Our stories

Final closure of our great adventure

About us two, StoriesApr 28 20144 Comments

Looking back on the most amazing experience in our lives

This is it. My last day in Africa, the nine month journey has come to an end. With one eye on the pictures we made along the way, I’m thinking of all the beautiful and inspiring sights we have seen and the exciting or challenging experiences we had. It has truly been a life lesson, and a next step towards ‘real adulthood’.

Reflecting on the journey, we would like to share some insights and conversations we had with many people along the way. A Q&A.

The number 1 country?

Ethiopia. This country surprised us by boasting the remains of a high culture that they had 1500 years ago. The country is unique because it is proud of never having been colonised, therefore having their own architecture, their unique food (as opposed to the fried chicken and burgers everywhere else), their own music. The nature is stunning.

The most beautiful country?

Namibia. We would urge anyone to go and see Damaraland, the Namib desert, the Fisch River Canyon and Sossusvlei for himself.

Where we felt unsafe?

The only moment that we felt unsafe, was waking up in the middle of a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration when being parked in the city of Aswan. The demonstrations with hundreds of killings wasn’t so long ago and we feared for the worst.

What was different then expected?

– We expected that diesel would be scarce and that we need to make sure the extra tank was always full. Reality: Gas stations are everywhere. Africa has been developing…

– We expected to see hungry people in extreme poverty everywhere. Imagine the famine images that we know from Ethiopia 15 years ago. Reality: People are definitely not rich and still many people live in extreme poverty. However, many countries have been developing at a fast pace and have a large middle class.

– We expected wild animals to walk around everywhere. Reality: game is only to be found in wild parks. Only occasionally you could stumble across a hippo walking around in its heritage site (perceived in-the-wild).

– We expected thousands and thousands of kilometers dirt roads. Or a total lack of roads in some places. Reality: there are a lot of good roads, albeit many with potholes. The Chines infrastructure companies, who are present everywhere throughout Africa, are doing a quick and dirty job.

– We expected millions of insects. In reality, only in Eastern Africa we got bugged by mosquitoes quite a bit, but apart from that, no giant spiders, bed bugs or nasty skin-eating worms.

– We expected more traditional dishes, like the one in Ethiopia. Instead: burger, fries and chips were the national dish of almost every sub-Saharan country.

What were interesting themes?

– Corruption. How can it be that we read in Spiegel that in South Sudan, where famine is lurking, 1 billion USD has vaporized? We weren’t surprised, we have diabolic examples of corruption. For example: Africa’s richest woman is the first lady of Angola, because of every barrel of oil, 3 USD is transferred to her account. Or: Malawi’s president, a country that depends for 40% on foreign aid, owns a private jet of 27 million USD. Or: NGOs have to reregister every year,which brings a nice fee in the hands of people who definitely don’t need that money.

– HIV/Aids. Life expectancy in some countries is as low as 40 years, because infection rates count up to 27% in some countries. This is partly due to the fact that some African leaders have ridiculous beliefs on how infection could be prevented effectively. For example: In Zanzibar miniskirts are bound to be prohibited. In Uganda, abstinence is preached in stead of using condoms. In Lesotho, girls up to 18 years weren’t allowed to have sex for a period of 5 years.

– Cultural differences between the African community-based living and European individualism. Africans live closer together than we do and think more about their community members than we do. Personal distance between people is smaller. For example: one time an exhausting looking woman, with a baby and many bags in her hands, entered the bus. It looked like she needed a brake and without comment, she handed her baby to an unknown women next to her. The woman took the baby without questions and held the little one for the full hour.

– Clear separation of black and white in all aspects of life. You see black people riding the bus in working clothes to work in all white suburbs. In the subway everybody is black, in fancy restaurants everybody white. Mixed couples are a rarity.

– Condescending attitude towards women in Muslim countries Sudan and Egypt. If you don’t wear a headscarf, you are supposed to be open to (sexual) contact. Some men don’t want to shake your hand. Even as tourists, you feel that women are second degree citizens.

– Indian domination in the SME: Indians manage, handle the cash and don’t leave their desks. The blacks do the dirty work and manual labour. We haven’t seen many Chinese management in shops, beside the typical China shops they own. But they generally employ Chinese on the work floor instead of Africans.

What our highlights top 3’s were?

– Beautiful: 1) Simien Mountains, 2) Victoria Falls, 3) Sossusvlei

– Cultural: 1) Lalibela, 2) the pyramids in Cairo, 3) Stone Town in Zanzibar.

– Best cities: 1) Cape Town, 2) Kampala, 3) Windhoek.

– Worst cities: 1) Khartoum, 2) Alexandria, 3) Addis Abeba

– Nicest people: 1) Soweto / South Africa, 2) Namibia, 3) Uganda

– Unfriendly people: 1) Egypt, 2) Ethiopia, 3) Kenya.

This journey has been the most impressive adventure in our lives. At least for me, I know that Cornelius’s time in Nice makes up very good competition and might share first place with the Africa trip on his list 🙂 Impressive in the sense that we took risk of quitting our jobs, quitting our apartments, selling all our stuff and making a large investment in the car. But also to accept insecurity by choosing to drive through Africa, home to a number of dangerous areas where we had to drive through. Also the personal development that we both actively worked on, has brought us to a different level.

No matter how bad things may turn out, how long I have to look for a job, or potential employers frowning upon the fact that we took a sabbatical “already at this age, young people should learn to work first! Application rejected!”, we will always look back on this as one of the best decisions we ever made.

