Namibia

Namibia has got to be one of our favourite countries so far – we spent only about one week there which was not even close to enough. 

We arrived in Windoek and met up with some PCVs there who were doing their midservice conference.  They took us to a place that served cocktails out of jam jars & teapots and then all you can eat pizza!  They were staying at a fancy hotel suites situation where all the rooms had little kitchenettes & sitting areas, we were very impressed – definitely not the Maroua case. 

We went out to Swakopmund which is on the beach – about 5 hours away from the capital.  Travelling in Namibia is pretty frustrating because it is HUGE and there’s hardly any people in it.  Most PCVs have to hitchhike just to get to and from post.  There were virtually no share taxis.  We were really regretting that we both have expired drivers licenses and renting a car was pretty much off the table. 

From Swakop we went sandboarding; this was awesome.  We opted for the lie-down version which was essentially like sledding but down a giant sand dune.  You felt sort of like you were engaged in an extreme sport – but the worst that could happen if you fell off was a mouthful of sand.  Sandboarding instructor might be my future occupation.  We also went quadbiking around the dunes.  Our guide’s bike got a dead battery so Claire and I ended up doubling up about halfway through.  This was actually more comforting cause it felt more like a Cameroonian moto ride.  It also confirmed that it’s probably a good thing we had not rented a car to drive around the country.    

We joined a tour group to visit Sandwich Harbor, one of the places of the giant sand dunes because there was basically no other way for us to get there.  We were the youngest people in the group by at least 50 years.  Everybody was really sweet and referred to us as “the girls.”  They got super excited about all kinds of little things, like spotting a seal, it was enjoyable. 

We continued on to Walvis Bay .  There we went out kayaking & we saw hundreds, thousands of seals.  The old ladies from our Sandwich Harbor trip literally would have lost it. 

Back in Windoek we went to dinner at the famous Joe’s Beer Bar where we tried zebra, crocodile, ostrich, kudu &  springbok!  Zebra was perhaps the favourite.  But eating that crocodile was definitely satisfying. 

Zambia

The southern portion of our Africa trip began with Zambia.  The first activity was a 3 day canoe safari down the Zambezi River.  Claire and I thought that between the two of us we had enough canoe experience to navigate our own canoe, following our guide in the first canoe.  However, once the canoe got packed to the brim with gear, the current, wind, oh and navigating around the piles of hippos… it was a bit harder than we had anticipated.   TK (our guide) ends up a bit ahead and he’s pointing at the riverbank.  We go over to check it out and end up at a 45 degree angle ready to crash into the riverbank.  That’s when I see that the thing he’s pointing at is a 15ft long crocodile which was sunning itself on the riverbank.  The croc was terrified and lunged into the water ….

Apparently crocodiles don’t usually attack from the land.  He was just scared and luckily our canoe was angled in such a way that he could just dive right in next to us without banging into the canoe or anything.  When I finally opened my eyes TK was standing up in his boat.  (We found out after the trip that he carries a gun.) 

So this was day one of the trip, thing were looking kind of bleak.  That’s when TK called in some reinforcements.  The next morning Carlos, a “stagier” paddled down the river and joined us.  He hopped in the back of my canoe and announced that he would take care of all the paddling and I could join in whenever, I was like alright this is more like it.  He totally one upped me on the crocodile story as his best friend got eaten by a crocodile – snatched down into the water as a child while he was swimming next to Carlos in the Zambezi!  Apparently there’s something like 30,000 crocs in Zambia and they’re all just crawling around the Zambezi river. 

But it’s not just the crocodiles that are a problem, there’s  hippos too.  Usually hippos behave like the Garoua ones in Cameroon, just lolling out in a big old heap during the day.  But when we came through the Zambezi all the male hippos were riled up over some sort of territorial issues.  They were up to halfway out of the water smashing into each other and making the scariest grunting noises.  We passed all this the first day and like that big croc, I just don’t even have any pictures because I felt as if I was paddling for my life. 

