Days 13-15 Swakopmund

Day 13-15  Swakopmund

OK, picture San Diego, California.  Got it?  Shrink it down to 1/50 its size.  No freeways, no high-rises, no airport.  Take the harbor area and move it 40 km south, just to be rid of all the container ships and cranes and what have you.  Now, and this is key, imagine that instead of Spaniards being the first Europeans to establish the site, Germans arrived (on time, of course). 

This, is Swakopmund.    

You still have your palm-lined boulevards, your gorgeous beaches, your trendy café’s, your retirees, your ideal year-round climate.  The fog rolls in and provides moisture for the flora up to 40 km inland from the icy South Atlantic, but it rains but a few days a year.  The sea moderates the temperatures, so in the summer highs are in the low 80’s F and winter brings cooler days, highs in the high 60’s F.  But sunny every day. 

The name, Swakopmund comes from, and I’m not making this up, a word in the indigenous language which meant “posterior excrement,” referring to the color of the river whose mouth (mund, in German) empties into the sea at the south end of town.   Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce selling point, but, hell the river is dried up anyhow. 

The dunes stop and the town begins.  Luxury beach houses cluster in the 40 km between Walvis Bay, the industrial side of things.  The Namibiera, as Mimi dubbed it.  Where does the money come from? 

Germany in the desert

After being in the bush for a week or so, coming into the city, especially one that is considered the beach resort town of the country, translation = lots of retirees (pensioners) , was a bit of a shock.  Did I shave…in the last week?  Have I worn these pants 6 times or 12?  This shirt doesn’t smell too bad…or does it? 

Yum!  German pastries for brekkie

It’s also considered the Adventure Spot of the country, translation = quadding in the dunes, skydiving, catamaran tours, think of X-Games events.  I think I even saw an ad for Water Boarding from an outfit name Cheney and Rumsfeld!  So there are plenty of those expedition vehicles that sit way up there with lots of big windows and hold 10-20 twenty-somethings.  We ALMOST chose to do the trip this way. At this point, we are sooooo happy we chose to go it alone.

Which brings me to a little reflection on Driving in Namibia.   Tread envy.  You raise your eyebrow, What?  That’s right. Tread Envy.  That is what I have been experiencing for a while now as we bounce through this country.  While I had been adult enough to install all four brand new Bridgestones on the X Trail (not available in the USA, BTW, though you will see them across the border in Mexico), and I had it fully serviced by Kenny, the best mechanic in Gansbaai!, still our vehicle falls far short of the standard Namib overland truck. 

We are too low to the ground.  So many rocks flying up, my mind envisions over and over that one arrow-like flint piercing the gas tank or knocking loose some hose or wire and crippling us there on the Martian surface.  Our tires are too narrow and treadless.  Well, compared to all those macho mounds of cleated rubber that all the other guys have, even the rentals, I am reminded of the tires on my first Schwinn StringRay bike.  We don’t have enough spare tires, just one, though I have taken some veteran advice and lowered the tire pressure to 1.8 bar.  Hey, you’re on your own as to PSI, but, as the man said, “You want your tire to have a little fat around the belly, like this-see,” as he lifted his t-shirt to pinch his roll of plumpness. 

As we drive along, Mimi first navigates us in the right direction via maps, or GPS or signs, or intuition.  After we have been traveling with scenery pretty much unchanged, she will grab her iPad and devour another book.  Her only request is that I warn her when we are about to bottom out in a dip, which sends her intestines into her throat.  Fair enough. 

Problem is, sometimes I am so road-dazed and hyper-focused on ruts and rocks that I forget.  And, for long stretches, if I really did warn her of every dip, it would sound like a 50’s Doo-Wop group:  Doo wah, doo wah, ooooh oooh, ooooh oooh,  dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip shangalanga ding dong! 

So, as we continue to bounce along these dirt roads, I remain in a continual state to dread, fearing the breakdown.  So far, so good.  And only a couple more days on the gravel before re-gaining pavement for the duration of the expedition.    

Back to Swakop.  We really felt a nice vibe in this town.  Some art deco houses on the beach, the German baroque frills on the rooflines of the major buildings, and the familiar lighthouse to keep us from getting lost as we wandered about safely.    