Tasting the incredible South African hospitality

Johannesburg, Mozambique, Pretoria, South Africa, Soweto, The journeyApr 13 20148 Comments

We are almost at the end of our Africa journey. Originally, we had the idea to travel for a full year, but we feel that nine months in total has given us a very full and rewarding experience already and that staying here another few months wouldn’t add up to this experience. We are longing to be home, to see you all and digest on all the beautiful events, images and stories we have in our heads. As the Dutch would say: ‘t is prima zo. But before writing the last blog post with reflections on our journey, let’s share some of the things we did in the past few weeks.

The bungee jump

Jumping off the highest bungee point in the world: it sounded epic. I had pictures of myself soaring through the air with a broad smile on my face, arms spread like an eagle before bouncing with pure delight, upside down, over the valley.

It was not like that.

I must admit, I was pretty frightened about the whole thing. I wanted to do it at least once in my life and especially now. The older we get, the more scary we tend to get. So I though If I don’t push myself now, I’ll probably never do it. And I wanted to see if I had the guts to do it.

Quite nervously I checked in at the reception where I was weighted. 59 kilo. The reception woman pulled out her Edding marker to write my weight in my hand (so that the cable men can calculate how long your bungee cord should be), but I quickly said “please write 60 kilos.” I mean, that one kilo doesn’t make the difference between life and death, but I was so nervous I thought it is better to be on the safe side and have a slightly shorter cord. By the way, it was the first time I lied my weight up instead of down 🙂

Then, getting to the jump spot was the first scary part. You walk not on the bridge, but under the bridge on a open, metal roster that bounces under your feet as you take your steps. When you look down, you gaze 206 meters beneath you. It gave me weak knees. I thought, shared anxiety is half anxiety, so I approached my fellow jumpers, two robust Germans. If they were also nervous? “Not at all, at home we work as windmill technicians. Just wanted to have some fun” and they walked on without blinking. The bastards. They could at least have pretended, for my sake.

The second scary part was getting the straps on. I had a mountain climbers thing around my butt and chest, and then the ankle straps. But the climbing strap thing was only for pulling me up afterwards. I thought. But to my horror the ankle straps were quite loose and I could slide my ankles up and down until it almost went over my heel. It didn’t feel safe at all, and I started to panic a bit. I kept repeating to the preppers ‘they’re not tight enough, they’re not tight enough, I’ll slip and die!!’ but they just kept repeating that I shouldn’t worry and shoved me to the ledge. ‘Madam, it’ll get tighter once your weight pulls the rope’ and with that last comment they pushed me down. Not proud to admit it, but I screamed like a baby. The ankle strap got a little tighter for a second, but then loose again when I bounced up. And even when I hung still in the air, I felt myself slipping through. It was the most horrible feeling I ever had. It sounds overly dramatic, but I actually thought I was about to fall. When I got to the platform I tried to hide the wetness in my eyes and accused the men that I hadn’t been fixed correctly. ‘Sure you were. You even had a second security rope, your climbers strap thing. Didn’t we tell you?’ No. Thank you very much.

Afterwards Cornelius had expected that I’d be filled with adrenaline the whole day, like he had been when he jumped a few years ago. But I was impressed, a bit disappointed and was mostly quiet the rest of the day.

A few days in paradise

You remember that story about that we learned how to slaughter and cook a chicken from two die-hard South Africans we met in Tanzania, Wimpie and Leonie? We stayed in contact and they invited us to come and visit them in their beach house in Mozambique. They bought property and developed some beach cottages and villas for renting purposes and a beautiful beach house for themselves. Mozambique may be the nr. 1 holiday spot for South Africans and also Wimpie & Leonie drive over 1000 km over there to wind down. In general, in Mozambique you can only buy land if you also commit yourself to improve the local community by building for example a school, a police station or a hospital. W&L built a school and employed some of the local people from the village.

We didn’t quite know what to expect when driving up there. We had only met them once, and besides telling us what to pack, we had no idea where we were going and what it would look like. Wimpie made a point of keeping it a secret. And when we got there, we still didn’t understand why they didn’t tell us anything before, but stunning it was. The full bounty beach works that reminded me of that old ‘sipping on Bacardi rum’ commercial. Though we on the picture weren’t so thin as those commercial people then thanks to Leonie spoiling us with amazing food several times a day. It was again a nice holiday within a holiday with not having to drive ourselves, to sit back and play old school rummicub and having Wimpie explain us a lot about South Africa and Mozambique.

Later they also invited us to stay with them a few days in their house (or should I say mansion?) in a Pretorian suburb. In Tanzania, we had asked how they lived. Wimpie got into a poetic mode and told that they lived so close to nature, that they woke up to zebra and antelope in the morning, having exotic birds flying around and that there were also kudu and other wild animals roaming the gated community. At that time, I thought he exaggerated, to be honest. But I turned out to be wrong: indeed we saw all the animals on Wimpie’s list, we fed the zebra that came around for a visit bread and apples and saw how the curious little banded mongoose smashed and indulged in raw eggs from Leonie. It was amazing. I mean, who can say they have zebra and antelope in their garden?

What we found so special, is that these two people invited us into their homes and into their families (the Van S. family braai was one of the highlights), after having met us only once on a remote campsite in Tanzania. That’s something that is very, very rare in The Netherlands and Germany. I don’t know if that’s typical for this family or for all South Africans, but we are looking forward host them when they visit Germany next year.

