AFRICA!!!!!

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Africa so far...

26/04/10

Flat planes for miles and miles leading to square topped mountains that get no nearer. So many shades of brown, greeny brown, grey brown, orangy brown, and about ten different versions of browny brown. It’s obvious where the streams of water are or once were, even if no water can be seen, you get actual bushes, ones that are make it to above 10 centimetres tall. As we travel north into the sun, the land is going from green brown, to brown brown, to the predominantly orange brown of the sand and soil. We’re miles away from the desert yet, but we’re definitely getting there.

Can see when any water comes to this landscape, it comes with force, leaving gullies, cracks crevices and even ravines behind when it’s gone. It is now the end of the rainy season. It’s so dry and vegetation is so sparse that I’ve been under the assumption that it’s the end of the dry season and there must be rain soon. Apparently not, this is as lush as it is going to be this year and the fire risk is very high. It has not been a good year for Namibian rainfall.

The truck like tank that we are traveling in crawls and sways its way up hills at a horses trotting pace, then flies down the other side. Reminds me of the train in Dumbo, “I think I can, I think I can, I know I can…” It feels a bit like a boat really, not so good considering my questionable relationship with boats. It’s going to take time to deal with the queasiness and it limits you to what you can do.

 

Welcome to Africa.

Sand is getting redder, still hours from Namibia but it’s coming. The bus is quiet, the 5.30 am start after a first night of camping is taking it’s toll. Hard floors, a noisy long distance truck road, and the overenthusiastic and unusual combination of ACDC and Take That being played too loudly all equal a really bad night’s sleep.

 

Our group is quite cool. Chose this particular tour so that we would be with a slightly older group. Have had more than our fair share of party backpacking, heavy hangovers and where have you been and where are you going conversations. Wanted a little bit more ‘life experience’ around us on this trip. Wise move having encountered another group yesterday during an area orientation walk in the Cederberg Mountains. We had two groups combined which made a very large group. The guide was amazing and tried his best to deal with 40 odd people, and we did learn a lot. However, it was really annoying when 3 flicky haired handbag holding girls arrived late clutching bottles of cider and cigarettes. I mean sure, we all would have killed for a drink, but come on, give the guy some respect.

Know the names of 7 out of our group of 16. not bad considering my uselessness with names. Nick of course knows them all already. Wouldn’t expect anything less. He has also just got annoyed at me for missing something out the window that he pointed at. There’s about 200km of open space out there, pointing out the window and shouting “look!” just doesn’t quite cut it.

Mountains in front seem further away. That can’t be right.

Just crossed the border into Namibia. It is a complete change. It appears that a giant (and I mean GIANT) bulldozer has come along and pushed every rock from the surface of the country and pushed them into huge mountainous scree piles.