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Namibia is an intriguing country, a land of deserts, diamonds, and dinosaur tracks, strikingly reminiscent of the American Southwest. We spent 11 days in the country (almost four longer than we had planned due to the car trouble saga) and in that short time experienced only a handful of the nation’s natural attractions.

Above all, Namibia is a land of superlatives, home of the biggest, the deepest, the longest, and the oldest. Outside Grootfontein, we visited the world’s largest meterorite. From there, we traveled on to the small town of Tsumeb, which is the naturally occurring home of 184 minerals, 10 of which are found nowhere else on the planet. We marveled at Etosha, a vast plain where prehistoric waters once ran, walked in 170 million year old dinosaur tracks outside Omaruru, and gathered rocks at the Spitzkoppe, a 1,728 meter sandstone monolith also known as the Matterhorn of Africa. We descended to the shore and took in the world’s largest seal colony (perhaps the foulest smelling experience of our lives) at Cape Cross on the southern end of the notorious Skeleton Coast. The coast is usually foggy and foreboding, the result of the cold Atlantic sea air colliding with its warm desert counterpart, but our day with the seals proved bright and beautiful. It was on the way back to Swakopmund from the stinkfest that our van, Uncle Vito, gave up the ghost. Fortunately he carried us as far as our lodge before collapsing for good.

Dax and I frolicked in the sand dunes outside Swakopmund, but they were mere molehills compared to the biggest and oldest of the planet’s sand dunes which we visited at Sossuvlei. We ascended Dune 45 to watch the sunrise (some of us faster than others) and enjoyed the 4×4 capabilities of our replacement car as we slid through the sands outside the Big Daddy dune which stands over 300 meters high. We returned to the port town of Walvis Bay, birthplace of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, where Uncle Vito languished in the parking lot of the repair shop waiting for parts to arrive from South Africa. Like its neighbor to the north, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay is a small oasis in the midst of a bleak, windswept desert seascape.

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Finding a long term rental car is a challenge. Anne started working on a rental car for Southern Africa weeks before we arrived. When we had internet, she would check prices at all the big shops and search for a smaller shop that might give us a deal. All were very expensive and it started to look hopeless. We debated going Indian style - putting all 6 of us and our luggage in a VW Golf or a Smart Car, but in an effort to stay sane and legal, we decided to go with something with 6 seats. This kept the price high, but we got lucky and finally found a smaller rental car company which cost significantly less than the big boys. They delivered the car a couple of days late, which was fine as we were lazily recovering from India in Pretoria.

When our van of choice finally arrived, everyone piled in and off we went on a test drive. The children took to the car and started calling it Uncle Vito as it the model name was Mercedes Vito. Uncle Vito came to us a little damaged. The previous renters had abused him and broken a seat and the passenger side sliding door. Even with his bumps and bruises, the kids latched on. I couldn’t quite get over some of the car’s shortcomings and made statements like, “Vito, the shame of Mercedes.” Uncle Vito probably heard me talking and decided to turn on us. Our unassuming mini-van was to become the cause of much hardship for both us and the wildlife of Namibia.

I am still probably too harsh on Vito. He made it the first 4000 kilometers of our Southern Africa drive without incident. His thirst for oil was a little worrisome, but he pushed us through all the dangerous places (South African townships, Botswana’s wild bush, Zambia, and the Caprivi Strip). But when we left Etosha, Uncle Vito started struggling. His internal computer put a governor on us and would not go over 3000 RPM’s. This slowed us down considerably and we puttered to the closest Mercedes repair shop, which took us well off our chosen path. We spent a day wandering outside the repair shop while they tried to resolve the problem. After about 3-4 hours they threw up their hands and sent us on our way. They told us, we needed to go to a bigger repair shop which would have the latest computer diagnostics. They told us and Vito’s owner that he would be safe to drive and sent us on our way 400-500 kilometers away from the next repair shop.