Besides Pretoria, we also visited Johannesburg and the Soweto townships. Especially the visits to Johannesburg and Soweto were different than we expected. Johannesburg is infamous from the stories you probably know: don’t go there, you’ll get robbed/shot immediately. Or: as tourist you can visit the suburbs, but don’t even think about heading towards the city center. So we expected the worst, but when we got there (okay, during the day), we didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. Not that our few hours downtown-experience is evidence that you are absolutely safe there, but we expected at least to see people hawk-eying us or our pockets. The city center however was a dump, really. Litter everywhere, run down houses, scruffy people on the street and cheap stores everywhere. Not worth a visit.

Soweto on the other hand was a very pleasant surprise. Not at all the corrugated, iron shacks we have seen everywhere else in Africa, but mostly simple but well-kept one story-one bedroom houses, paved roads and simple but friendly makeshift shebeens (local bars) and shops. Obviously there were some tin-roofed ‘informal settlements’ covered in plastic, but not so much as we had expected. Actually, many regular towns and villages in other African countries were far and far more township-like than Soweto. Compared to some small villages in Ethiopia or Kenya for example, Soweto was a cosmopolitan, well-to-do city.

What we also enjoyed greatly, was the positive vibe. People were laughing on the street, primary school painted in bright colours everywhere and many venues and initiatives show that people are trying to make the most of it. Although this positive characteristic is necessary to cope with their daily problems: a 40-50% unemployment rate, low wages, forsaken promises by ANC politicians, difficult access to medical care and horrible rape and domestic violence figures. But a friendly and inspiring place all the same. Definitely worth a visit.

Our plans for the last few weeks

What our last plans are before flying home? We are in the Drakensberg Mountains now to do some serious hiking there before driving to Durban.

Here we get the car serviced and ship it home. The last week of April, we’ll be home. Or actually, Cornelius will be. I’ll come a week later because I’m handling the car shipment. Weird, that after 9 months of travelling together, we come home separately. But no worries, still a happy couple 🙂

Home sweet home. We are looking forward to it. And where home is? We don’t know yet, but the battle is between Munich and Amsterdam. Because we feel that ‘real world’ sneaking upon us, we enjoy the last weeks on African grounds even more!

10 Signs that tell you you’re too old for backpacker hostels

Backpackers hostels, The journey, Top 10Mar 24 20144 Comments

Contrary to Namibia, where we camped in the wild or on campsites most of the times, here the offer of campsites in the cities that we visited is limited. So we have spent a lot of time in backpacker hostels where we parked on the parking lot and used the kitchen and shower facilities in the lodge.

Let’s not pretend that there aren’t some very attractive upsides to the ‘Old Bridge’, the ‘Red Bananas’ and the ‘Riverlodge Backpackers’s of this world. A few examples.

1. Backpackers lodges are great places for meeting people and party a bit. They are mostly packed with open, friendly people from all over the world, looking for a good time and eager for contact. The lodges have bars where nice music plays and you sometimes can plug in you own iPod if you are friendly with the bartender. The beer is cheap and you can sit down with anyone and exchange crazy travel stories. On rainy days, you can chill out on the (bug hosting) couches in front of a tv or lose yourself online. Uncomplicated, easy.

2. It’s cheap. Although not at price level of Ethiopia or Uganda, it’s still cheaper than official campsites or midrange lodges that are designed for hosting overlanders. You can cook your own meal in the communal kitchen and you’re allowed to bring your own wine. Beer is a different story though, you have to buy that in the bar at a reasonable price but the friendly personnel tends to look the other way when you put your own cans on the table.

3. There is always crazy, juicy stuff going on. Whether it is having drinks with a traveler who is agonizing over his believe that he might be HIV positive after some horizontal pursuits with local women, or people are suddenly walking around in penguin costumes (after they lost beer pong), there is stuff happening. For example when I passed the showers when going to the toilet one night, I saw a foot sticking from under the door. I thought ‘maybe this guy needs help. He might have slipped, or be so drunk that he can’t carry himself to bed’. So I peaked under the door. But then I saw two pair of feet, one from a guy, one from a woman. I saw legs and hands moving and what was that? Ah, his scrotum. Gross. I guess nobody needed help here. I smiled and walked out silently.

The other night, when we left our hostel in Maputo, we walked in on a scene starring a tattooed male tourist in wife beater shirt fighting with a beautiful, scarcely dressed Mozambican woman. Or rather: she screamed at him and pulled his arms and shirt, he looked helplessly at some men standing on the side. We wondered what was going on. But her statement “If you [****] me, you have to pay!” and his avoiding answer “I’m not paying anything. Guys, please help me to get rid of this woman”, said it all. Somebody dipped his fingers in the honey jar and was looking for a cheap way out.

But, after this journey, we would seriously reconsider ever setting foot in a backpackers again. Why? We’ll explain.

1. You are queuing for one of the 2 toilets in a hostel with 40 beds

All these nice old buildings in which hostels are often located have large rooms, but little space for bathing facilities. So it often happens that there are only 2 or 3 toilets for many guests. It always gives me a bit of a stressed feeling in the morning when I have to go urgently but first climb down in the bus, walk to the facilities and then wait in line. Everything is worse of course when they combine toilet and shower behind one door.

2. You turn around for a split second and somebody confiscates the only good knife you were working with

Getting around in a communal kitchen can be a challenge. They are often not well equipped in the sense that there are only 2 gas pits working (and three people are waiting in line with their pasta pan), no spoons or cutting boards. In that case we use some of our own stuff from the bus. But, you can’t watch your belongings every second when cooking. And sometimes when you have just prepared your Tefal pan, knives and rasp, some vulture seizes the opportunity and takes one of your essentials to the dorm and secretly does his own preparations there. Can be a quest to get your property back.