After the trip was over, Carlos and TK were genuinely happy that we had made it through without “incident”  …. This was surprising to us as we thought that would be the normal trip, not the exception… (I also would have counted the crocodile encounter as an “incident”).   Turns out a year ago, Carlos literally had to jump in the water and save some English woman when a hippo started attacking her boat.  She was so grateful to be still alive that she told Carlos she’d pay for him to continue his studies in whatever he wanted to do.  Despite being in his fourth year of riverguide training, Carlos is now going to start mechanic school.  He was like, I can’t get out of this riverguiding job soon enough, it is dangerous! 

Aside from the Croc encounter the trip was really delightful.  The Zambezi is the fourth longest river in Africa; we passed through some sections that were narrow and full of wildlife and others where the river seemed reallllly wide and the current/wind really picked up.  It’s really clean and you can actually just drink the river water.   I thought the coolest site was watching a whole herd of elephants troop across the river. 

We camped out both nights on sandy beaches where supposedly the hippos wouldn’t be interested in landing since there wasn’t much grazing.  But these were not camp sites like the Tanzania safari with loads of people and showers etc. …. This was like ok pitch your tent on the beach.  Have to go to the bathroom?  Fine, just don’t wander too far away cause you don’t really know what’s out there….  TK and Carlos cooked up some good food over the fire and we generally didn’t have any problem falling asleep to the scary animal noises since we were so exhausted from the paddling/sun slash they fed us a lot of wine.  It was fun. 

After the canoe trip we travelled to Livingstone to visit Victoria Falls!  We visited in September during dry season so apparently the volume of water passing over the falls was much less than in the wet/rainy season. 

But because it was the dry season we were able to visit “Livingstone Island.”  This is really just the stretch at the precipice of the falls.  During rainy season it’s all river and this “Island” is the visible stretch of land.  During the dry season the water is only about 1-3 feet high and you can approach the top of the falls by hopping rock to rock and wading through streams in linked hand chains.   When you finally get to the brink of the falls there is a deep pool called the Devil’s Pool where you can actually jump into and then lean on the large rock literally at the precipice.  It was pretty terrifying.  I wasn’t going to do it but I ended up getting shamed into it after this 70 something Italian woman took off her glasses and cannon balled into the water.  It was cool, we took a picture but I didn’t stick around. 

This video is our guide jumping into the "Devil's Pool" at the precipice of Vic Falls

The bus from Livingstone to Windhoek, Namibia only leaves twice a week so we ended up with some time to kill.  We did some last minute Peace Corpsy things like washing our clothes in a bucket, cutting each others’ hair and showing up at a bar with our own bottle of wine.  We went to a cool Zambian restaurant that served crunchy caterpillars as an appetizer with some other traveling former Peace Corps volunteers, it was fun. 

Kenya

We arrived directly in Nairobi after the worst bus ride ever.  The window next to us wouldn’t close and it was so freezing, bumpy and uncomfortable.  I literally had my raincoat tied around my face.  We went to the hotel where the Peace Corps volunteers stay while in Nairobi and basically just attached ourselves to them for the entire trip.  In Nairobi they took us out to tons of amazing places to eat.  We had iced cappuccinos, Coronas and Ethiopian food; we were very impressed. 

We joined Andrew and Stephanie (an RPCV from Senegal) for a trip out to Lake Naivasha.  We stayed at a cool lodge along the lake which actually had to put up a fence cause the hippos come out of the water during the night. 

The first day in Naivasha we rented bikes and road over to Hell’s Gate National park.  This is now my most favourite activity, the bike safari.  We passed zebras, antelopes, warthogs & buffalo, all just grazing along the side of the road.  After riding in we hiked down into the central gorge.  This was an awesome hike into more really cool rock formations.  There was a huge boulder that our Massai guide explained had been carried a hundred feet down the gorge during a flood and left only a small space to squeeze by on the path.  We found out afterwards that last year a big group of 50 was hiking down in the gorge and they continued on despite the rain and had to get rescued from the flash flood but some of them died.  So they had just reopened the gorge. 

