NAMIBIA, AFRICA

Let me just say Africa is amazing and I am head over heels in love with it!!! We pulled into Walvis Bay at around 8 am on February 14th. Semester at Sea organized a group of school girls to come and perform for us in the port. They were so great. There was around 20 of them ranging in age from 6-14 and they dressed in a traditional African dress they sang and dance for us some songs in Afrikaans and some in English. It’s funny the way they danced would have been considered provocative in the United States it was a lot of booty dancing but it was SOOOOO cool. After they were done we were able to take pictures and talk to them. They were all so nice and sweet they kept saying I know who your president is! Obama! It was so cute.
Next I was off to leave for my Safari! There were about 12 Wild Dog Safari vans waiting for us! I was on bus 6 with 13 other girls we only had 1 guy in our van! Ha our two tour guides names were George and Milner they were both from Namibia and hadn’t been anywhere outside of Namibia in their whole lives. We drove past the giant sand dunes which were so big I can’t even describe the size they were enormous! We drove passed a few townships which were also huge, they would just pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the desert. We made a pit stop in Swakempound which is an old German town in Namibia. It was so cool. You can see the German influence in the buildings and a lot of the shopkeepers were German as well. Namibia was a German Colony until 1990 when they finally gained their independence. Everything in Namibia is SO cheap the exchange rate is 10 Namibian dollars to 1 U.S. dollar so you get a lot of bang for your buck! Although the town was cool I was looking for a more authentic African feel I was shocked at the amount of people who spoke English. I learned later that in the schools they teach Afrikaans and English to them.
We then continued our drive to Etosha Park. We were all under the impression that the drive to Etosha would be 4 hours that was a LIE! It took 8 hours to get there! I think the tour company lied to the woman who planned the whole thing so that we would book it cause there was like 127 SAS kids that did it and I am sure about half of us wouldn’t have if we knew it was 8 hours away!!! Oh well it’s not so bad driving 8 hours when wild crazy animals like warthogs, springbok, and monkeys cross the road! We also stopped a million times for gas like it was ridiculous but it was cool cause we got to have like a half hour in a bunch of little African towns. Someone had the bright idea to buy some bottles of wine for the remainder of the ride and the first night in camp! It was really fun our tour guide sang us the Namibian National anthem and some Namibian songs in return we sang him our national anthem and some classic American tunes!!! He loved it and so did we it was a great way to start off our Safari.
When we pulled into the park it started raining! I mean African downpour! So we are all thinking great time to unpack our gear set up tents and cook dinner in the pouring rain at 11pm. So we decided it was a good idea to change into our bathing suits so we wouldn’t get our clothes and stuff all wet! People looked at us like we were crazy but we weren’t the ones complaining when we had warm dry clothes in the morning! Well for dinner I decided to help out our guides cook so that I could get some time to talk to them. We cooked pasta with meat sauce! It was delicious. After dinner it was straight to bed cause we had to wake up at 5am to start our game drive!
5am rolls around a lot sooner than you think! We woke up and were immediately off. I snagged a front row seat in the van so that I could get lots of good shots of animals! We first saw springbok which are basically like deer and they were everywhere! Same thing with Zebras they were all over. Literally everywhere just running around! It was funny by the end of the trip we would all be so annoyed when the Springbok and Zebra were in the road cause then we’d have to stop! I was like really am I honestly getting annoyed because Zebra are in the road?!?!How cool!!! We saw lots of Giraffes one of them came really close to our van it looked like he was going to try and stick his head into the open top part. We spotted them because their heads stick up passed the treetops. We saw Oryx, Ostrich, Wildabeasts, and a lot more! But we really really wanted to see a lion so we began the mad hunt for them! Our guide would stop every time we saw cars and asked them if they saw a lion and finally we were pointed in the right direction! We saw 2 female lions that were relaxing under a tree after eating a zebra! We saw the bloody zebra carcass next to them it was so cool. After our game drive we had some free time to relax and walk around our campsite area which was located inside the park.
I decided to go to the water hole where some animals stop and drink. It was way more beautiful than I expected. There were trees everywhere and the grasses were so green. They had benches set up for people to sit on and a little hut like bleacher area which I ventured off to. When I got there I saw that there were three young girls sitting there. I asked if I could join them and they said yes. They were very eager to talk to me and I was them as well. They loved my nail polish and my rings and my purse and pretty much everything I had with me. I asked them if I could take a picture with them and boy were they excited! They wanted to model for me so I took some pictures of them and they wanted me to show them! I’ve never seen anyone so excited to see pictures of themselves! They then said they were going to sing and dance for me! It was so cool they were adorable 10,11,and 12 years old. I talked to them for about an hour or so, about their schooling, friends, the music they listen to, and just life in Namibia. It was one of the best moments of my trip.
After this we began cooking dinner. Our dinner made over the fire was the best meal I have had the entire journey thus far! We had lamb, pork chops, corn, polenta or something like that it was a traditional Namibian dish, squash, and for dessert our guide picked up stuff to make smores!!! He bought strawberry marshmallows though and graham cookies instead of crackers it was so cute though cause he didn’t know any better! They were still delicious. We then sat around the fire and played some card games and just hung out. It was a blast. My friend Natalie and I decided to go and introduce ourselves to our camping neighbors. It was a group of 5 Europeans who were actually studying abroad in Cape town (our next port) we were very excited to hear this but then disappointed when we heard they were gonna be in Namibia on holiday for the next 10 days. But they were able to give us all advice on what to do and not do which was very helpful! It was cool they were all studying English in Cape town for 6 weeks, they were from all over Europe. One was from France, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Italy! None of them had the same native language in common so they are forced to speak English with each other and with us! They were all way cool and told us that when they thought of Americans all they thought was Obese and lots of music. All they listen to is American music, all of them. I would hate that so much to live in a country that had no good music. They were saying that they listen to music that they don’t even understand! That would just not fly with my everyday to have to listen to foreign music. Anyways that too was one of my favorite parts of the trip just talking to people from all over.
Overall Namibia was amazing. I loved everything about it. Everything. Africa is beautiful and it is a place that has so much to offer. My safari was incredible I saw tons of animals and stars! Oh the stars were outrageous like looking up at Waubee Lake times a million! The people were so generous and kind half of these people have nothing and offer so much to you. It was just amazing I can’t say enough about it. I hope that everyone gets a chance to visit Namibia!!! Can’t wait for South Africa.