3. You are fighting the cleaning lady over the remote control

Safe to say that cleaning ladies in Africa can show different work ethics than those in Europe. They slouch from room to room and they make many breaks or stop for chatting, making coffee or just hanging around on a couch and watch television. And they love their (Nigerian) soaps. So much, that when you ask after half an hour if you can maybe watch something else, you are likely to hear a firm ‘no’.

4. A bar is fine, but can’t they just close it at 11 pm?

The bar is where things are happening, where you get in touch with people and where you can enjoy criticizing others for playing childish games like beer-pong (incl. the loser having to run around the table naked). All good. But why on earth can’t they just turn down the music at a normal time? Can a person please get some sleep around here?!

5. The owner asks you to feed the begging dog at the table

Dogs. We like them, but rather not have them around when they are smelly, leave their hairs on the couch or lick your legs when they are begging for food at the table. We never support this behavior and my guess would be that when you open any dog-training book, chapter 1 tells you that when you give the dog something to eat from the table, the begging only gets worse. So you can imagine our annoyance when, after ignoring the large dog for 20 minutes during breakfast, the lodge owner walks up to us and asks if we would be so kind as to take something from our plates and feed the dog. No thank you.

6. When other guests regard rinsing dishes with only cold water as clean

People from all over the world have different understandings of what is clean. For us, it means washing the dishes with liquid, scrub thoroughly with a clean sponge and rinse with hot water. For others, it means holding the plate under the cold water, using their fingers as sponge and completely ignore the dish washing liquid. Gross. So when we use dishes in communal kitchens, we tend to wash everything before and after using it.

7. Sure we offer electricity and Wifi. Just not now.

Southern Africa is still Africa and therefore electricity and internet are not reliable. When you ask upon checking in whether they have both facilities, the answer is always “sure, no problem, it’s working”. But as soon as you can’t get online, the comment is “Yes, we have Wifi but it is just not working now. Maybe tomorrow.” Or, “No power? Yes, we have outages every few hours. A generator? Off course not. Why?” Never mind us asking, silly indeed.

8. When all conversations are a variation on the chewed up theme ‘where are you from & how long have you been traveling?’

Guilty, we also tend to start a conversation with your typical where, when & whats. But then it is nice when both parties make an effort to change to somewhat more original or different topics. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking stuff. Just having a talk about a good book you just read, discuss the current Crimea situation or getting tips from a colleague manager on how to divide time between team members is very refreshing.

9. Being the only one not having beer as breakfast

When you sit in the eating area at 9 o’clock in the morning and you are the only one behind a bowl of muesli and yoghurt and people around you are having beer or Savannah’s as breakfast, it can give you a bit of an outsider feeling.

10. When at 9:30 in the morning there is still no toilet paper on the still dirty toilets

Need I say more?

—-

PS: Thanks Mickies for sending me my stuff! It was a lifesaver.

As Duo Penotti through South Africa

Cape Town, Societal problems, Southern AfricaMar 12 20140 Comment

I looked around. Not one black or coloured person. (I use the words black, coloured and white without meaning to use any racial or categorised indication. But I guess you’ll understand that). I was the only coloured person in the fancy sushi restaurant in the Victor & Alfred Waterfront. I watched the other guests if anybody was looking at us, the only mixed couple in the place. They didn’t. The reception by the restaurant staff had been as polite as could be, so nothing indicated that people might have taken offence that a coloured person was in their midst. I felt at ease.

Our experience with being white & coloured

It happened often, that one of us was the only white or black person in the venue. In the bus, in bars, hostels or restaurants, the public was often predominantly one-coloured but still a little bit mixed, so we felt comfortable most of the times. In the metro, where we rode 2nd class, Cornelius was the only white person. He never felt misplaced though, and although some peoples glanced at our Duo Penotti (The German brown and white Milky Way spread) performance from the side, we didn’t read any criticism or other value in their eyes. We never got a comment.

We were one of the very rare mixed couples, or mixed groups. The first week, the only mixed couple we saw looked at us in the mirror. In these 3 weeks that we have been in South Africa, we haven’t seen one mixed, local couple. Impressive. The same goes for groups of friends. Perhaps we saw two groups in total, even in the student town Stellenbosch. We expected to see more mixed groups here, because here are people who haven’t experienced Apartheid themselves and would have a more liberal, non-racial view on the world. Which might well be the case though, one cannot make any conclusions based on what you see on the streets only. Besides that, what doesn’t help I guess is that the majority of students is white. And I have to admit, how many black, Indian, Moroccan or Surinamese friends do I have myself? So I guess separation is obviously not per se based on colour, but, just as in The Netherlands or Germany, based on factors like level of education, social class and cultural habits. Not that is necessarily needs to be, but that’s how it goes naturally.

One of the few times that I felt a hint of discrimination, or at least I imagined it had something to do with selection based on colour, was when we out with a group of friends we had met in the hostel in Cape Town. When we came at the door, the bouncer let everybody, man and woman, enter without any problem. Until I wanted to enter. I was the only one who had to show my passport (which I didn’t have on me for safety reasons). When he asked for my ID, I felt a slight anger growing inside. “Why?” I asked while folding my arms across my chest and leaning back. “Just to make sure you’re old enough.” I frowned. How flattering it might be that somebody would think I’m still under age, it is very unconvincing. I looked at the others. Most were between 24 and 30, there were a couple of oldies and at least three people of 20 and 21 who looked considerably younger than me. “Are you kidding me?” I asked, trying to suppress the annoyance in my voice. Yes, he was serious. “Sir, I am 32. And I am definitely not showing you my ID.” He kept looking at me for a few seconds more in silence, and then waved coolly at the door. Without giving him another glance, I walked in.

