My Peace Corps service ends two months from today. I've got a lot to do. Nonetheless, I mostly manage to keep up with my friends' and colleagues' PCN blogs. I really like this one; in her most recent post, Krystal answers a hodge-podge of questions from her non-Namibian friends and relatives.
Enjoy!
Sunday 30 April 2017
Thursday 27 April 2017
Vacation! Many Rocks and...
Looking back to September 2016:
Away from the coast, and into terrain technically not desert. It's savanna, which is apparently defined, amongst other things, by having trees too widely spaced to form a canopy. Check.
So we had two days of rocks and rock paintings and...
Getting just a bit lost, as the Brandberg rock painting site isn't well sign-posted, we decided to check out entirely natural rock formations first. Our guide books weren't terribly enthusiastic, but Burnt Mountain is right next to the road, and it's free, so we went along and peered. It's a very dark inselberg (freestanding mountain, literally 'island mountain' in German) that supposedly lights up fiery red when the sunset light hits it -- but we were there in the morning. And then a ranger popped up as we drove away, told us she'd just arrived from the house or something, and charged us fifty bucks each for looking at the hill. They instituted the fees a couple of years after the guide book was printed.
Just down the road are the Organ Pipes, which are interesting and quite attractive, even before sunset. Hundreds or probably thousands of red-to-dark-purply-black columnar slabs of, I think, dolomite, the rock that also gives the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy (formerly southern Austria) their name. They were mildly beautiful and a useful reminder, not that anyone needs one, that nature is weird.
We were now closer to Twyfelfontein's rock drawing than Brandberg's, so we 'took a turn' as they say in Namlish. Kit and Karen had been already, but there are three guided walks, and they were somewhere between willing and eager to try one they hadn't seen yet.
Twyfelfontein in Afrikaans means 'uncertain fountain,' the name given to a farm that had trouble keeping a reliable water supply from its wells sometime in the mid-20th century. Its Damara name is /Ui //Ais -- that's a tsk (/) and a cluck (//), and maybe the only name more intimidating than 'twyfelfontein' -- and it means 'jumping spring,' apparently. Under the native name, it became Namibia's first World Heritage Site, just ten years ago, in 2017, because of the wealth of rock engravings made by hunter-gatherers many thousands of years ago. (I have found citations that say as much as 10,000 years old and not more than 6,000 and various estimates in between.) And, actually, the combination of rock engravings and rock paintings, which are much younger, is apparently very rare, so that probably impressed the World Heritage people, too.
Our guide, whose name I've forgotten although I knew it well seven months ago and learned it again when sharing a hike with the lovely guide Grizelda a few months later, was excellent. He and his cohort get thorough training, and add personal reminiscence of their own and their families' histories in the area to the anthropological and cultural information they share.
This was the first place we spotted dassie, the adorable and apparently tasty (though not kosher) rodent famous for claiming its closest living relative is the elephant, although the dassie is a cute, furry, snub-nosed critter about the size of a not-that-large bunny. Their incisors and testes are similar in some ways, though (to elephants, not to each other). Take it up with the zoologists if you want; I just report what they tell me.
Back at the lodge, we kept our eyes and ears open for elephants, but did not get lucky. The next day we asked directions and found Brandberg, and toured its rock paintings with another knowledgeable and amicable guide. Brandberg is notable both for being the tallest mountain in Namibia and the location of some well-regarded rock paintings, including the iconic White Lady, who is actually more likely a ritualistically-painted black shaman from about 2,000 years ago.
As mentioned, this guide was also excellent -- I like the part where he forgot how many children he had; "Five. No, six!" -- but his work was complicated by the prevalence of elephants in the area. Elephants are beautiful and wonderful and thrilling and oh how we adore them, but they are also very dangerous. (In case you didn't know, hippos are the most dangerous wild animals, judged by number of humans killed.) As he led us down the trail toward the paintings, he consulted with colleagues -- not by shouting, which might irritate an elephant -- and asked us a few times to step into a bit of a layby while he clambered uphill to a vantage point, and the second or third time he did that, he had us take an uphill detour from which we could a) stay out of the way of, and b) view from above, a big, adolescent, male elephant. Wowza!
