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Caprivi Strip-Okovango, Rundu-Angola, Etosha, Sossusvlei
Dunes.Hello fr.Namibia

Sent 5/12/05 from Chameleon Backpackers in Windhoek 

I just returned from a 2-day visit to the Sossusvlei Sand
Dunes in the Naukluft National Park.  A Japanese guy,
Yoshi, who is doing Cape to Cairo on a bicycle, another
Japanese girl, a nurse, Meiko, whom I met at the Chameleon
Hostel (dorm 70 N$ per night; divide these by 5.5 to 6 for
US$) in Windhoek, rented a car for 330 N$ per day (3 days
min, but used only 2) plus 5,000 N$ deposit, and drove to
there in 6 hours, all but 90km of the road to Rheboth,
bone-rattling gravel road.  We divided all car-related
expenses by 3, so that the trip cost each of us $100, as
compared to the 3-day hours by tour companies for $US275. 
We spent the night at the gate to the park in
SESRIEM--counting the stars in the clear night sky, which a
friend had recommended I do from Spitzkopp, 2 hours north. 
As far as the sand dunes, the ones in Saudi Arabia (Dahne
and Rub'l Khali) are more majestic.  (More about this at
the end.)  Tomorrow I am off to So. Africa by Intercape
bus, from there to Lesotho.  I am done with Namibia.

Lonely Planet describe every place it mentions in all its
books as paradise found.  It does not pass judgment or make
relative comparisons.  I do.  By African standards both
Botswana and Namibia are relatively well off, the towns
neatly designed, clean, etc., especially Namibia, but man,
they are too damn sterile.  I began typing this at the
Internet at the Swakop Lodge (formerly the Gruener Kranz,
as listed in Lonely Planet) in Swakop (officially
Swakopmund), supposedly the big party town.  I can't wait
to get the heck out to Windhoek, where there seems a bit
more pulse in the city.

I arrived by train after a boring 17-hour trip from Tsumeb
at 4am.  (I am glad I took the train.  Now I know never to
take it again, and NOT to recommend it.)  The weather was
cold and soon it began raining too.  The locals said it was
unusual to be raining in Swakop.  It was too dark then to
see if this was just a passing rain.  Now that its is
light, the entire sky is gray, which will screw up the view
to the dunes--which I will do today in a rental car. Most
of the locals on the train got out and congregated in a
tiny room at the station, waiting for taxis.  The entire
station was dead: not one taxi, no-one around, no way of
calling a taxi.  (Later I was told by a taxi driver that
they start work not by train or bus schedules but after
6am.  Imagine!)

I said screw this and using the city map in Lonely Planet,
headed for Villa Wiese Hostel about 400 meters somewhere,
dragging my bags behind me.  I found the place by 4:30am. 
The security opened the door and I was let in the bar area.
 The place did not officially open until 8am, so I was told
to wait.  The hostel building was OK, but it was in the
middle of nowhere, which to me is confining, for one is
then restricted by just the atmosphere there, its travel
arrangements, food, bar, whereas a hostel located at a
lively location has all doors open.  One can window-shop,
eat what one wants, party elsewhere, etc.

Again I said screw this and walked out to the street,
continued 2 blocks along the street off the side entrance
to a 24-hour take-away place to have a cup of coffee, the
1st anything I ate or drank since I got on the train now 19
hours ago.  The people there told me to turn right from the
station, walk about 200 meters and turn left at the 1st
light to find the Gruener Kranz (now Swakop Lodge).  I
found the place, used the Internet until the reception
opened officially at 7am or so.

I asked the girl at reception to help me find a rental car.
 6 calls to 6 agents later (for which I paid 50 US cents
per call) no car.  We called Hertz. They had a car for 354
N$, 200km free, the rest at $2.17 per km, which given the
distance to the dunes brought the price to about $250 per
day.  I said I dont want to buy the damn car, I just wanted
to rent it for a day and hung up.  A bus brought me to
Windhoek in 5 hours for 75 N$.  They were booked up, so I
spent the 1st night at the Cardboard Box for 65 N$.