The next day I asked people from the hostel, who go there more often, why I was the only one being checked. I got two implausible explanations. The first: ‘he thought you were hot and wanted to know your name’. Right. Why not just asking my name then? The second: all women get asked for ID the first time. But none of the girls at the hostel had ever showed theirs. So what to make of this? Anyone a better explanation than then the bouncer looking for a reason or backup to keep me out or kick me our later?

We didn’t know what to expect with regard to racism before coming here and we had to base our image on opinions from others, ranging from ‘no problem at all, being a mixed couple’, to ‘be prepared to get refused admission in places, or even being harassed on the street’. Off course we haven’t visited all areas nor the rest of South Africa yet, but our first impressions are very positive.

Development

South Africa is the most developed country in Africa. With Western companies enforcing their investments during Apartheid where an economical stable environment further drove foreign investments. When you’d exclude the townships, SA is not typically African. Except for a few things.

HIV/Aids rates are among the highest in Africa and life expectancy is among the lowest. In 2012, 18% had HIV/Aids. Partly as a result of the disease, SA counts 2,1 million orphans (4% of the total population).
Average life expectancy is 49 years. For blacks its about 47 years, for whites around 71 years.

Like many African countries, their economy is growing. However, this hasn’t been the case for a long time. After Apartheid, the economic situation worsened. Off course there was freedom with the first democratic elections in ’94, but that didn’t mean that everything turned for the better overnight. Unemployment rose, the number of formal jobs decreased, whereas the growing number of informal jobs was a clear sign of hidden unemployment. The ANC struggled with the redistribution of wealth and many programs, meant to achieve an employment situation reflecting actual society, have proven unsuccessful.

Also typically African are the consumption priorities. Let me explain just by giving you an example. As we walked through a mall with the typical mall-shops: telecom, shoes, bags, snack bars, sport etc. There were only queues in three places. Guess where? Correct: the telecom shop for airtime, the doughnut shop for a healthy snack and the snack bar selling fried chicken & French fries.

About abortions

What caught our eye were the hundreds of stickers in the metro, promoting cheap abortions. People like Doctor Amos, Molly and doctor Chris promised easy abortions with pills, same day results. Guaranteed pain free. Some doctors offered their services during the pregnancy from 1 week up to 8 months. 8 Months. Did our eyes cheat us? Unfortunately they didn’t. All clinics offered the incredibly low price of 300 Rand (20 EUR). A resident told us that these services are booming. It is both fortunate and terrible.

Fortunate that these services are available to women who have no money who get into trouble, either through their own ‘fault’ (condoms are available for free everywhere) or because they were assaulted.

Terrible that South Africa is the country with one of the highest rape percentages. It’s not safe for women to walk around alone and assault within the family is also very frequent. Numbers vary, but it is said that about 40% of women in SA were raped or will be at least once in their lives. In an anonymous research, 25% of the men in Eastern and Kwazulu and Natal regions admitted to have raped a woman at least once. Now, if you read these statistics, you are thankful for the fact that doctor Amos will help you for 300 Rand.

Visiting the Matthijssens

Okay, let’s end this blog in a bit more upbeat tone, I don’t want to depress you too much with horrible statistics. We were invited by our good friends Annemieke & Maurits to stay with their family in Knysna. The Matthijssen family enjoyed their holiday in this magnicifent villa on a golf estate where we parked the bushi on the driveway, but slept in a large, hotel-like bed for the first time in 6 months.

It was wonderful to be there. Mainly because it was great to talk to and laugh with friends from home and have some different conversations that are not superficial, like many conversations you have with other travellers who briefly cross your path. Also delightful was to be in this comfortable clean house, lie on a clean couch in front of a 150 inch TV screen and cooking with an oven. The Matthijssens showed us around, invited us to nice dinners and we cruised around the premises in a real golf buggy. Hilarious! The bushi looked very much out of place in this luxurious surrounding.

Mick, Mau, Marianne, Peter Hans, Arnoud & Charlotte: thank you very much again for inviting us to your home and talking such good care of us!

The coming days we’ll discover the rest of the garden route before heading to Durban. In the next story I’ll tell you about this and my terrifying bungy jump from the highest bridge in the world.

Bye!

Taking in German heritage: our trip through Namibia

Amelie's visit, Country info, Damaraland, Namibia, WindhoekFeb 25 20149 Comments

We have been speeding through the last three countries so fast, that although this post is going to be about Namibia, we actually are in South Africa already. But the memories about Namibia are still very fresh, so don’t think I am selling you yesterday’s newspaper 🙂 When we tell people about our travel, many ask us which country we liked the best. We used to say Ethiopia, because of the uniqueness of the country: the landscapes, the food, the music and the rich cultural heritage. Now we have found the most beautiful country: Namibia.

Our impressions

Namibia was very, very different from other, in our eyes typical sub-Saharan countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi. Gone were the typical one-man kitchens on the street, the garbage and the animals on the streets, women wearing traditional batik-dresses were nowhere to be found. But this wasn’t the main cause of our shock-effect, we hadn’t seen these typical African features since Zambia. The first city we visited in Namibia was the capital Windhoek. And the further we drove into the city, the bigger our eyes grew. Windhoek was not what we expected at all. We saw large malls, broad streets lined with neat sidewalks, lush parks, luxurious cars and people in Western clothes. At first sight, there was no trace of poverty nor of traditional Namibian people. This wasn’t per se a negative thing, we just had to change our mind-set a bit.

