Hi!! I'm back in Windhoek. Pierre and Frank have left, and tomorrow Pablo and I will take a bus to Livingstone, in Zambia, to see Victoria Falls.
We returned the car. Thirteen days, 4,800 kilometers on the road, three flat tires, one minor accident, and countless emotions :-)
After Swakopmund, we went to see the famous red dunes. We watched the sunrise from the top of the highest dune, with no one else around.
Then we ended up in a rather surreal seaside town, Lüderitz, where a strong, cold wind was constantly blowing. Nearby, we visited a "ghost town": an abandoned settlement where, from 1908 to 1956, diamonds were mined, processed, and sold.
In the end, the best part of Namibia is actually the driving itself, being on the road, with constantly changing landscapes and animals all around or crossing in front of you. Cattle, various antelopes, ostriches, monkeys, giraffes... In fact, driving at night is not recommended, especially because there’s a large antelope called the kudu which, when it sees headlights, appears to be thrown into confusion and may run toward them. You can even end up finding one literally inside your car. Many fatal accidents have been caused by them.
What is truly fascinating about Africa is the sheer number of animals that surround you. Not everywhere, there weren’t many in Mozambique for example, but in general they are always around. In that sense, Europe is a bit sad.
Here, you wake up in the morning and sometimes there’s a monkey at your window. And especially at night... all sorts of strange, mysterious sounds, and sometimes the roar of lions (in Etosha National Park, although we were sleeping in a tent on top of the car, so we were theoretically safe). At almost every barbecue, jackals wander around, ready to snatch pieces of meat.
If you go to the bathroom and switch on the light —boom— a swarm of insects and creatures appears, with shapes and colors that look like they came straight out of a Bosch painting or some abstract postmodern artwork. There are also the usual ones, but three times bigger: cockroaches as long as a finger, millipedes with a thousand legs, huge spiders, it’s all exaggerated.
And also the fun road signs warning of animals, with drawings of giraffes, zebras, or elephants on them.
Some photos:
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