We saw another one coming back, from rather closer and more level, and at one point he started ambling toward us, which was a bit exciting.
We saw more dassie, too, some insects, and many birds, including this handsome grouse.
Then we went to Khorixas and had a very late lunch with my local PC colleagues, and then we (well, Kit) drove to Etosha, found our fancy bungalow by the waterhole, poached a braai stand from a less-fancy but better-equipped-for-cooking and unoccupied camping spot, made dinner, and moseyed briskly back to the waterhole when we heard a commotion of many tourists stampeding that way on advice of a rhino siting.
Away from the coast, and into terrain technically not desert. It's savanna, which is apparently defined, amongst other things, by having trees too widely spaced to form a canopy. Check.
So we had two days of rocks and rock paintings and...
Getting just a bit lost, as the Brandberg rock painting site isn't well sign-posted, we decided to check out entirely natural rock formations first. Our guide books weren't terribly enthusiastic, but Burnt Mountain is right next to the road, and it's free, so we went along and peered. It's a very dark inselberg (freestanding mountain, literally 'island mountain' in German) that supposedly lights up fiery red when the sunset light hits it -- but we were there in the morning. And then a ranger popped up as we drove away, told us she'd just arrived from the house or something, and charged us fifty bucks each for looking at the hill. They instituted the fees a couple of years after the guide book was printed.
 |
| We believe the tourist attraction is the darker splodge, behind our white bakkie. |
Just down the road are the Organ Pipes, which are interesting and quite attractive, even before sunset. Hundreds or probably thousands of red-to-dark-purply-black columnar slabs of, I think, dolomite, the rock that also gives the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy (formerly southern Austria) their name. They were mildly beautiful and a useful reminder, not that anyone needs one, that nature is weird.
We were now closer to Twyfelfontein's rock drawing than Brandberg's, so we 'took a turn' as they say in Namlish. Kit and Karen had been already, but there are three guided walks, and they were somewhere between willing and eager to try one they hadn't seen yet.
Twyfelfontein in Afrikaans means 'uncertain fountain,' the name given to a farm that had trouble keeping a reliable water supply from its wells sometime in the mid-20th century. Its Damara name is /Ui //Ais -- that's a tsk (/) and a cluck (//), and maybe the only name more intimidating than 'twyfelfontein' -- and it means 'jumping spring,' apparently. Under the native name, it became Namibia's first World Heritage Site, just ten years ago, in 2017, because of the wealth of rock engravings made by hunter-gatherers many thousands of years ago. (I have found citations that say as much as 10,000 years old and not more than 6,000 and various estimates in between.) And, actually, the combination of rock engravings and rock paintings, which are much younger, is apparently very rare, so that probably impressed the World Heritage people, too.
 |
| You scrape through the dark layer of sandstone to reveal the lighter rock beneath. |
Our guide, whose name I've forgotten although I knew it well seven months ago and learned it again when sharing a hike with the lovely guide Grizelda a few months later, was excellent. He and his cohort get thorough training, and add personal reminiscence of their own and their families' histories in the area to the anthropological and cultural information they share.
 |
| Giraffes are the most-commonly pictured animal at /Ui //Ais. |
This was the first place we spotted dassie, the adorable and apparently tasty (though not kosher) rodent famous for claiming its closest living relative is the elephant, although the dassie is a cute, furry, snub-nosed critter about the size of a not-that-large bunny. Their incisors and testes are similar in some ways, though (to elephants, not to each other). Take it up with the zoologists if you want; I just report what they tell me.