1. Hitching from Botswana to Namibia.  Read the last
paragraph of the Botswana report before this.

2. Windhoek to Rundu.  This is a 8-hour bus ride for 110 N$
(divide by 6 for US$).  I came here for 2 reasons: 1) to
try to get into Calai, Angola, and 2) to see the Okavango
River along the so-called Caprivi Strip, where a piece of
Namibia up north stretches into Botswana, Angola on the
other side of the river.

a) Place to stay in Rundu.  Lonely Planet shows all places
to stay in Rundu at $30 US or more.  Here is one at $6, and
right at where the bus drops you.  It is called BIG FIVE
camp.  Normally the cabins there cost 225 N$ ($30+), but
just as we arrived, a white guy from Vales, his name Dion
Jade and who works a the Big Five, was there.  The driver
told him I am looking for a place to stay.  Dion offered me
one of the 2 extra beds in his room for 40 N$ (about
$6.50).  Big Five is not plush, but it has a bar and a
24-hour food catering service, along with a restaurant. 
The shower and are bath are in the room.  There were no
white guests there.  Until about 10pm I danced with each of
the 6 girls there--some young and happy prostitutes--and
then had a good nights sleep.  The next morn, I took a
taxi, right from the station outside, to the waterfront
(for $1) and then to the Caprivi strip, later also the
minibus down to Tsumeb.  

b) Getting to Angola.  The river front on the Namibia side
is about 3-5km north of Rundu.  I was told there are 2
alternate entry points, in opposite directions, about 2km
separated from each other.  I tried first the one on the
right facing the river.  The Namibian policeman there
examined my passport and then mumbled something to the taxi
driver.  That is, I had to get a special permission from
the police headquarters to get into Angola.  This was
either true, or they were cautioning me about going there. 
Having ridden close to 5 km to get there, I just dropped
the issue, as likely I would encounter other requirements
at the police head quarters, or the person in charge would
not be there, etc.  And there were no ferries or boats I
could see, just a maccoro-canoe used by people living
nearby.  So even with a permission, how I would get across
was not clear.

The 2nd entry point was more scenic, and there was a pier
there for a small ferry.  However, the guard there told us
that the ferry has not been in operation for some time. 
This seemed true for there was no ferry anywhere in sight. 
At both entry points, the Okovango River is almost like a
large creek, not a huge river.  At the fringes of it, there
were large spaces of wetlands, the Delta starting not down
south, where I had seen it from Maun, Botswana, but already
here next to the river.  I took several photos of the area,
also of Calai, Angola, clearly visible across the river,
the buildings say about 200 meters away.  Just as I was
leaving, I saw a small motorboat of people on the river. 
The taxi driver said they are probably from one of the
lodges along the river, that they were merely riding the
river, not crossing.

A day later in Tsumeb, at the Mousebird Hostel there, I met
a young German motorcyclists, name Arnt, who told me that
he crossed from Angola to Namibia some miles west of Rundu,
a place not shown on the map.  So it would appear there are
ways of crossing between the countries, and that traveling
in Angola is relatively safe.  I should add about Arnt that
after deciding about touring Africa by motorcycle, Arnt
first enrolled in a 3-year apprenticeship as a mechanic,
completed it, then embarked on the trip.  Talk about
planning . . .

3. The Caprivi Strip.  I paid the taxi driver 50 N$ (<
$10), to take me 50km east to the Caprivi Strip and back. 
The scenes along the Okavango were nice, but after a while
they became redundant, so I returned.  The water level was
not high.

