to call the police to arrest him. We tried to get in the van but another man had cornered Diana wanting her to buy his wares because he had to support three children. When we finally drove away, Ernest told us that the man who was screaming had been trying to get a woman to buy a nut large seed from the fruit of a palm tree on which he had carved her name, which she had given him when he asked her name and where she was from. The man would not tell her the price so Ernest asked him how much it cost. The man became very aggressive and proclaimed it was none of Ernest's business. It seemed that carving names on the these seeds was part of ploy of vendors to tell tourists that they had to purchase them because the vendors had carved their names on them. But with unemployment that high, it seemed like anyway to make a buck was acceptable to the vendors.
On our way back to the ship, Ernest showed as miniature bottles of colored sand that his 14-year-old son created to make spending money--remember anyway to make a buck. Sara as so impressed by the industriousness of this young man that she bought two. Everything considered, our day in the Walvis Bay area was magical.
No comments:
Post a Comment