Africa with a touch of Germany

Yesterday I returned to Namibia's capital, Windhoek (pronounced like "wind hook") after spending one week on a guided tour of the country. Our group, which consisted of six people from the US, Germany, Holland, Italy, and New Zealand, had a great time together.

On our first day, we visited a cheetah sanctuary that rescues orphaned cheetahs (orphaned due to hunting, usually). I was fascinated by watching the cheetahs up close, but I was stunned when a young woman opened the tall wire gate with a bucket of horse meat, walked right into the cheetah's territory, and then invited me to follow her. For the next half-hour or so, I walked with the cheetahs, getting within inches of them as they fed, and at one point even getting to pet one. It was really a spectacular experience, especially after seeing the cheetahs from a distance in their natural environment in the Serengeti.

In addition to walking with cheetahs, the group and I got a wonderful introduction to Namibia, which is really a beautiful, clean, and naturally spectacular country. In Namibia there is a very strong, obvious German influence (which I mentioned in my last post), from street names (I'm staying on Johann-Albrecht Strasse), to food (lots of great German bread and fudge). In addition to that, though, Namibia is the home of various tribes that live the same as they did during the Stone Age. While traveling around the country, I met the San people, the original inhabitants of southern Africa, and other indigenous communities, and in the process I learned a few of the 'clicks' that characterize some of the native languages here. One girl used all four of the clicks as she invited me to a dance that evening in her native language (I was sad to find out there wasn't actually a dance--she just used the invitation to teach me the clicks).

Along our journey, we visited the second largest canyon in the world, Fish Canyon (the Grand Canyon is the first). We also visited what is probably Namibia's most notable natural site: the sand dunes in the Namib desert. These dunes, formed by sands blown in from the nearby Kalahari desert, are the largest in the world, rising close to 1000 feet. Climbing them is every bit as difficult as you probably imagine, but the views from the top and rolling down the side of the dunes makes the climb more than worth it.

Near the dunes, in the southern region of Namibia, we visited an abandoned diamond mining town that used to be the center of Namibia's booming diamond trade. Abandoned in the 1950s, the town had been very well preserved by the sands, which now flood the homes and buildings, providing an eerie ambience to the place.

Another spectacle of Namibia is its skies, both during the day and at night. We saw some spectacular sunrises and sunsets while camping in the middle of the desert, and the night sky, free from the pollution of city lights, is spectacularly bright with stars. At one point I saw two shooting stars within one minute, and it wasn't uncommon to see a satellite slowly making its way across the sky. It's amazing what we miss by living in cities!

Now back in the capital, I'm stocking up on biltong (beef and game jerky, which, by the way is INCREDIBLE here) in preparation for my bus trip this afternoon. In a couple hours I'll be leaving Windhoek for Cape Town, South Africa. The trip will take about 20 hours. I've been told that as I go further south, Africa becomes increasingly European. My experience so far has definitely supported this. So I'm expecting South Africa to be even more European than Namibia. Even so, the mix here in Namibia is very interesting, and, from my perspective, a bit bizarre. Walking around the city, I see children with bright blonde hair sharing the sidewalk with African women in centuries-old traditional dress. And both call themselves Namibians. One thing that has struck me is that the history of Namibia--and Africa in general--is so apparent in the everyday scenes and events that take place on its streets. Walking through Africa is truly walking through history, and experiencing the interactions of peoples and cultures.