Driving at our reduced speed, we were able to see more of the countryside as fully functional cars zoomed past us. Uncle Vito’s slow pace had an added drawback. We haven’t quite figured it out yet, but his slow rate of progress and low level engine noise turned him into a stealthy critter hunter. We have been keeping track of the number of animals we’ve inadvertently killed on the trip. (We would be bad Jains.) The number had not been significant considering the sheer number of miles we (and our drivers) have driven: a parrot in Australia, a chicken in Cambodia, a cat in India, and a big lizard in Botswana. But in 6-8 hours of slow driving through Namibia, we went on a mad killing spree. It started with a few single birds. Anne would scream, I would groan, and we would move on. Then we got a double kill. Two little birds were playing on the side of the road and together flew right up into the windshield. Thump, Thump. Next we almost took out a family of warthogs. One especially bright boar waited for us to approach and darted right in front of us just as we passed. I swerved a little and the frightened pig skidded to a stop right at our tire and spun around in retreat. Dax claims he has never seen an animal’s eyes look that big. Soon after the pigs came a sparrow and a sparrow hawk who unfortunately was chasing it. We only heard one thud, so we might have missed the sparrow. A couple more birds followed and before the night was over we hit a bat. (Who hits a bat?) By the end of the day we had killed a double digit number of winged wildlife, the last one being stuck in our grill when pulled into our camp site.

The next day was much less eventful as we drove through the desert. Our killing spree came to a temporary halt but Uncle Vito was not done with us yet. The following day we took an easy drive of about 100 kilometers up the coast to see some seals. On the return trip about 20 miles outside our destination Uncle Vito went from bad to worse. He started to heat up and refused to go over 30 kilometers an hour. Never pushing his temperature gauge into the red zone, we limped him along until he finally rolled to an exhausted halt outside the gate of our backpackers’ lodge. Later that night a tow truck came and took Uncle Vito away. The repair shop did an analysis and told us it would be two days before they could fix him. Since our rental car company could find no other replacement car from Capetown to Windhoek, we decided to make the best of the situation and wait. The morning it was due to be repaired, we called the shop and found out it would be at least two more days since it was a national holiday and the part they thought would be arriving from the capital four hours away actually had to come from Johannesburg. By this point, we told our rental car company they absolutely had to find us another vehicle. We were understanding, as they are a small company and were 2000 kilometers away. They again spent all day looking and still came up with nothing. Anne and I decided to go look ourselves. We couldn’t find another mini van but we did find a king cab pickup and a 15 seat microbus. The rental car company agreed to rent us the truck so we could go to Sossusvlei while Vito’s repairs were completed. It was a 500 kilometer drive there one day and another 500 kilometer drive back the next.

Of course, when we returned from our cramped drive, (6 of us do not really fit in a 5 seat king cab) Uncle Vito was sitting in the lot with his front bumper off, draining liquid, with no hope of a speedy recovery. Distraught we called the rental car company again and told them we could wait no longer. We had already lost 3-5 days and needed the 15 seat microbus to take us to Capetown. They agreed and the next morning we were on our way in a Toyota Quantum. Now this car I liked. The kids have not come up with a good name for the Quantum and I could care less. It made the 2000 kilometer drive at top speed without causing us any trouble…at least while I was driving. The ghost of Uncle Vito popped up and spooked two hapless guinea fowl into the Quantum’s speeding bumper while Anne was driving. Her scream is still echoing through the canyons of Namibia.

Editor’s Note: Tom’s selective memory erased the fact from his brain that he actually killed one bird with the Quantum before I decapitated the guinea fowl. — Anne

Technorati Tags: birds, mercedes vito, Namibia, roadkill, vito

We’ve been keeping a big secret for the past week or so, but it’s finally time to spill the beans. Earlier today we filmed a segment for The Oprah Winfrey Show at the base of Table Mountain in Capetown. Oprah’s people first contacted us in January but didn’t find a show that was the perfect match for us until now. They arranged for Oprah to interview us via satellite from Capetown’s most spectacular natural setting on March 28th. We had a driver, a producer, a make-up artist, and a film crew, and in general felt like celebrities for a day…all for a 10-minute segment! The tentative plan is for the show to air on April 2, a quick five day turnaround from taping to airing. We won’t be able to see the show until Tom’s parents bring a copy to Turkey with them in mid-April, so be sure to record/watch and tell us how we did. (No comments on weight loss or gain, please!) Feel free to tell anyone and everyone you know.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Oprah Winfrey, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Table Mountain