Also the people mix was considerably different: there was a large share of white people, larger then in any other African country we were before, and there were coloured people in all shades of brown. It was remarkable to see, because some people had colour-hair-eyes combinations I’ve never seen before. Anywhere. Some examples: light skin with a light brown afro and blue eyes, light brown skin with blond frizzy hair and green eyes, dark brown with sleek hair. And there is one typical Namibian rarity sometimes seen at descendants from the Nama tribe and white colonialists: one blue and one green eye. I found it impolite to take pictures, but we were fascinated by this rich skin colour palette.

The German colonial influence is still very present today. Every third shop, medical practice or eatery displays a German name. A lot of wild farms are owned by people descending from German colonialists. The wild farms are something typical for Namibia and also South Africa. When thinking about a wild farm, you should imagine a large, rural area of several square kilometres with a fence marking the end of the property. The owners live on the farm and own livestock like antelopes, kudus, springboks or cows. Additionally, some offer game hunting to tourists, others have a campsite for overlanders included.

A bit of history on wild farms

Once we were driving through an empty, semi-arid desert at the end of the day, looking for a place to stay. We pulled up to a wild farm where a nice family greeted us in accent-less Hochdeutsch. “Guten Tag, freut uns sehr, Sie wilkommen zu heißen. Was können wir für Sie tun? Haben Sie Interesse an unseren Campingplatz?” It was a weird sensation to hear flawless German from Namibians in the middle of nowhere. Now, I’m not the history expert, but from what we have read and heard, these pieces of land were acquired rather unethically from the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the colonisation, the German Schutztruppe killed large numbers of indigenous people. Initially they aimed to stop the fighting between tribes and to reinstall peace & quiet to create circumstances beneficial for trade, later because they sought to increase power. Fertile areas in German South-West Africa, how Namibia was called at that time, were very scarce. The colonialists drove the remaining people to less fertile lands and claimed almost all these fertile grounds. Some land was ‘legally’ bought. Legal in the sense that there were contracts in place. Germans paid the Herero, Nama and Baster (local tribes) with Western products, payments that didn’t necessarily reflect the value of the land. Even when the local tribes didn’t want to sell or didn’t accept Western products as payments, the new settlers would drive their trucks into the villages, dump the products, and the land was considered ‘paid for’. ‘Legal’, but not ethical. When after WWI administrative power over German South-West Africa was transferred to South Africa, many Boers (descendants from the Dutch colonialists in the Cape region) settled in South-West Africa and took their share of land. After Namibia gained independence, some of the land was given back to the local tribes, but no major expropriation occurred. That’s why you’ll probably hear Afrikaans and sometimes German when you call at a farm in Namibia.

More differences

The food is also different here. Namibian food is not the typical African combo of rice-beans-chicken, but game: huge, bloody grilled steaks from any animal that jumps around on these wild farms. With mashed potatoes or ouderwetse piepers (Salzkartoffeln) on the side. Besides that, there are luxurious offerings of German food. Conny had gotten more and more excited about the possibility to eat Schweinshaxe, Schnitzel and Spätzle and after having dodged all this fried chicken before, I myself couldn’t wait to say the words ‘medium-rare, please’ to the waiter. It must have been difficult for Amelie. Being in Africa for the first time, she wanted to eat typically African. Instead, the poor girl got dragged into Joe’s beer house preparing everything but African food.

The public at these venues is predominantly white, by the way. We laid hands on the flyer from the Brauhaus in Swakopmund. Looked like a nice place. Would just fit right in a random town in the Heimat. The flyer promised to be “the place where the locals meet!” And then two pictures of their crowded venue showing not one black or coloured person.

The camping here was also on a whole other level. The campsites were structured, like in Europe, but then the 2.0 version: every place has a place for cooking, always a BBQ (here Braai), and some

campsites had one shower and toilet cubicle per place. Very luxurious.

And lastly let me introduce to you: muscled, young men walking around as if they are body builders in the making. There are all wearing tanktops or wifebeaters and shorts and their eyes are constantly looking for a grill. The Afrikaner boys. These are the kids of Dutch settlers who moved from the Cape to Namibia when there were better possibilities for making a living. They are Namibians, and all white. They were born & raised on farms and brought up with mainly hunting and eating meat. They love meat so much, it looks like they had already liquid meat in their bottles as babies. They eat so much meat, that one of the guys we met even, got a protein poisoning (…). They usually went to boarding school abroad, but most come back to live on their farm and do their hunting.

Why Namibia was the most beautiful country we have seen in Africa? Because of the breathtaking views in Damaraland, the impressive Fish River Canyon, the red sand dunes in Sossusvlei and the endlessness of the Namib desert. We would recommend anyone to spend at least one holiday in this country.

Yes, my pass!