4. Rundu to Tsumeb.  The town of Tsumeb is the mineral
capital of Namibia, with a nice museum showing the
minerals, just two blocks from the Mousebird Hostel.  You
first take a minibus from Rundu south to Grootfontein,
which is about 3 hours south (N$65 = $10.50), then take a
regular shared taxi for 20N$ ($3.30) for the remaining 60km
west to Tsumeb.

a) Unhappy Experience 1 of 3 (#2 is below to Etosha Ride,
#3 is the train ride also below).  On the tightly-packed
minibus, 2 young Namib guys sat on the seat behind me and
almost immediately started bitching about whites, later
also about America.  They asked what I knew of their
history.  I said I am not a historian, just a traveler, and
knew only as much as the Lonely Planet explained about the
history.  One guy said that book is written by white people
who do not know what they are talking about.  Annoyed, I
replied, in that case my friend as you as you complete your
book, let me know.  I will buy it and be properly informed.
 Until then I will use this.  That shut him up for a while.
 Then he began griping about me and America.  After 1/2
hour of this again I was annoyed.  I turned around,
unafraid looked him in the eyes, and said, listen you dont
know me; I maybe the nicest guy you met.  But since you are
bitching about me, let me ask you.  Are you angry with me
because I was born white, or you are angry at the world
because you were born black.  There was dead silence in the
bus, everyone having heard.  For a moment I thought he
would hit me, which would have started a brawl in a packed
moving bus, a first for me.  Then he mumbled something and
shut up for the rest of the trip.

b) Tsumeb, gateway to Etosha, and the Mousebird Hostel. 
Tsumeb is a dead town made for mausoleum lifestyle.  I like
cities, towns, villages with a pulse in them.  There is no
discernible pulse in Tsumeb.  There were only a few blacks
around in the park and gas station when I arrived at 4pm. 
The whites were in the few passing cars. I came there
because it is only 100km from Etosha National Park, and the
brochure of the Mousebird Hostel states it has safari trips
to 1|) Etosha and 2) Bushmanland.  When I arrived, I was
one of only 3 travelers there.  They did not have enough
people for safaris.  Even worse, the next day, May 8 being
a Sunday, I could not even rent a car, for everything is
closed said the hostel owner.  I found Mousebird so so,
someone's private home partially converted to a hostel, the
back garden used for campers with tents.  

The only other option seemed jumping in another minibus to
Windhoek--6 hours further south--and joining a tour from
there, which meant 6 hours down, 6 hours up again with the
tour, and again 6 hours down after the tour.  No way, I
thought, and asked the owner to take me to the bus station,
so I could see if I could get a taxi to Etosha.  I asked
the other 2 guests (a German couple) with a rental car how
much he was paying per day for the car.  He said 500 N$
(about $83).  I set this as the upper limit as to what I
would pay for the taxi.

At the bus station, really an empty space next to a gas
station, I saw an empty taxi waiting for 4 customers back
to Grootfontein.  I asked the driver how much he would
charge.  He said 600 N$.  I said this being a Sunday, he
would probably wait an hour each time to fill the car, and
make only 3 trips that day, earning 80 N$ each time only. 
So I offered him 400 N$ for the 550km round-trip (100 to
get to the park, 175km in the park, and return).  He might
have accepted that price, but he looked in real pain,
considering that the gasoline would take at least 100 N$. 
So I eased his pain by offering him 450 N$ ($75), as my
final offer.  With less pain he accepted.

5. Etosha in a taxi.  You ride about 107km north and west
from Tsumeb to the 1st Etosha gate, buy the entry ticket at
the 2nd gate for 65 N$ (about $10), then ride about 175km
west in the park to the last station where the road ends,
but there remains still 1/2 of the park to further west. 
So our total trip would be about 550km (nearly 400 miles)
mostly on gravel roads in the park.  For a taxi 450 N$ was
a bargain deal for me.  We left at about 9am; I thought we
would be back by about 4:30pm.

b) Etosha Park.  The landscape of the Etosha Park is
interesting.  It is almost entirely flat, at times covered
by badlands with sparse vegetation--making he place look
like Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana--with mirages of lakes,
floating landscape etc.  About 1/3 of the park at the
northeastern part is occupied by the Etosha Pan, that looks
from distance as if it is a huge lake with dirty water.  It
is entirely flat dried mud-like desert.  Talk about
badlands, this was the baddest I had ever seen . . .

