Curiosity Captured the Kat: Nov. 5 to 8: South Africa & Namibia

We spent two nights and just one full day in Johannesburg, South Africa, en route to Namibia. Not much to report, except to say that it was NOTHING like any other part of Africa I've been to; more like Europe/North America. The airport was brand new and modern...I think they have snazzed it up in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. It was nice to be able to get stuff we needed. I have a few observations of the dynamics between the whites and the blacks, which I also noticed in Namibia. At the hostel we stayed at in Johannesburg, the white Afrikaaner inn-keeper spoke to a black employee in a very condescending way, saying something like "Don't walk away when I'm speaking to you!!". In an other incident, I was at a restaurant a few blocks away and the white owner smacked an black waiter on the back of the head. At first I thought he was being playful, but then quickly realized (when the waiter frowned) that he was serious.

When we got to Namibia, I witnessed a white hostel owner tear a strip off our black shuttle driver for ringing the bell too many times. At a grocery store, a white woman freaked out because a black employee, who was buying some groceries, was standing too close to her in line. She went on and on, referring to him in the 3rd person, about why he had to stand so close to her, etc. etc. My conclusion: Old outdated, colonial mentality is alive and well!

We are now in a town called Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast of Namibia. I don't feel like I'm in Africa, here either. It's like the Twilight Zone. I will try to paint a picture: Imagine a small western town (reminds me a bit of Merritt, BC, but bigger), very flat and dusty, dry and hot. Add palm trees, German street names and a weird mix of European/German and frontier town architecture. Some store/commercial signs are English, some German, some Afrikaans and some French. Then add the ocean, with a huge powerful surf and, in the distance, the desert where you can see dune buggies zipping around. Then throw in black Africans (along with the white German-Africans) and African art, jewellery, etc. And then the cherry on top is that the Christmas decorations are out, so the main streets have lighted decorations on the lampposts and I have been hearing Christmas music in some of the stores. Very very weird and surreal. So far this is my favourite place on this trip. The town is charming (despite the very odd mix that I described above), with many little stores and artisan shops, 2 movie theaters (that are showing relatively new movies), good infrastructure, friendly people. I have been to a couple of pretty good restaurants too. My favourite dining experience so far was a wine tasting restaurant where you get to sample up to 4 or 5 wines before deciding which one to order with your food.

The beach in Swakopmund

A street in Swakopmund

An example of some of the Swakopmund architecture

For some reason many people here have Jack Russell dogs. The place we are staying has 2 or 3 of them. One of them reminds me of my dog, Spot, who I had from the age of 8 until I was 21. He was part JR and part Chihuahua. The weird thing is that this dog has a little brown spot on his side, right where Spot had his (hence the name).

Stoffel, aka, Spot

On Sunday, the day before leaving for the desert, we went on a dolphin watching "cruise". We saw more seals than dolphins, mostly because dolphins are more elusive and harder to spot and because a couple of the seals got right up into our boat. Can you say "habituated"? I had some great video footage of this but it got lost along with all the photos I took before arriving in Namibia, including the ones I took in South Africa. I am still hopeful that maybe someone who knows something about computers/cameras will be able to recover them.

Pelican flying near our boat