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Camping with Lizzie and Roel at Gekko camp (left and Sesriem (right)
30th July
Had a cool day yesterday exploring the canyon and I can confirm that it is pretty damn big. Also very stunning and impressive. Although Namibia is my favourite country I had forgotten quite how beautiful it rally is. This makes a brilliant end to the trip, travelling with some cool guys and going through my favourite country.
From Fish River we headed to a place called Spitzkoppe (means pointy head in German apparently). We stayed in this farm where about 4 years ago the farmer found one of the largest collections of mesosaur fossils around. You can drive to these fossils and they are amazing to look at. So well preserved so that you can even see their teeth. It was these fossils (not the ones literally on this farm!) that helped confirm Wegner’s theory of continental drift because exactly that same ones found in Southern Africa were found in South America (fort you geog geeks out there!). We also saw some great examples of quiver trees and these weird dolerite rock formations. Can’t really describe them, best that you look at the photos.
2nd august
Well we are finally in Walvis Bay. This is where we ship home from and is the 3rd and final end of the trip. It was pretty weird driving the last few kms towards town thinking that the trip was over in terms of moving on. However, as you can probably guess we have big plans for the future!
However, the last few days were a lovely final few. We re-visited Sesriem and Sossusvlei, another of my favourite places, again and then had a final night (illegally!) bush camping in the Namib-Naukluft National Park. It has been good fun travelling Roel because he is as obsessed with landies as me and so we could discuss tyre choice, roof tent etc to our hearts contents. We have arranged to catch up with them the in Windhoek for dinner and a few beers before we fly back home.
Photos from around Fish River Canyon.
Now for the final thoughts as we prepare to leave! (Maybe be a bit of a lecture this, sorry!)
Africa rocks, there is no other way of saying it. The trip has lived up to all of our expectations and more. At the beginning it was about the destination, just get to the truck to Cape Town. However, as you can imagine, as things progressed our priorities changed. It became more about experiencing Africa and seeing things we wouldn’t have the chance to see again. This altered our perspective somewhat and gave us a better opportunity to experience what some of the countries are really about. This is because we would deviate from the standard tourist route and really get into the bush. By doing this we met far more local people and got much better perspectives on what is going on in the country.
They say out here that Africa get into your blood. I can certainly vouch for that. Obviously we already had an interest in Africa or we wouldn’t have travelled here. However, just being here and meeting so many wonderful people has created within me a passion for Africa and Africans. The people here are so friendly, welcoming and hospitable it blew us away. We never expected that. I read a quote that said “the darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.” I think this is certainly true. You don’t get many positive stories coming out of this continent and therefore it creates a biased opinion of things. We have met white South Africans who can’t believe where we have travelled. They say they would never travel out of South Africa. When we point out that South Africa has the worst crime rates in the whole continent they shrug and say that it can’t be as bad as the rest of the continent. We read the stories and assume that they must be true for the whole of Africa. It is scary the amount of people that still think Africa is a single country. It is a hugely diverse continent made up of 48 independent states. That’s a lot of different places and views. Our ignorance of it makes us scared of it.
Africa has huge problems, there are well known to us and to a certain extent we are bored with hearing about them. They are all the same: aids, hunger, poverty, corruption etc etc. However, just because we hear about them regularly doesn’t mean they go away. The West needs to get away from the mentality that money solves problems. If you give someone with nothing huge sums of money to help others should you really be surprised when in many cases that money goes missing? I think it stems from the Western mentality where that money cans fix things. It does at home but pure cash doesn’t help out here. In my opinion it is the transfer of skills that is needed. Africans aren’t stupid or work shy; it is simply that in many cases they don’t have the skills to improve things. I really hope that what I am saying doesn’t come across as superior or racist. I am not saying that westerners are better than Africans, I am saying that through many years of perfecting our education system and hundred of years of development we have a more skilled labour force. As this developed, skilled society I personally feel that we have a moral responsibility to help Africa. People mock Blair’s focus on Africa, saying that he is trying to repair his damages reputation. Whatever his motives, anything that gets more attention focused on this continent is good. The sad fact is that Africa offers little to the rest of the world and therefore we have only a passing interest. A great example is Zimbabwe. Mugabe is just as much of a dictator that Hussein was. Look at the genocide that Mugabe committed against his rival tribe the Ndebele. It is reckoned that he murdered about 20,000 of them. However, what does Zim offer to us? Nothing is the sad answer which is why we grumble and moan about how bad he is but don’t actually do anything about it. Is Zim was oil rich we’d have been in there like a shot protecting our interests. If we really are this moral society we would be helping Zim out simply because it is the right thing to be doing.
How can we help Africa? I don’t have all the answers what so ever. However, we have seen so many volunteer projects out here that if we decided to do one for our 3 weeks holiday every so often, that would certainly help. If people at home did this and transferred their skills instead of their money then the long term benefit would be immeasurable. The Oxfam gift aid idea is also something that has noticeable results out here. We have also met people who have sponsored children through reputable agencies and these children are now at university and really have an opportunity to improve their situation. Obviously huge sums of money are needed to support these projects and therefore donations are needed which obviously gives value to red nose day and comic relief etc. People just need to be very careful about what organisations they donate their money to.
I have totally fallen in love with Africa and will definitely be coming back here to travel and work. I would like to get into a career that combines teaching and being out here. Although it was the most frustration thing I have ever done teaching in Umtata was also brilliant. However, the inefficiency of the department and the lack of training they provide to the teachers angered me so much that I can not leave my contribution to the tiny amount of work that we did out here. There is so much work to be done that I just want to come out here again and again until I see a noticeable change in things. My long term plan would be to get out here as an education consultant, if such a thing exists, and really try to help from the inside.
Whatever happens, you can guarantee that we will back here. Africa rocks! Go give it a try and I challenge you not to be totally intoxicated with the place. Thanks for following our trip. Hope you enjoyed what I had to say. At the moment our tentative plans are to overland through West Africa for 10 weeks next summer so hopefully they’ll be more for you to read. See you all soon.
