Friday, February 5th - Windhoek, Namibia

Today we were up very early to do a 6:00 Bushman Walk.  We were back around 7:15, had breakfast and then loaded the bus for an 8:00 departure.  It was a beautiful morning and still cool when we did the walk.  We could have completed it yesterday afternoon but we were all too hot and exhausted so we put it off until this morning.

The Bushlmen doing the walk with us were mainly young but there was one adult with them.  They are trying to carry on the heritage of their people but in fact most of them ow live ini towns and have adopted the western way of life.  As we moved through our walk there were various spots where they stopped to dig up roots.  Each of them then gave an explanation of what it was used for and how to prepare it.   They spoke in their native language which has a lot of clicks and sounds that other languages do not use.  The interpreter then relayed their message to us.  They were all in traditional costumes made form animal skins and they were all pretty thin,, the one lady in particular.  They eat meat and they eat the vegetables they can find growing naturally on the land.  What they showed us was some of the roots they use for medicines, most of which tasted bitter and they had a great sound for that.  They had cures for headaches, diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain, infertility, arthritis, etc.   I probably should have taken a few of the roots from them!  They also showed us how to get water from the one tuber and it was amazing how much moisture they could squeeze from just a few shavings from this tuber.  They also had another root that they used as soap and it seemed quite effective and sudsy when demonstrated by the interpreter.  The last thing they showed us was how they made a fire, which they did very quickly  just by rubbing two two sticks together in a pile of dry grass.  It looked very easy.  Luckily they didn't ask us to try.

The bushmen have lived in the area for centuries but their way of life is disappearing quickly.  Their story sounded very much like other aboriginal peoples around the world.  They used to be hunters and gatherers and now they can not hunt because the animals are protected and there is less to gather because the weather is getting hotter and drier every year.   Within a few decades, all that will remain is a handful of people who know the language and the old ways and they will be working for tourists like these individuals were.  It's a shame and, as someone in the group commented, if some catastrophe does destroy most of the planet and mankind those remaining will need this basic knowledge to survive.  However, there was nothing pessimistic about their presentation.  They were full of grace and enthusiasm during their presentation, albeit a bit reserved and shy.   Only the one young man who wants to be a healer when he grows up seemed to be really relaxed.  He did a couple of great demonstrations with lots of actions so we almost knew what was happening even before his words were interpreted.  He did the diarrhea talk and it was pretty funny watching him mime it a she spoke.

Their "handshake" is different than ours.  The lady doing the introductions placed her right hand on my left shoulder and said hello and told me her name.  I then put my right hand on her left shoulder, said hello and told her my name and what country I was from.  Only after both introductions were finished would the hands be removed, and direct eye contact was maintained at all times.  Her eyes were very focused and you knew she was listening to you and only you.  She would then say, "Welcome, Jayne, from Canada" and move on to the next person to repeat the process.

As we walked around the bush with them it was really apparent just how dry it is.  It was nothing but deep sand with a few grasses and small plants and occasionally a taller bush.  The land is so dry here.  I realize we are in the Kalahari Desert but it seems somewhere in between dessert and not.  Even on the road for the next hour or two of driving you could always see sand.  In place there was more grass covering it and sometimes continuous low trees, but seldom anything over 6 feet and always dry looking, not a nice green.  I guess a desert is only measured by the amount of rainfall and this area would definitely qualify for very little rainfall.  The countryside is also flat as far as you can see.  No hills or mountains mark the horizon in any direction.

We stopped at a service station a couple hours down the road.  They had washrooms and a small store where we all tried to spend the last of our Botswana money (pula).  I bought a box of ginger snaps.  I don't really even like ginger snaps but II figured they would keep well in the desert heat we are experiencing.  My first choice would have been to buy chelate or chocolate chips but I knew those would not be good choices.  I had some change left and left it for the poor cashier who had to deal with 17 different people getting a lot of small things to use up the rest of the cash.  I think she got a lot of tips, which she really did deserve.  Some of the extra money even went to the cleaning ladies in the washroom area, which I'm sure surprised them - in a good way.

Immediately after that we had to fill out our border papers as we were crossing from Botswana to Namibia.  Both the exit and the entrance process were very simple and quick.  Neither country requires a visa or money to get in so that's really nice.  Now we are in Namibia we can use Namibian dollars or US dollars or South African rand so it's much more flexible.  Botswana only took pula so it was tricky getting just enough and not too much.  I ended up with an even 50 pula that our tour guide will change to either US dollars or SA rand, both of which are fine by me.

The landscape looked the same in Namibia except that now we have fences beside the road.  Apparently all of the land is privately owned and the owners want to keep their animals in the fields and not on the road.  That certainly makes driving a lot easier.  I did see a few baboons breaking the rule and running across the road and warthogs are common too but that's a lot better than loose cows, sheep, goats, etc as well as wild animals.  Small fences, the kind we would normally have in Canada, are for farm animals.  Higher 6-8 foot fences are for small wild animals like antelope that can leap over the lower fences.  If it is a higher fence and electrified it means they have bigger wild animals like giraffes and if it's a double fence electrified it means they have lions or other predators.  

We stopped at 1:00 to get some lunch in some town, the name of which I no longer remember.  However, I do remember that I ate at Wimpy's again.  We only had half an hour so virtually everyone went in and ordered and we were back out again and only 5 minutes late.  As we left town in a different direction we had a new landscape of hills and valleys.  And where the road cut through the hills it was easy to see that it was all rock, not soil, from just a few inches below ground.  There are a few more higher trees here but not a lot and not really high.  The river that flows through the area mu  account for that.  Shortly thereafter it al seemed to flatten out again but I had the feeling that there were valleys between me and the horizon.  I just couldn't make them out in the overall scene.

By late afternoon there were definitely hills in the background but they seemed to be individual hills or sometimes groups of individual hills but there didn't seem to be any sense of higher mountains behind them or a full range of hills.  They just seemed sporadic, low and alone but they did make a nice background to the landscape.  They appeared to be covered in the same small dull green (not vibrant) vegetation.

Just after 4:00 we arrived in Windhoek where we are staying for the night.  The plan was to originally do some shopping in the downtown area but since the stores close at 4:30 on a Friday we skipped that and went right to our hotel where we had a couple of hours of free time before meeting for dinner.  Some went shopping at the shopping centre across the way.  Others went for a walk.  I did some computer work including on-line banking.  It was amazing trying to wade through four different currencies (South African Rand, US dollars for Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Kwatcha and Botswana Pula) on one credit card statement.  Soon I'll have to add Namibian Rand.

For dinner most of the group walked across to the shopping centre and ate at a restaurant there and it was delicious.  A few went off to find another location.  Perhaps they're getting tired of us after 20 days and wanting some time alone.  It's amazing that it's already been three weeks.  Luckily the group gets along very well so it's not hard to spend so much time with them.  Once back at the hotel most people went straight to bed.  I uploaded some more pictures but basically that was the end of the day.