The next day we went on an accidental moto safari.  We set out to visit the flamingos at the crater lakes but I think the ride down ended up being more remarkable.  All along the road were giraffes, zebra, baboons etc. 

Then we got recruited to join a hike that these two British volunteers were organizing up Mt. Longonaut.  Mt. Longonaut is really a huge volcano and when it erupted this giant crater blew out the center and when all the material eventually landed it separated what had once been a giant lake into a bunch of separate ones.  You hike up the side of the mountain (and in typical African style, there are no switchback trails so you’re often scrambling directly up vertical paths covered in sandy volcanic ash.)  We started really early in the morning and everything was covered in fog as we ascended.  It finally cleared up at the top and it was an incredible view.  At the top you can walk in a giant circle around the rim of the crater.  So you can look inside at the crater and then out down the gentler slopes of the mountain to your other side.  Sometimes the trail would get really narrow and you felt like you were just walking across a bridge almost.  Meanwhile the rim itself was not just a flat walk, it had a jagged surface full of ups and downs so you don’t actually Summit until you mount up to the highest of these peaks.  The mountain totally ate my sneakers.  The rubber sole which had started to melt in the safari campfire got the volcanic dust inside and started separating from the bottom so we ended up having to slice it off with Dan’s pocket knife. 

Then we went to a few more backwater towns off the beaten track and stayed with a Peace Corps volunteer.   We arrived at Josh’s house and he was awesome; he totally just took us in, fed us  & had our laundry done.  Then he sent us out hiking to these beautiful waterfalls where, oh wait, he just casually works!  He had warned us in advance that he had no electricity or running water.  We were like no problem, we’re used to it.  Then he said something about making a fire, and we were so excited, this was going to be just like Cameroon!  Turns out his “fire” is not in a pit outside with a marmite on top, he has a FIREPLACE inside of his house!  It felt just like we were staying in a log cabin/homestead situation out in the west. 

The second night a whole bunch of volunteers came in and we played cards and roasted hot dogs and chili over the fireplace.  All the volunteers actually had to practice consolidating since there are concerns about the upcoming elections.  Apparently at the last Kenyan elections there was a lot of violence and all the PCVs had to be evacuated.  Claire and I decided not to visit Mombassa, Lamu or any coastal areas on our trip since there has been some violence already.  I can’t imagine going through your day to day service with that possibility hanging over your head.   We did bond about lots of things that it seems Peace Corps has in common Africa-wide… like the horse-sized, pink, pre-natal vitamins that we are all mysteriously taking. 

We went back to Nairobi but this time stayed at the backpackers that Charlotte and Dan had recommended.  We met up with Phossie, Emily’s friend in Nairobi.  She took us out to the craft market and then out for some fish and ugali at a local place.  (Although I don’t know if it had anything on Maroua poisson braise w/ green sauce…) 

That night we decided to go out and see the Batman Movie with Charlotte and Dan.  Anyone claiming we are squandering our readjustment allowance on traveling is mistaken.  This was a very important “readjusting” activity.  Claire and I were “high on popcorn fumes” just on the edge of our chairs.  I had to have some key plot points explained discreetly while the others were in the toilet since I no longer possess the critical thinking ability to process a fast paced thriller movie.  We returned around midnight, way too pumped to sleep, it was very exciting. 

The following day Phossie and her mom took us to a friend’s wedding.  This was a FANCY Nairobi wedding.  The church service was at a Seventh Day Adventist church and it was CONSISE (granted we did arrive late) & it did involve repeating a lot of things in series of seven.  The reception was held at this POSH botanical garden; there were tents, rose pedals and a drink selection which extended beyond Fanta (which was still available).   The delicious food and the apparently pan-afrique female wedding shriek brought us right back to Camcam though. 

