Around The World in 66 Days: Vast areas of nothing....

The exit from Etosha was an adventure in itself. Because of poaching, the Namibian police monitor and control park traffic. Seems the latest way for the poachers is to use drones to locate the specific animal of interest (those with tusks or horns) and then go in for the kill. Thus, the police search your car...not for drugs...but for drones! Oh, the technology. Anyway, upon reaching the gate we had four different people process us out: one to record our tag number in a log, one to spray our tires for hoof-n-mouth disease, one to search our car and one to inspect our exit papers, receipts and passports. Plus, there were five others sitting under the shade tree staring at us. Oh well, such poor productivity keeps many Namibian people employed and Lord knows, they need the income. So, after passing the drone check, we are off, heading south to our destination about 250 km's away...the town of Uis.

We began to see entrepreneurial locals with stands along the side of the road, frantically doing anything possible to wave us down and get us to stop and buy whatever they were selling...usually rocks or pieces of ostrich eggs. One could see their homes in the background and the poverty was just gut-wrenching...10x10 huts made from discarded tires, cardboard and whatever else they could find along the side of the road. It made us want to stop, give them all our money, keys to our car and tell them how lucky we were to live in the United States. But, we didn't stop because we'd then be obligated to buy and just couldn't bear to negotiate what was sure to be exorbitant prices for junk. We did find other ways to give money, as described later.

Give them credit, these bush people...members of the Owahimbas tribe...tried every marketing trick they could to stop the tourists. From parading their kids around on donkeys to the mommas going shirtless in all their tribal garb with their enormous tatas hanging down, they did it all! In fact, we later saw them in the local grocery store pushing carts with the same level of clothing. Quite an odd site to see.

We ate lunch here.

Our stop for the night was at a B&B in Uis, Namibia...no hotels between Etosha and the Atlantic Ocean, our stop the next night and too far to drive in one day. Adequate, but we found when we checked in that the place had new owners (two weeks on the job) who clearly had some learning to do and also were dealing with several maintenance issues such as hot water, no water, swamp-like pool, etc. BUT...in their attempt to be gracious hosts, combined with our desperate pleas for help, the owners wife, Michelle, washed, dried and folded every piece of clothing we had for U.S.$24.00. Our scheduled laundry day was three days earlier in Etosha and the government employees there were completely indifferent to our plight...even after our bribery attempts that usually always got them moving.

Uis is a very small community in the middle of nowhere that existed because of a tin mining operation that was there until ten years ago. Now, there's no work and nowhere to go to find work. Those that are motivated enough to do anything besides sit under a tree and drink beer try to sell rocks on the side of the road, offer to guard your car when you stop at a gas station, or extort money from unsuspecting tourists that take their picture. Anyway, we had a pretty decent supper at a rest camp a few blocks from our B&B, were in bed by 8:00 and after the room finally cooled off (no A\C), slept until daybreak.

Bill thanking the new owner for the great laundry service!

After a 200 km drive the next day, we dead-ended smack into the Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful turquoise water, waves crashing and ice cold. Very different from the American side! Our destination was the pretty German coastal city of Swakopmund. Plus, after seven nights roughing it, we were ready for a little pampering in one of the suites of the Hansa Hotel, a beautiful old hotel built in 1905. Walked the city, scouted a good German brewhaus for supper and Bill got a $6.00 haircut from Justy at the local hair salon. Very cool city...wish we could have stayed a bit longer. But, the dunes are calling so tomorrow we will continue 500 km south to see them and begin what we hope will be the highlight of our time in Namibia...three nights at the luxury lodge "Wolwedans" in Namibrand Nature Preserve.d