April Break - Northern Namibia

 

(April 2024) On the way to Swakopmund, Namibia, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. This is the group that departed together from Cape Town a week earlier.

Traveling north, the scenery was never dull and always changing.

At Swakopmund, our first stop was Walvis Bay to see flamingoes. On the coast, temperatures were much cooler than in the desert. Morning fog was common and afternoon sunshine felt wonderful.
Swakopmund shows strong German and Africaan influences. The Germans arrived after the Dutch and developed a port. After WWI, the colony was controlled by the Union of South Africa. 
A large retirement community lives here, many from outside the country. Prices are very reasonable, including beachfront property.
Exploring some of the neighborhoods
The Namibian currency is the Namibian dollar so it was strange to see coffee drinks for $35. The US dollar is equal to $18 Namibian dollars, so the coffee drinks are quite reasonable.

We found a large, public recreational center not far from our bed and breakfast.
The ground floor had floor hockey fields. Two floors above ground level was a 2-lane pool where Chris had his first real swim workout.

We spent 2 nights in Swakopmund. The first night we ate as a group at an Italian restaurant. A group of local performers sang African songs for us. They were very good and it was a fun counterpoint to an "Italian" meal. In Swakopmund, the Peruvian photographer traveling with us left the group and we gained a Lithuanian woman living in the UK who would travel with us until Victoria Falls. She had intended to start in Cape Town and paid for it. Much to her consternation, she couldn't get a South African visa for some bureaucratic reason.
This sign was posted at the rec center, worthy of a picture.

Swakopmund was a strange place with strong remnants of a deeply divided and segregated past. We saw mostly non-European Africans working in stores and restaurants. The patrons were white tourists and residents. This is a big tourist town, but this isn't the only Namibian town where we witnessed this segregation.


Most of the Atlantic coast of Namibia is protected national park land. North of Swakopmund is known as the Skeleton Coast for the number of stranded whales and shipwrecked sailors who perished here. The coast is arid desert and remote. Even sailors who made it to shore didn't last long without freshwater.

The bones here are not human!!!


A shipwreck

We did not see any stranded whales and only explored a small section of the 500km coast park.

We did see and smell thousands of fur seals at Cape Cross! It looked like mostly females with young about 3-4 months old.
It was difficult to process the huge number of fur seals, and many were out in the ocean while we were there.
The viewpoint was occupied by fur seals!





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