The roads are wide all gravel and so there is much dust by
occasional traffic.  It is essentially a very arid
landscape, with parts covered by dwarf camel-thorn bushes,
rarely of tree size, parts by very picturesque
yellow-white, waving grass, parts by badlands, and as bonus
the animals you see, like huge herds of impala, onyx,
giraffe, zebra, one elephant, and 2 lions.

c) Unhappy Experience #2, car accident.  Just as we were
leaving the 2nd gate, where I had purchased the ticket, the
driver wanted to check something in the glove compartment,
while driving, weired left and run over a foot-high
concrete embankment, destroying the oil tank in the
process, not to mention a flat in the left front wheel.  He
could not drive the car any longer.  A jeep pulled the car
onto the road, where the driver changed the tire.  Then he
called a friend in Tsumeb, 107km away, to come and drag his
car back to Tsumeb.  It took the friend 2 hours to get
there.  By then the 2nd gate was closed, and also the 1st
gate about 10km on the road, which meant we had to find the
park security and ask them to open each gate, wasting more
time.  I was getting worried because Mousebird Hostel locks
its gates when it gets dark, and there is no bell outside
to alert the owners that there is someone outside.

We tied the taxi with a rope to his friend small pickup
truck.  I sat in the pickup. For some reason, the driver
(and his 3 friends in the back of the truck) stopped every
10km to chat about something with the driver of the taxi
and his friend in the car being pulled.  In short, instead
of returning at (latest) 4:30pm, we arrived at 8:30.  It
took me 5 minutes of yelling and pounding on the door to
have the door of the Mosebird opened.  I was covered in
dust, so a 30-min shower was the 1st thing on my agenda . .
.

RECOMMENDATION. Still, if you find yourself in Tsumeb and
cannot find a tour to Etosha, and dont want to rent a car,
or it is too expensive, here is an option: call driver
Oscar at 081 22 8989 3.  Offer him 400 N$ or so for a ride
all the way to the last station in the park, and back, say
from 8:30am to 4:30pm.  He stops for photos when asked,
also when there is wildlife, and he is amiable.

6. Tsumeb to Swakop by train, unhappy experience #3. 
Minibuses cover this distance in 5 to 6 hours; the
timetable for the train showed the same in 15 hours, the
train leaving Tsumeb at 11:40am, arriving in Swakop at the
ungodly hour of 2:40am.  Still, I wanted to experience the
train ride and thought it would be fun in a nice and elite
train, that I thought Namibia would have.  Well, the
station is out of town some distance, and when the taxi
brought me there, there was nothing there but an old train.
 I paid 55 N$ (about $10) for the ticket and got in.  One
wagon with plastic benches, with flat hard plastic back
seats, the other with compartments of plastic-covered beds,
some compartments with no doors.  This was the most
rudimentary train I had ever seen.  No dining room, not
even a place to buy a bottle of soda, except the one guy
outside selling such from a cooler.

The ride was frustratingly slow; we stopped at dead
stations, with no-one coming in or going out, and waited
and waited; bad or uneven tracks jerked us back and forth
in our seats, and never mind the 15 hours ride, the train
still managed to be late by 2 hours.

7. Sossusvlei Sand Dunes.  these are said to be the tallest
dunes in the world.  Allow me to differ.  While I have not
measured them, I suggest that the dunes in both the Dahne
and Rub'l Khali deserts in Saudi Arabia are probably even
higher than the ones at Sossusvlei.  However, since Saudi
Arabia is not a typical travel destination, and since Rub'l
Khali is still known as Uncharted Territory, Namibia is
free to advertise its dunes as the biggest.  This said,
huge dunes, never mind the few meters difference in height,
are a sight to behold, wherever they are.