 |
| You can hunt them with dogs, or just take their picture and tell them they're cute. "Cute as an elephant," as we say around here. |
Back at the lodge, we kept our eyes and ears open for elephants, but did not get lucky. The next day we asked directions and found Brandberg, and toured its rock paintings with another knowledgeable and amicable guide. Brandberg is notable both for being the tallest mountain in Namibia and the location of some well-regarded rock paintings, including the iconic White Lady, who is actually more likely a ritualistically-painted black shaman from about 2,000 years ago.
 |
| Painting is a newer technique than engraving. This mural is probably about 2,000 years old. |
 |
| The painting is significantly protected by its location under a natural overhang. However, tourists did a lot of damage in the first half of the 20th century; there are protective measures in place now that still let you see it quite clearly. |
As mentioned, this guide was also excellent -- I like the part where he forgot how many children he had; "Five. No, six!" -- but his work was complicated by the prevalence of elephants in the area. Elephants are beautiful and wonderful and thrilling and oh how we adore them, but they are also very dangerous. (In case you didn't know, hippos are the most dangerous wild animals, judged by number of humans killed.) As he led us down the trail toward the paintings, he consulted with colleagues -- not by shouting, which might irritate an elephant -- and asked us a few times to step into a bit of a layby while he clambered uphill to a vantage point, and the second or third time he did that, he had us take an uphill detour from which we could a) stay out of the way of, and b) view from above, a big, adolescent, male elephant. Wowza!
 |
| The locals - guides, their families, small farmers - have to try to live with these guys, which of course is not always easy. |
We saw another one coming back, from rather closer and more level, and at one point he started ambling toward us, which was a bit exciting.
We saw more dassie, too, some insects, and many birds, including this handsome grouse.
 |
| Not a close relative of elephants, as far as I know. |
Then we went to Khorixas and had a very late lunch with my local PC colleagues, and then we (well, Kit) drove to Etosha, found our fancy bungalow by the waterhole, poached a braai stand from a less-fancy but better-equipped-for-cooking and unoccupied camping spot, made dinner, and moseyed briskly back to the waterhole when we heard a commotion of many tourists stampeding that way on advice of a rhino siting.
 |
| Only slightly closer. |
Wednesday 26 April 2017
Vacation! Many Seals and Much Driving
looking back to September 2016:
After our desert tour, we woke on Friday to a reasonably lovely morning for Swakop, continuing Kit and Karen's complete mis-education in Namibian weather. We spent a bit of time at the flamingo lagoon -- I love them so -- and then clambered back into the bakkie and settled down for about a week of spending most of our waking hours therein. More or less. Kit did all the driving, and is a hero. (Karen doesn't drive stick, and Peace Corps doesn't allow me to drive unless I'm on leave and insured, and we could not figure out the insurance language in the rental car agreement.)
We headed north, stopping to see more lichens! Kit and Karen were thrilled to be able to pull the car to the side of the C34, step over the low safety barrier keeping off-roaders off the lichen field, and tiptoe about, occasionally pointing or poking, until they'd had - for now - their fill. Then it was back into the bakkie and onto the salt road -- these are common in the coastal area of Namibia. The road is unpaved, with a surface of the local earth bed, which is mostly sand and salt. Occasionally the roads authority sends a tanker truck to spray them with water (salt water, I think and very much hope given the dearth of fresh water in this area), and somehow they come out looking the same blue-black as a tarred road. And they usually make for a very easy driving surface. Often in areas where the local 'soil' gets wet, it forms into gypsum, a soft mineral that forms as a crystal, sometime creating 'desert roses' that the miners at Ûiba Ôas sell.
We got offered a few crystals by informal vendors at the site of a quite boring shipwreck. I get all my crystals at Ûiba Ôas, but these guys had spent time and energy building a lovely welcome to the Skeleton Coast (so called, at least in one version of the story, for its shipwrecks), so I gave them ten bucks.