While being stuck in Swakopmund due to Uncle Vito’s heart problems, my mom and I decided to try out the local sport of sand-boarding. It was on my list of things to do in Africa from the beginning so I was quite excited to finally get a chance to do it. There were two options, lie down boarding, which resembled what we had done a couple months back in Vietnam but much faster and crazier, and stand up boarding, basically snowboarding on sand. My mom chose the first and I chose the latter. We were picked up early in the morning by a bus full of instructors. After a quick stop to pick up some German tourists, we drove a little farther into the sand dunes and stopped at a base point. Here the instructors explained to us what we’d be doing and suited us up with boots and bindings. Everyone made sure the equipment fit and then we were separated into three groups: lie down boarders, experienced stand up boarders, and novice stand up boarders.

After being separated we started off up the dune. It was quite the hike. On the way the instructors explained that since the dunes were public property, they couldn’t build a lift. Since they didn’t want to deface the dune, they don’t take quad bikes up, so every day they and their clients make the long steep walk up the dunes. After an exhausting hike we reached the top and followed our various instructors to different parts of the dunes. My instructor, a surfer from So-Cal, gave me and the one other German who hadn’t snowboarded the basics on sandboarding. After a little while he said it was time to take a run on the dune. Having never done anything like this before, and not knowing what it would be like, I was a little nervous so I opted to go after the German. He went and made it look relatively easy. I tried to follow up and found it was much harder than I had anticipated. It was nothing like surfing or skating. I could hardly make it a couple meters without falling. I was distraught when I reached the bottom of the dune but intent on doing better my second run.

While I was climbing back up the dune for my next run I had a nice talk with the German tourist. When we reached the summit, I found that the next run down I would be trying my hand at lie down boarding. I watched a few people go before me and it looked like a good deal of fun. I positioned myself on the board and was pushed off by the instructor. I started blazing down the dune at 55 kilometers an hour. I once again had to climb the dune and by now was totally exhausted. I reached the top, and despite being tired, quickly strapped on my board for the second run. This time I took the dune straight on and barreled down it. I was doing quite well until it came time to stop. I had forgotten how and so I attempted to do it the only way I could think of. Kicking the tail of my board out. This didn’t end well as I pulled an “ostrich” and had my head stuck in the sand. I was excited about my run though and made my way up to the summit again. Once again I was strapped up for another run, but one of the instructors wanted me to do a tandem lie down board with my mom. The tandem was more like sitting up and was very slow. I objected but in the end was forced into it. My mom asked me how it was so far and I told her “Great, except for this!” She agreed and said the tame sit down run wasn’t worth the effort of hiking back up.

The rest of the day I did a few more runs, getting a little better every time. I did one more lie down board run going 67 kilometers an hour, incredibly fast, down the biggest dune, which the Namibians call Dizzy. For my last run I decided to attempt going off the kicker (jump). I was nervous. I lined myself up and launched off. It was very exhilarating for the second or so I was in the air. When I came back down I managed to right myself but soon I was toppling over again. When everyone was at the bottom of the dune, it was the instructor’s turn. The first one down did a simple 180, while the second busted a huge front flip off the small kicker. Everyone was surprised and cheered him on. We made our way back to the cars and had some drinks and sandwiches. Everyone was parched and guzzled down multiple sodas. We all talked for a while over our meal. My mom met an American who had home-schooled her children while they lived on a fishing island in Alaska, and I talked to some Italians who were interested in my online schooling. Soon we said our goodbyes and headed back to our hostel. This experience has me hooked on sandboarding and currently I’m trying to find a place to sandboard in Capetown. Now to find a place to sandboard in Georgia…

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Namibia, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, sand dunes, Sandboarding, Swakopmund