Namibia…a place most people probably haven't heard of, I know I hadn't when it was announced as a place we were going to when they changed our ports of call due to the pirates. Well its definitely an undiscovered place with many amazing characteristics. When we arrived at the port it was another really industrial port just like Morocco but if you looked out inland you could see sand dunes which are the tallest in the world but there was a group of Namibia kids doing a performance for us. They had come from many miles away just to give this performance so we were very appreciative. After our ship was cleared and we could get off we headed to our safari bus #7. There were about 12 or so buses all in all and about 120 of us from the ship going on this same independent safari. We met our driver and our guide Cleo. We were waiting for the 12 of us in the bus to get off the ship and the people I knew on our bus was Phil, Rory, Shera and Adrienne (both of the girls were from our Spain trip). While we were waiting the rest of the group our driver asked us if we wanted to see his wedding photos, of course we said yes. He also mentioned to us that he is "temporarily single"because his wife is in Namibian jail. Of course everyone on the bus thought this was quite humorous/ridiculous. Finally everyone was on the bus so we headed out of the port into town to stop at the ATM and to get whatever groceries we might want. I tried using my ATM card but it kept saying "card invalid"so that’s never a good thing. I couldn’t find a payphone to call the bank so I just borrowed money from Phil for the mean time. We were told the bus ride was going to be 4-5 hours, of course this was not the case…it turned out to be 10 hours away. It did not help that we were stopping every hour for the bathroom and people were drinking on the bus so this turned into a vicious cycle…stop and pee, buy more beer, stop and pee and so on. Also on the way there one of the busses broke down, of course we figured this was inevitable but better it happened there than on the way back...all 12 drivers decided they needed to stop and assist. This turned into a big party on the side of the road in a deserted Namibian highway, 120 kids drinking in the middle of the road…it was quite a sight. Eventually at about 10 pm we got there, most of us very drunk and we still had to set up tents and eat dinner. We assisted many girls in setting up their tents and it was also pouring down rain which was absolutely miserable. Finally we went to bed and got up early the next morning to go on a "game drive." We spent the whole day on the safari and saw lots of cool stuff but didn't get to see the Big 5 animals which I'm not even sure what they are, but everyone seemed to make a big deal out of it. We saw giraffes, lots of zebras, 2 lions and some other small game (I have lots of good pictures). We stopped for lunch and our driver and assistant cooked for us, we checked out this watering hole while they were cooking and it had lots of cool views. We continued driving the rest of the afternoon in search of some more animals and witnessed 2 giraffes trying to make some baby giraffes, it was quite a sight. That night for dinner a few of us decided to go to this restaurant they had at the campsite. It was $15 all you can eat and was one of the best meals I have ever had. We had beef, chicken, hake and kudu which were all very good. We also had many bottles of South African wine to share called "Tall Horse"which is very good. The girl sitting next to me lived in Rockville until middle school, went to St. Elizabeth's on Montrose Rd., lived in the Willows and dated someone I went to high school with (Alex Doran)…very strange how small the world is sometimes (and it wasn't even jewish geography for once!). We stayed up late that night and hung out, meeting lots of people. We got up really early the next morning for our 8 hour drive back to Walvis Bay and stopped at a large sand dune on the way back. We climbed up to the top and had some great view from it. Namibia is all sand dunes along the coast and then when you go inland it becomes savannah. We got back to the ship and still had some time to kill so me and Phil put back our stuff and headed back out to get some lunch. We got a taxi to town ($2) and apparently between 3-4 pm there is a soap opera that the whole country watches so everywhere to eat closes down, of course we picked that time to eat. We had barely and cash left so we were trying to find a place that was open as well as took credit cards. We figured KFC was a sure bet, nope their credit card machine was broken but we found an ATM. Not only was their credit card machine broken, they had no chicken fillets, chicken tenders, no coke, no water, no ketchup, no napkins and some other things I am probably forgetting…basically they should not have been open for business. We headed back to the ship and of course got in an argument with a taxi driver, we asked him to take us to the ship and he only took us to the entrance to the port so we refused to pay him. He got in a verbal fight with us so we got out and got in a new taxi. We also split the taxi with some girls who needed to stop at an ATM first, one girl ran into the ATM and got her cash…she came back out and this man was yelling for her to come back into the ATM. She of course did because she assumed she had forgotten something. He wanted her to put her pin number in the machine and then hit cancel. At the same time our driver was trying to tell us it was a scam and to go get the girl. We were able to get the girl in time before she typed in her pin and they tried to steal her card, luckily. As always, its always an adventure.
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