Namibia: Part Three, or "CONQUERING THE DUNE"

On the last day, I had another trip planned, so I had breakfast on the ship and set off for the Salt, Sea and Sand excursion.

I’d like to make a side note that it’s weird to come back and sleep on the ship at night. To go from a place that is so unfamiliar, no matter in what country, and come back at night to a place that is very familiar is so strange. It’s like if you had your house in a boat and carted it with you everywhere. Even eating the same old breakfast on the ship then going outside and realizing that you’re in an entirely different place is a little jarring. Just a thought.

First, the “salt”part of the trip was a visit to the salt refinery in Walvis Bay that uses evaporated sea water to collect and manufacture usable salt. It was kind of interesting to see this huge mound of salt in the lot of the refinery, which was bordered all around by these very shallow but wide lagoon-like bodies of water. Pictures would make this sound cooler, haha. Anyway, we were given a presentation by a woman at the refinery explaining how the process worked, using a system that evaporates the water, crystallizes the salt, collects it and cleans it so that it can be packaged or shipped in bulk. On the same property there’s also an oyster farm. We drove in vans from the salt refinery around all the lagoons to the oysters farm. The water was pretty desolate except for the awesome birdlife. There are a great many pelicans and flamingoes there in those waters as well as around other parts of Walvis Bay. They were so cool! Especially as they took off and landed from flight. They also squish down the mud to find worms that looks like a little dance, as our driver John told us. Some of the flamingoes were kind of far off in this HUGE group of them. Very cool to see! Too bad the road was so bumpy, I only got a few pictures.
So, we stopped at a little building where they sort oysters that are fully grown and ready to be sold. A man there told us that they actually buy baby oysters from Chile. These are put into trays and attached to wooden poles in the lagoons, which the man told us are deeper so that they can grow. Then, they’re moved to another tray in a shallower lagoon so that the oysters’shells can harden. The man said it usually takes from 6 to 9 months I think, depending on the weather, for an oyster to become fully grown.

After hearing all about them, the group got to eat some oysters! They had crackers and cheese, olives, jerky and champagne with the oysters in another little building down the lane. I asked how to eat them and was instructed to squeeze lime on them, pry them off the shell and just shallow it. One of my professors who was on the trip said that I did it like a pro, haha! They were interesting, but I don’t know if I would classify them in a group of foods I would go out of my way to eat. It was fun though, and I almost got stuck in the bathroom of this shack –so the key turned twice before opening the door, oops.

The next leg of our trip was my favorite, although two van-fuls of people dropped off because they had already seen the sand dunes. We traveled to Dune Seven, just outside Walvis Bay, which our driver said was somewhere above 70 meters tall usually. So, you do the math –it’s pretty tall but not too tall. Anyway, so I get up to it and a lot of people are trying to climb it, but not many are going to the top. Then, I was about one-quarter of the way up some girl decided to turn around, along with a few others. But, I told myself I’d just go a little bit further before turning around. And I go up some more, and I heard a girl cheering me on from the bottom, “You’re almost halfway, Stacey, you can do it!”It was really steep and it felt like every step you took you weren’t really going anywhere because your feet sink in the sand, then the sand from in front of your feet starts to cover your feet. I was so glad I had tennis shoes on, otherwise the sand would be burning on my feet. I was also glad I had brought my water bottle because I was dying. It was so hard. Then I was about halfway and ready to quit, but once again, someone yelled from the bottom –“Stacey, you’re halfway –you can do it!”By this time there were also about three other SASers at the top and they were cheering me on too. I honestly was so out of breath, I would just take a few steps and then stop. I was almost there. I had to do it. So, the students at the top kept encouraging me and I finally made it! One of the girls held out their hand and helped pull me up to the top. It was totally worth it!! The view was awesome! That was probably one of the best moments of my whole trip so far –just because I don’t think I would have finished, had the other students not been cheering me on. I felt so good when I finally was at the top. The girl at the bottom took a picture of the four of us at the top. It was awesome. I took some pictures (and some video!) too.

We just ran down the side to get down, although I wish I could have slid on my butt the whole way, but the sand is too hot. When we got to the bottom, my feet felt like they had weights tied to them because there was so much sand inside my socks and shoes. I swear I dumped out at least two cups of sand. It was pretty funny. That was the end of our trip, so we all got back in the vans and the driver had the A/C cranked up, which I was totally grateful for since I was sweating buckets and exhausted from climbing.

We got back to the ship –I ate lunch in the dining hall and then set out to try and get my water bottle back as I mentioned earlier. It was really a bust, but the good thing was that there was like this Mission to Seafarer’s place right outside the port, which is kind dumpy, but had two computers and phones and souvenirs. So, I just got a few little things there, tried to use the internet to upload photos, but the connection was too slow. I should be able to upload a lot in South Africa –their internet connections should be pretty good. Then, I waited outside of the building to meet that taxi driver to try and get my water bottle. I think Namibians had a general interest in Americans, since not many of them come there. I was waiting and three guys came over and started talking to me. I didn’t really feel threatened, because we were right outside the port gate and there were students all over buying things at this little market on the side of the road. I only talked to them for a few minutes and the only creepy thing that happened was that some guy walked right up and took a picture of me on his cell phone. I tried to tell him that he was supposed to say hello before he just snaps my pictures, but he just showed me the picture and attempted at conversation. A little strange. Anyway, I asked that taxi driver to take me to a music store so that I could buy some CDs and he drove me like 3 blocks, so I gave him like nothing because I was disappointed about the water bottle. I bought a few CDs at the store, walked back to the Mission, attempted to use the slow internet and then walked back to the ship about an hour before we were required to be onboard and wrote out some postcards.

So, here we are this morning in Cape Town, South Africa! I have a lot of day trips planned –on to Robben Island, one about Cape Town jazz, a township visit. And we’re going to go to the South African rugby game on Friday night! How cool is that?! Time to go eat breakfast –hope you enjoyed Namibia! On to South Africa!