One thing about wandering/traveling/hiking is that your mind also have a lot chances to wander. I tend to do that a lot and I find myself in constant reflections about life, sometimes ruminating over past failures or obsessing over losses.
Fortunately, photography helps pull me out of that state and bring me back to the enjoyment of now, to appreciate the beauty in front of us rather than what we wish for in the past or future.
We are leaving Swakopmund tomorrow. Swakopmund is a tourist town where people come for holiday. It's like Miami? And our B&B is super cute as you can see. Our room even have a bath tub outside in the private back garden.
We went kayaking with seals today. Saw some dolphins too but we could not get close. The seals on the other hand were really curious about us, especially in erik. They took turn biting erik's paddle.
It's a nice little town here, nice restaurants, cute little shops. It almost makes you forget the awkwardness of the inequality if you don't pay attention. Namibia, being called the modeled democratic country, seems to still have severe uneven distribution of resources/wealth. We basically never see black customers at restaurants or tourist activities. And the living situations are night and day from those in Swakopmund and the villages we drove passed.
Annoyances of the day: haven't been able to cash our travellers' cheque for two days, credit card stopped working today and no phone seems to allow collect call (to call the credit card). All the sudden, we are reminded that conveniences we expected out of this tourist town isn't so reliable afterall. Hopefully it will all get sorted before we head towards the rural area again tomorrow ...
One more excitement: we passed by where Brad Pit & Angelina Jolie stayed at when they were here (so we were told)!!
We are at the top of the ever stretching sand dunes watching the sunset.
The earth is beautiful.
Other activity of the day: Sandboarding - which is like snowboarding but on sand dunes. The hardest part is that we must hike back up the 90m dune everytime because there is no lift! We also did lie down boarding - which is to lie on a big piece of wooden board and someone pushes you off the edge of the dune. This would be the only time I will ever beat erik on the slope! I was at 73km/hr!! (erik lost by one km/hr hahahaha)
One sad thing about today was that my manual film camera wasn't loaded correctly meaning that the photos of little children singing, high school girls laughing, zebra skeleton left by the predator on the side of the road, fields of white leaves tree that looked like snow covered plus more were all never captured. It's difficult to explain what a lost I am feeling.
Yet, that was nothing compared to the emotions we felt reflecting on the life of Daniel, a guide we met at Brandberg. After his guided hike into the mountain to the nationally protected site of rock paintings from thousands of years ago, we agreed to give him a ride to the next city, 2 hours away by car. We drove by where he lives so he could pick up his belongings and it was a very small shed patched together with metal sheets somewhere on the hill. No doubt there is no electricity or running water. During the drive in the car, he talks freely about the life in Namibia. The difficulties of surviving. When we dropped him off in a coastal town where he will shop for food, we wonder where he would sleep tonight before finding a ride back tomorrow. We didn't dare to ask.
On a happier note, we accidentally looked up the sky to find that it was a full lunar eclipse. The stars finally got to shine without competition from the full moon. And the orange moon seemed more timid than its usual self.
The last few days had been really fun.
Getting up around sunrise weren't too painful when we get to nap in front of water sources where animals come to drink and play. We would sit in the car (you are not allowed to get out of the vehicle in the whole etosha) watch them for a while, read for a while, look for any new animals, take a nap, read some more, look some more. Drive to another spot, do the same. Next thing you know, it's time for dinner.
Some of those water sources have really spectacular scenes with large herds coming and going. Some are more like green gardens with very relaxed animals lying down or running after each other.
I am especially satisfied for the chances to see all my favorite animals: giraffe, owl, and even a turtle. Erik was particularly excited about our discovery of six female lions slyly stalking a herd of zebras but they were too far away and all the zebras left before they could approach them. He also really treasured the rhino encounters where a stranger rhino came to become friendly with another rhino mommy and baby. Also, memorable was the freezing night tour that brought us the mating of a lion couple.
Late morning, we drove away from the animal watching portion of our journey and drive south towards other parts of Namibia. Tonight, we rest at the foot of Namibia's highest mountain, Brandberg mountain.
(I miss home too, the other night, I dreamt of people in the bay area, our families and Max and Sam.)
Today, we arrived at the famous Etosha national park where 114 mammals, 380 bird and 110 reptile species are protected within its 22,270 squared km.
It was a few hours of driving from the last resort and the drive took even longer than we thought as we entered the park and continued to be captivated by the beauty of giraffes, zebras, different types of antelopes and even elephants from close up to far away.
The giraffes moved so elegantly. From far away, they looked as though they were gliding along the edge of the large salt lake. The elephants were much larger than I expected and appeared very powerful.
We started our day hiking under the stars at 5am to the top of the plateau for sunrise. Nothing wakes you up like the thousand stars staring down at you.
We have never seen a horizon of savannah so wide that erik thought he could see the curve of the earth.
The chilliness of the morning was well matched by the evening ride back in an open safari suv after a low key animal watching tour. We saw a black rhino (which supposed to be rare to be spotted) scaring antelopes away except for one baby one who seems to be oblivious to the approaching of the big clumsy animal.