We stopped at the beach in Hentie's Bay, and it was a revelation. The strand - the sandy part - was about 10 meters or so below the street, with a pretty sharp drop from one level to the other. I loved it. I think we ate sandwiches there, or leftover pizza or something, Kit and I enjoying the brisk ocean breezes while Karen enjoyed the snug interior of the bakkie.
Much, much more driving, and we came to the Cape Cross Seal Colony. Ever been to a seal, or sea lion, colony? It's an olfactory experience par excellence. You should definitely visit this one, but there's one just north of Santa Barbara, California, if that's more convenient for now. These are called cape fur seals but are actually a species of sea lion.
Surfeited with surf and stink, we headed south again and turned inland, and the roads changed from the relatively smooth salt to the bumpier 'gravel' in local parlance. And so it would go for much of the next week, and I believe worth every skeletal shake.
After our desert tour, we woke on Friday to a reasonably lovely morning for Swakop, continuing Kit and Karen's complete mis-education in Namibian weather. We spent a bit of time at the flamingo lagoon -- I love them so -- and then clambered back into the bakkie and settled down for about a week of spending most of our waking hours therein. More or less. Kit did all the driving, and is a hero. (Karen doesn't drive stick, and Peace Corps doesn't allow me to drive unless I'm on leave and insured, and we could not figure out the insurance language in the rental car agreement.)
 |
| Flamingos, both Greater and Lesser, and some kind of duck. |
 |
| Also avocets, with the oddly upturned bills, and more ducks. |
We headed north, stopping to see more lichens! Kit and Karen were thrilled to be able to pull the car to the side of the C34, step over the low safety barrier keeping off-roaders off the lichen field, and tiptoe about, occasionally pointing or poking, until they'd had - for now - their fill. Then it was back into the bakkie and onto the salt road -- these are common in the coastal area of Namibia. The road is unpaved, with a surface of the local earth bed, which is mostly sand and salt. Occasionally the roads authority sends a tanker truck to spray them with water (salt water, I think and very much hope given the dearth of fresh water in this area), and somehow they come out looking the same blue-black as a tarred road. And they usually make for a very easy driving surface. Often in areas where the local 'soil' gets wet, it forms into gypsum, a soft mineral that forms as a crystal, sometime creating 'desert roses' that the miners at Ûiba Ôas sell.
 |
| Desert roses - or calcium sulfate dihydrate, or gypsum. Not the kind in which you drive. |
We got offered a few crystals by informal vendors at the site of a quite boring shipwreck. I get all my crystals at Ûiba Ôas, but these guys had spent time and energy building a lovely welcome to the Skeleton Coast (so called, at least in one version of the story, for its shipwrecks), so I gave them ten bucks.
 |
| They said they used seal bones for this, which given the number of dead seals I pass on the Swakop beach, seems entirely likely. |
We stopped at the beach in Hentie's Bay, and it was a revelation. The strand - the sandy part - was about 10 meters or so below the street, with a pretty sharp drop from one level to the other. I loved it. I think we ate sandwiches there, or leftover pizza or something, Kit and I enjoying the brisk ocean breezes while Karen enjoyed the snug interior of the bakkie.
 |
| The drop-off is much steeper and more dramatic than it looks in this picture. I am tidier when seen in person. Okay. Not really. |
Much, much more driving, and we came to the Cape Cross Seal Colony. Ever been to a seal, or sea lion, colony? It's an olfactory experience par excellence. You should definitely visit this one, but there's one just north of Santa Barbara, California, if that's more convenient for now. These are called cape fur seals but are actually a species of sea lion.
 |
| Fuzzy baby! |
 |
| Nursing baby! |
 |
| A fairly small portion of the colony. All the dark spots in the water are seals. |
 |
| Have you read Doris Lessing's The Cleft? |
 |
| Actually, I could not be surfeited with these guys. |
Surfeited with surf and stink, we headed south again and turned inland, and the roads changed from the relatively smooth salt to the bumpier 'gravel' in local parlance. And so it would go for much of the next week, and I believe worth every skeletal shake.
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