There were so many ‘unafrican’ things about this country, but there was one situation that showed us that Namibia is still African. When we arrived in Keetmanshoop, 500 km from Windhoek on our way to South Africa, I discovered that I, idiot that I am, left my passport at the lodge in Windhoek. This was a bit problematic because we wanted to cross the border the morning after. Driving back was not really an option, since 2x 500 km is quite diesel- and time-heavy. We called the hostel, asking if they could send it with DHL. She could, she assured us, but she had no idea of the costs and DHL was already closed. Hmm. Still being on the cheap, this wasn’t the best option. So Conny had the bright idea that I could take a train back. We made inquiries and there was actually a night train one hour later. The evening after I could take the same train back, setting us back one day at acceptable costs. A day delay…weren’t there faster options? Then Conny thought of taking a minibus back so we would only lose half a day. So I asked a random family at the train station and the husband took out his mobile phone and called a befriended minibus driver who could take me. We thought ‘well done, all set then.’ But then I thought, why not just having that driver pickup my passport in that hostel so I don’t have to go to Windhoek? Long story short: that driver called another driver who leaves Windhoek in the morning for Keetmanshoop, driver called the hostel, I called a friend at the hostel to pay the receptionist for a taxi to bring my passport to the bus driver in Windhoek, and half a day later some bus driver named Heinrich handed me my passport. This is only possible in Africa. You just gotta love it.

Two empty nesters

Let me take the opportunity here to express my admiration for how Amelie adjusted to our way of travelling. Without complaining, she managed to squeeze her bag into a tiny space in the car, slept in a tent in Africa, even did wild camping with us when there were wild zebras in close vicinity. It went very well and we were very glad that she travelled with us a few weeks. We had a weird, empty-nest sort of feeling when we had dropped her off at the airport and headed towards South Africa.

The attack of the Tsetse flies and other stories

Amelie's visit, Damaraland, Namibia, The journey, Wild campingFeb 02 20147 Comments

Hello again everybody! Sorry it took awhile before you heard from us but we have been pretty preoccupied with everything between enjoying tear-bringing views and surviving desert drives. I’ll tell you all about it in a shortlist of events happening in the past few weeks.

Just a short recap of our whereabouts past weeks: after Malawi we went to Zambia, where we visited the metropole Lusaka, the famous Victoria falls and did some very exciting and bloody rafting on the Zambezi river. And a special highlight in Zambia: picking up Amelie, Cornelius’ cousin, from the Airport, who is now travelling with us for 3,5 weeks. It is great to have her here and it is nice to have a change of company for a while 🙂

After Zambia we headed to Botswana, where we visited the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park, which boasts the world’s largest elephant population. Now we are in Swakopmund, Namibia, and plan to go to Sossusvlei tomorrow. So, back to our personal pick of events.

The scariest event: the Tsetse fly attack in Kafue National Park

That morning we set sail to the national park. Sebastian, a German NGO worker based in Lusaka, had told us to ‘absolutely, most definitely visit Kafue’ because there were supposed to be ‘loads and loads of animals, just along the main road so no entrance fees to be paid.’ Sounded good. We planned to drive up and down the main road and camp in the wild somewhere on a side road.

The first 80 km through the park turned out to be a total disappointment. Sebastian got our hopes up very high, but all we saw were a couple of zebras, two elephants from far away and a glimpse of a hippo in the river. A very meagre show. We decided to drive back and find a spot to setup our camp.

We found a quiet parallel dirt road and drove two, three kilometres into the forest. When it was time for a toilet break we crouched down, each on one side of the car. Just after I pulled my pants down, it happened. I heard zooming around my head and saw flies in front of me. It was a different kind of zooming than the normal housefly produces: more aggressive, louder. ‘Ouch, shit!’ I felt a nasty sting in my right buttock and I slapped the fly away. ‘shit, again!’ and swept the fly from my lower back and rubbing the painful spot. From the slapping and yelling coming from the other side of the car I could tell that the flies had also discovered Cornelius. The little suckers aimed and were persistent, their number growing and growing. The noise got so loud we could hardly hear each other. ‘Conny! Just pull your pants up and get in the car. Now!’ and slightly panicked we drove off.

Through the open windows the flies kept coming and coming. And they were persistent! Dozens were sitting on the window, waiting for their turn to feast on our flesh. We tried to fan them out of the car, but no success. More stinging, more panic.

We needed a change of strategy. No panicking and screaming anymore. Now it was our turn! We stopped the car, closed the windows and the Conny & Githa death squad kicked off. They had such hard skins that just pressing them on the window didn’t do the trick: you really had to take the fly between two fingers under your cloth and pinch with all your strength until you heard it cracking. And even then, they sometimes recovered and attacked again.

We hit, squeezed, pinched and smacked until finally, after 50 minutes, the floor of the car was covered in dead brown-and-grey winged bullies. We sighed in relief and turned the car around to find a fly-free area.

On the way back we were lucky though: we saw a cheetah (which is very rare) crossing the street and crouching besides the road, watching us watching him. This grand finale made our visit to Kafue definitely worthwhile. Afterwards Wikipedia told us that these tough-pantsered little terrorists were Tsetse flies. They can infect you with sleeping disease.

The bloodiest event: white water rafting on the Zambezi

To give Amelie the proper introduction to Africa, we thought a rafting trip on the Zambezi river would be a great idea. That morning we were picked up in our hostel by the organisation and after an extensive explanation on how to get back in the boat when you fall out and how to dodge crocodiles, we kicked off the raft from shore. Rafting on the Zambezi was amazing: mastering rapids between level 3 and 5 and between rapids enjoying the vast rock formations of the gorges and swimming in the warm river. The organisation also spiced up the trip with some ‘extra curricular’ items such as cliff jumping and sliding of rocks.

At one point the guides had the excellent idea to slide off some cliffs in a train setting. Obviously Conny was up for another adventure and took the middle position, in which he was sandwiched by the two guides. The rest of the rafters stayed behind and watched, being unsure if this was such a good idea. The 3 people train kicked off, swirled down the rocks and when they hit the water, water splashed, heads collided and the train got derailed. Laughter and relieved faces everywhere, when Connies face appeared, his face was covered in blood. The skin over his left eyebrow had teared during the head-to-head confrontation. It was a frightening sight, this 5 cm cut, and when we got back into the boat to finish the last rapids, the feeling of excitement was replaced by silence and apprehension.