First, let me catch up on Sossusvlei sand dunes in Namibia,
then update to what I did since then.

1. Addendum: Sossusvlei Sand Dunes.  I had mentioned in
previous report from Namibia that the drive--fast
driving--takes about 6 hours, 45 minutes to the town of
Rheboth on asphalt roads, the rest of various quality dirt
and gravel roads.  (I drove to there; on the way back,
Yoshi wanted to drive; he almost rolled car over 10km out
of Sesriem; I took over.) You pass also thru the
Namib-Naukluft National Park, full of rocky mountains and
hills, a combination of something like our own Monument
Valley, the drive on Interstate 8 from Yuma to San Diego,
the American Southwest in general.

The entry to the sand dunes called Sossusvlei is at
Sesriem.  There, after the 1st gate, you pay 30 N$ per
person entry plus 20 N$ for car.  You can secure a camp
site at Sesriem for 240 N$ for as many persons as in the
car.  If you dont, you can still camp right outside the
gate, adjacent to the camp site, as we did for free.  There
is also an expensive lodge right there.  If you did not pay
for camping, you must be out of the 2nd gate, the real
entry to the park, 100 meters or so from the 1st gate, by
5:30pm; if you did pay, you must be out by 6:30pm.  On
advantage of paying for camping is in that you can use the
entry from the day before to further investigate the park
next morning, whereas otherwise you have to pay entry
again.  In short, the park is open sunrise to sunset.  Do
NOT stay behind at the parking lot at Sossusvlei itself
(60km ahead), for you will get a HEFTY FINE.

The drive from Sesriem to the Sossusvlei is 60 km. It is
like a Valley of Dunes, with the individual dunes from both
sides jutting out towards the road.  You are enveloped by
dunes on both sides, but the 2 sides are about 1km apart. 
So you drive thru a pan-line valley with sparse vegetation
of mostly camel-thorn and wild-sage bushes, some trees of
the former.  The landscape is scenic and serene but not as
majestic as the dunes in Saudi Arabia, where they ARE the
entire landscape, NOT part of the landscape, replacing
mountains and hills, as high.  And access in Arabia is
free.

Stories... I used to dune-ride with my jeep almost anywhere
I wanted and crossed both Dahne and Nafud, rode on the
northern fringes of the uncharted Rub'l Khali (I believe
the 2nd largest desert in the world) across half of Saudi
Arabia.  Have many stories to tell, like getting caught in
blinding sand storms; not being able to sleep from being
stone-cold at night in winter; spreading my sheet (to
sleep) over an ant hill and waking up covered with ants;
being surrounded by wild dogs at night, because I ate
sausage the night before, without dispensing the wrappings
properly; getting stuck in the sand 50km from anywhere,
letting the air out of the tires halfway; peeing in front
of the front tires to harden the sand; spreading all my
belongings on the sand in front of the tires to gain
traction and inching my way out; peeing into my hand and
smearing urine then pasting sand over face, shoulders,
etc., to avoid sun burn when stuck a long time; putting a
small pebble under my tongue to keep my mouth moist when
out of water . . .

On the way to Sossusvlei, the famous Dune 45 is on your
left, 10 to 15 km before the parking lot.  It is written on
a broken board, which you might miss as you drive.   The
last 5km of the road to Sossusvlei is for 4-wheel-drives
only, or you can take shuttle to there for 80 N$.  The
shuttle buses wait at the parking lot.  There is even a
nicer and bigger dune right to the right of the gate there,
as you face the gate, and the biggest dune along the 5km
stretch.  Sossusvlei itself, at the end of the 5km, is a
salt pan of say 800-meter diameter with a few naked tree
trunks on it, surrounded by the dunes.  I took some nice
photos.

Sirman