Shopping for a new diamond for Mimi's ring

The town is easily walkable, give it a couple hours to circumnavigate and explore all the historic houses, the supermarket, the African Souvenir shops, the cafes, the palm-lined avenues, the boardwalk that curves along the entire stretch of beach, the ATM, the Crystal Museum (incredible!), the many nice restaurants (but why so many Asian?)  (Is it to suit the Chinese who are, as everywhere in Africa, quietly purchasing the continent piece by piece?), the countless cute guest houses and backpackers’ hostels, the old Bahnhof, now a classy hotel, the side-by-side, but never mingling cemeteries-black and white, the Aquarium, the Tiger Reef Bar on the beach, the bird sanctuary at the lagoon at the mouth of the Swakop River, the jetty, the museum, the landmark-the lighthouse, (which we learned turned clockwise for its first hundred years, but when it was renovated a couple years ago, reversed direction and turns “anti-clockwise,” and back to the center of the action, our luxury suites.  

At the Swakop River mouth

We booked a personal tour, our first such outlay on this trip.  But, as you know from the above section on driving, I sure as hell wasn’t taking MY car into the bush, and we really wanted to get out there away from town and into the canyons. 

Georg Erb, a 4^th generation German, was our guide and we decided to go for the 5 hour Klipspringer Canyon tour.  At 1:59 he pitched up in his appropriate blue safari Land Rover for the 2 PM pickup.  Check those tires, Meem! 

Catch anything? No, but's it's OK. 

Immediately, Georg began downloading information in a steady torrent that flowed far better than the Swakop for the next 6 straight hours!  He described the history of his family and showed us the farmhouse just on the outside of town where his great granny lived.  He told us about the granite and marble that make up the mounds we were climbing up into.  And the schist.  No geology tale makes it without piling on the schist!  And then, we were tracking a chameleon.  C’mon, Georg, it’s midday, everything for miles is beige, and we are looking for a small lizard that has the super power allowing him to blend in!  Never found one.  But we did see a very cool jackal who stared us down with a “This is MY turf” kinda scowl.  We saw several klipspringers, waist-high bucks with a large hindquarters, who tippy-toe up horizontal rock faces. 

Swakop Sphinx

Rock Abstract

We spent time in a field of large black basalt boulders, laced with iron, that rang like a bell when struck with another rock.  They also bore the indentations that Georg reassured us could only have been made by elephants or rhinos scratching themselves for generations. 

Big Daddy Welwitschia, age 4000 yrs and going strong

And the flora, as we descended into the Swakop River Canyon changed, as it will in Arizona, from scrub to green trees, who patiently wait for the annual rains and conservatively store it for use until the next one.  In the river bottom, the weirdest, without question, was the famed (in these parts) Welwitschia.  With the German W’s making the sound of English V’s, it sounded like “Velveeta” to us and that was lots easier to remember.   As plants go, this one ain’t no beauty contest winner.  But beauty lies within, right? 

Georg pointed out a female, and then, a few meters away, a male.  The “flower bits” are different, of course, and nobody knows exactly how the pollen or seeds or whatever get from poppa to momma Welwitschia, but transmit it does, as there was a line of offspring dotting the sand downstream.  Thing is, now, Mimi and I have been married 37 years and we feel joined at the hip and pretty well-established and proud of our accomplishment.  These haggard couple was over 1800 years old, and going strong!  Talk about devotion! 

It is a very ancient plant, bearing  big resemblance to the kelp we find on our beach, and Georg explained that it was one of the first plants to make its way to land nearly a billion years ago.  Where will we humans be a billion years from now…?

Georg continued to explain other aspects of the desert ecology (he’s self-taught) as the sun sank a bit lower and we drove deeper into the canyon.  We pulled to a stop and he said, “Tea time, follow me.”

A little scramble and then his “café” appeared, like a hobbit den with log benches, a well-used cooking area in the rocks, even a table all under the canopy of a rock outcropping, windows opening to brilliant blues here and there.  Very cool. 

Georg's front porch

I tried to capture the feeling in there with the photos, but probably didn’t.  There is also a “porch” with a view forever. 

Georg got us back to town a little past sundown, pointing out the pipelines that are bringing water…not to the people of Swakopmund, but the Chinese and Australian uranium mines.  Can you hear the way he almost spits out this part of his presentation?  And he added that the minister of the environment is a former CEO of the Mining company, so, what do you expect her to do?  He read us a quote from Edward Abbey, an early hard-core environmentalist who spent some time in Tucson, about water in the American West.  There is plenty there, just not enough for cities full of people.  Simple. 

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