               

Phossie had to go back to work on Monday so Claire and I did some last day touristy items.  First we visited the elephant orphanage.  This was totally adorable.  Most of the “orphans” had been found with poached mothers or they were simply wandering.  There were lots of cute anecdotes of how they’re found since they’re sociable they tend to seek people out.  The little baby elephants are dependent on their mother’s milk for the first 2 years of their lives. Since they can’t very well “milk a wild elephant,” the center has to feed the babies this special vegetable based formula shipped in from England.  Then we visited the giraffe center.  You walk out onto a deck and feed the giraffes pellets, touch them, pet them, it’s cute. 

Finally we carpooled with Dan and Charlotte to the airport since we all had night flights out.  (They were going back home.)  We arrived at the airport incredibly early and got sidetracked into some very critical American vs. British English debates: unibrow or monobrow?  So we ended up chugging beers at the airport bar, attempting to buy liquor at the duty free and then getting paged twice, “Claire Kelly and Claire Kihn, please report to gate 4 for boarding immediately,”  to get on our flight as we ran through the airport!  Needless to say, we passssssed out on the flight to Lusaka. 

Uganda

We were able to hop on an overnight bus coming through Rwanda from Congo and continue on directly to the capital of Kampala. 

Once the realities of overland African travel were reconciled with the flight we had booked out of Nairobi, Uganda, like Rwanda, ended up being a much shorter trip than we originally expected.  Alma’s friend accused us of “beeping” Rwanda.  A beep is when you call somebody and hang up after just one or two rings.  You could do it to signal arriving safely at a destination, call me back or thinking of someone… it all depends on the scenario.  Basically it’s because you don’t have enough money to actually make a call.  (Cameroonians do this all the time.)  Anyways, we thought the comparison to our Rwanda trip as a “beep” was pretty hilarious.  Since we also “beeped” Uganda we’ll just have to figure out a time to come back in the future. 

We decided to visit the Rhino Sanctuary since our rhino sighting in the Serengeti was pretty distant.  It’s sad because the whole reason why this sanctuary needs to exist is because of how extremely bad the rhino poaching has become.  The rhino horns are even more valuable than elephant tusks and they’re being poached at such an extreme rate that they’re seriously in danger of becoming extinct.  A ranger took us trekking through some swampy forests and we came upon a couple groups of rhinos just chilling out.  They were relatively unphased so we got to go right up close.  This was our first walking safari and it was definitely a whole different feel; we didn’t have to stick to the roads or twist ourselves out of car windows for a view.

The following day we went white water rafting on the Nile, this was my favourite thing so far.  First of all the Nile was just so big and calm.  While getting to know our fellow rafters, we discovered that the rafter I was sitting next to knows my sister from work in NYC, small world!  We went over five rapids and flipped over on two of them.  There were elaborate instructions about how you were supposed to try & hold on to both the raft and the paddle in the event of a flip.  The first time we flipped, I let go of the paddle straight away but clung to the raft.   Camp Counselor Kihn instinctively held on to her paddle but let go of the raft so she had to get picked up by the “rescue kayak.”  This involved a hilarious straddling of the front of the kayak but I missed the whole thing by the time I got pulled onto the upside down raft & discovered she was missing.  Getting back into the raft in general required way more arm strength than I possessed.  We were very impressed by our guide who would just grab our lifejackets one handed and heave us back in.  The rafting took all day, in between the rapids were big sections of calm water where we got to hop out and swim/ drift along with the current. 

After the rafting the company put everybody up in their Nile-side resort.  It was basically just a glorified backpackers, but it was next to the Nile with an awesome view so we hung out with all our new rafting buddies & then hopped on the night bus for Nairobi the following evening. 

Apparently Lonely Planet had just ranked Uganda as the number one up and coming tourist destination or something along those lines.  Everyone was expecting a tourism boom… and then the Ebola outbreak happened and according to our rafting guide just trip after trip of people canceled their entire vacations.  Two of our friends were actually in Uganda during the outbreak and didn’t even hear about it until their return to America!  …Neither Claire nor I got Ebola, phew.