Lonely Planet Namibia
Travel Report
Hitchhiking to Luderitz
Luderitz & Kolmanskop
Journeying to Windhoek
Safari to Sossusvlei
Windhoek & Swakopmund
End of a long journey
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Travel Notes
Windhoek
Windhoek 2
Photos
Luderitz
Swakopmund
Windhoek & the Desert
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Travel notes from Windhoek 2
Hi Everyone,
After my trip into the desert I returned to spend a few days in Windhoek. It's a small capital city with a very distinctive German flavour set in the central highlands and is the transport hub of the country. I took an overnight train to the coast at Swakopmund, the train was just one passenger coach attached to a goods train. It arrived at 05.00 in the morning and I slept in the tiny station for a couple of hours until it was daylight and then walked to a guesthouse. Swakopmund is on the Skeleton Coast surrounded by desert and sand dunes and out of all the towns in Namibia probably has the most German heritage.
I spent the week in the town relaxing and going off on a couple of day trips into the surrounding desert with other travellers who had their own transport. I spent a day down at Walvis Bay looking around the flamingo lagoons (and Dune 7 Michael!) and also a day at the very smelly seal colony at Cape Cross. During the whole week I have been running into people I've met over the last six weeks; I've now run into three people who were in St Lucia while I was there plus another who was in the Drakensberg. It's been good to see some familiar faces again. I hitchhiked along the Trans-Kalahari Highway the 350km back into Windhoek on Saturday and have at last reached the end of the road for this trip.
Last weekend while I was in Windhoek I walked into the city and booked a one-way flight home to London. As I left the travel agent clutching the ticket in my hand a tear came to my eye as I suddenly realised that this amazing journey through the heart of Africa would soon end in nine days time. It took five months and two weeks to get from Kampala to Cape Town, where I originally planned to end this journey, and another three weeks to end up here in Windhoek. I've travelled approximately 12,000 miles in the past six months travelling on everything from a fishing boat, bicycle, busses and trains, as well as quiet a lot of hitchhiking.
When I came up with the idea of this trip I never could of dreamed at how well it would go, it has far exceeded my expectations when I left Dorset on that cold, wet and windy day back in January; it seems like a lifetime ago. There have been many highlights on this journey, the first being the moment I climbed down the steps of the aircraft at Entebbe airport in Uganda and once again stood on African soil under an African sun. Reaching the third highest peak of Mt Kenya at 4,985m, the highest mountain I have yet climbed will be a memory that will last a lifetime. Sailing down the great lakes of East Africa on these old ships was definitely the most interesting way to travel across this continent. Out of the ten countries I have travelled through, Lesotho has to be my favourite and I would recommend anyone who loves mountains to go and experience the stunning scenery and meet the hospitable Basotho people. I have a lifetime of memories over the last six months.
I am really going to miss Africa, her natural beauty and her people. I'm going to miss the friendly welcomes I received wherever I went and the simplicity of life here. In the West we worry about the most unimportant things, at least what people worry about here is what is important to life itself, instead of the superficial life's we tend to lead in the West. There are still many problems facing this continent, the major one being AIDS. Some of the countries I have visited now have a decreasing population, one of the worst affected being Swaziland. In Swaziland, Saturday is funeral day and nearly everyone goes to a funeral of a relative, friend or colleague every week; the statistics make grim reading. Life expectancy on this continent is now only 43, a drop of 15 years over the past two decades.
The most pressing problem in the South of Africa today is the looming famine due to the failure of the maize crop, the staple food here, when the rainy season abruptly ended last Christmas instead of April. This is the second year in a row that there has been a crop failure due to drought. Malawi has declared a state of emergency and in Lesotho last years harvest will only last to August, which is the start of the growing season; the government there has declared a state of famine. Already thousands of children are dying from malnutrition; the price of maize has also doubled since last year compounding the problem. The disaster that this part of Africa is now facing is huge, effecting seven countries (Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho) and an estimated 14 million people. Food stocks are now at a critical level and all reserves will be exhausted in the matter of a few weeks. I have heard that in the UK the Disasters Emergency Committee has launched an appeal for aid to these countries; if you can, please give generously, the people here are in a desperate situation and they deserve a lot better.
On the positive note while I've been here the war in Angola has finally come to an end, peace negotiations at the moment are proceeding well in Sudan and the elections in Sierra Leone past off peacefully and civil war there is at last over. African leaders are now making a concerted effort to get Africa to help herself rather than to rely on outside donors. A few weeks ago the African Union was formed at a summit of leaders in Durban and there is even talk of creating a single currency for the continent, aptly named the Afro. It remains to be seen how successful these plans will be as corruption is the main force that is holding back development on this continent.
I'm sad to be leaving Africa after all this time but once I board that aircraft on Monday I'll be happy because I will be returning to the most beautiful place in the world, Dorset.
Safe travelling everyone, wherever the road may take you.
Peace and best wishes,
Geoff.
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