After the trip we went to the local dispensary where a young doctor stitched Conny up. He was assisted by a stern looking, heavyweight nurse in white dress and white hospital shoes and dictated the medication he should take. ‘Antibiotics were especially important’, she stated while preparing a nice pill-and-cream cocktail, ‘because there are all kinds of germs and bacteria in that Zambezi’. Conny ‘Waldorf/geitenwol’ Huber initially didn’t want to take any pills. When she heard his response, her lips pressed into a thin line, her jawline tightened. She heaved her large body from the seat, marched into the examination room en planted herself in front of him. She looked as strict as only seen on Surinamese women trying to discipline a misbehaving child. She placed one hand on her hip, patted Connies cheek with the palm of the other and said ‘boy, you WILL take your pills.’ And Conny took his pills. He is okay now, in a Frankenstein-like way.

The most expensive event: getting a wide angle

I was bummed out by my camera. I have had this digital mirror reflex camera for years and I was always happy with the pictures it produced, but after it ate dust in the Simien mountains and I had it cleaned, it wasn’t the same as before. It never managed to get it back to its old self. Until I visited mister Nitsche-Reiter in Windhoek.

While driving to Namibia I had looked at pictures in the guide book of what I imagined should be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. How could we travel here and not being able to make good pictures myself? I felt desperation sneaking up on me and decided to have my camera checked and if it was still okay, give myself a wide angle objective (suitable for landscapes) as a very, very early birthday present. Mister Nitsche-Reiter was a specialist and, lucky for me, he was German. So with a precision only seen in Germans he adjusted settings, checked body and lens, gave me advise and sold me a powerful wide angle objective at a reasonable price. And my investment paid off: not only did my new wide angled friend lived fully up to expectations, also my camera-old lens combination was rocking it again. Thanks to the able help of the German-Windhoekian camera whisperer!

The most impressive event: laying eyes on the endless Namib Desert in Damaraland

After visiting the capital Windhoek we drove into one of the widest, most deserted areas of Namibia: Damaraland. This area is named after the indigenous people that originally reside here. There are not many inhabitants though, not in Damaraland, nor in Namibia as a whole. With 2,1 million people and ca. 2 persons per square kilometres, Namibia is among countries with the lowest people density in the world. On top of that, urbanisation has also reached Damaraland, resulting in us only seeing a handful of people during two days.

We drove to Spitzkoppe, an impressive inselberg, or island hill, surrounded by vast lakes of emptiness and sand. We had the intention of visiting the hills and sleeping at the campsite. Upon arrival we learned that the Namibian government ‘conveniently’ placed a fence around mountain and camping, so that they could ask enormous entrance fees for both gigs. We didn’t manage to bargain a discount (‘no madam, if we do that, or if our boss allows that, he will get big big problems with the bigger bosses! No discount.’), and asked if wild camping was allowed. Eyebrows were raised in confusion. ‘Yes, but…this is desert. You sure about that? But…You will have no facilities.’ We closed the door, replied ‘yes, we have anything we need,’ turned around and found a beautiful spot at the other side of the mountain. We setup camp on the foot of a smaller hill with a stunning sunset view over the Spitskoppe hills- When we climbed to a high point and first layes eyes on the vast wideness of the Namib Desert in Damaraland. I thought this was one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. It reminded me a bit of the Wadi Rum in Jordan. A great camping spot and dazzling views without paying a penny, we loved it!

The most unsatisfactory event: getting stuck, and again, and again, in the Namib desert sand

After Spitzkoppe we wanted to drive to Twyfelfontein, an Unesco world heritage sight. But none of us looked on the map before taking off and like three zombies, we just followed the instructions of the navigation. The road got dustier and softer, the car got more instable and swayed through the deep sand. We switched from 2WD to 4WD, then to low gear 4WD but it wasn’t enough: we got stuck, the wheels buried in the hot sand.

We got the shovel out and prepared for zealous labour: it was 1:30 pm, the sun was burning and the sand was deep. Twisted enough, Conny sat behind the wheel and Amelie and I took turns shovelling (how did this casting happen?!). After the first excitement of getting loose, we got stuck again. So more shovelling. And then we got stuck again, and again. More shovelling, more sweating, Conny giving instructions from the window casually. After reaching firm ground we sat in the car relieved but we decided to turn around because we didn’t want to risk getting stuck beyond the point that we couldn’t get out by ourselves and had to spend the night there in the desert with wild zebras (and probably lions) running around and zero cars or people to be found for help.

So that day brought us two very unsatisfactory events: 1) no Twyfelfontein and 2) Amelie and I exhausted, covered in sweat, almost dehydrated and Cornelius nonchalantly commenting from the front seat ‘well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’

The most frustrating event (for Conny, that means): trying to get rid of the sand

Those of you who have driven in a desert before know the phenomenon: the sand comes from everywhere and settles everywhere until there is not one dust free spot. Mouth and ears included. Also when you turn on the ventilation system, the first few seconds feel as if someone who has his hands full of sand, holds them into a cup before your face and blows the whole lot into your eyes.

So after our desert adventures Conny, who cleans far more than I do, couldn’t wait to start sweeping (just got to love that man!). Need I say more?

With the bus clean as a whistle and we are taking off to Sossusvlei tomorrow, while Amelie relives her adrenaline shot she got while diving the Namibian sky!