Heading North
Katie and I took a little road trip in the two days before Christmas. Due to a little problem I had with an expiring visa, I had to leave South Africa and re-enter the country to get a new one. So we took a casual little drive up to Namibia on Friday, and came back on Saturday.
I didn't have high hopes for this trip. It was a necessity, not a luxury. We were told by everyone who knew the drive that it was beautiful, but I guess I was a little skeptical. The road up to Namibia, after all, is the major North-South artery connecting Cape Town and Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. I imagined the road would be like I-5 from L.A. to San Francisco, or I-95 from D.C. to New York. I was prepared for traffic jams and eight-lane freeways, for holiday traffic and backups at the gas pumps at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop.
I was not prepared for this:
There wasn't even a line down the middle of the road.
The scenery was like one long and wonderful nature film, moving from beautiful wine regions just north of Cape Town to the jagged Cederberg Mountains to a series of plateaus to increasingly more arid tableaus that were fascinating for their vast emptiness. There were some tiny little towns and some interesting place names, like Vwfmylpoort, a mountain pass described in our Rough Guide as "scrabble-winning." At one point right before the border, we drove through a series of hills--or, more accurately, gigantic rock piles--
that looked like they had been swept up by giants. Then we came down a slope to the Orange River and the border post, and after a brief stop, back out into an even more expansive semi-desert on the edges of the Kalahari that was unlike anything we'd ever seen before.
And there was adventure along the way, as well. At one point, with Katie asleep in the passenger seat, I saw three mid-sized trucks approaching. And as the first one passed us, I saw the back of the third one tip. Even as the first two trucks kept going toward the horizon, I saw the last truck head off the road into a shallow gully, and land on its side in a gigantic pile of dust.
This happened about an hour and a half into the trip, and about 8 a.m. So we weren't too far out into the wilderness. There happened to be a small town nearby, and some kids were out on the road and saw the whole thing happen. So as I am pulling off the road, these kids in grungy t-shirts are already running toward the truck. When I get there, the first of what turned out to be three occupants of the cab is standing on the side--now the top--of the truck and reaching down to help the second guy out. They assure me everyone is okay. Petrol is leaking out of the chassis. I offer the use of my cell phone. They think that's a great idea.
Katie has already fished the phone out of our bags when I get back to the car, and we walk over there just as the third guy gets out of the truck rubbing his shoulder. They call their boss and have a conversation in Afrikaans while the local kids sort of mill around underfoot. This was clearly the most exciting thing that was going to happen on this particular stretch of the road today, so they were in no hurry to go anywhere.
But in the end, there wasn't much we could do. They arranged for someone to come and help them, and assured us they would be fine. And with their truck's wheels still spinning idly and with petrol dripping slowly onto the dirt, we wished them well and went on our merry way.
The drive up to the tiny town where we had booked a hotel took eleven hours. That was a lot of time in the car, and certainly by the end we were very ready to get there. But our glimpse at southern Namibia made us anxious to get back when Katie is
done with her studies. We want to spend more time on the Orange River, and see the Fish River Canyon, the Namib desert and the silver sands of Etosha National Park.
And the drive proved something else: Swamp Thing is up to the job. Our little beater of a car didn't complain once as we headed off into the desert. The temperature gauge didn't waver as we sped along at 80 miles and hour in the 100 degree heat.
The pictures we took--most of them by Katie from the car window--don't really capture the expansiveness of the scenery. But you can take a look here.
This one of our car's shadow, taken at around 6:30 a.m. as the sun was just coming up, is my favorite.
The kicker to the story is a little bit of a downer: usually, the South African government gives out 90 day visas to all and sundry. That would have been perfect, since we plan to fly to London on March 24. But the Home Affairs official who got my passport was in a very grumpy mood and didn't understand a particular piece of paper I had that showed why I didn't need to show my departing plane ticket (there's another long story to do with that, but it's for another time). So this power-tripping functionary told me that she was only giving me a 30 day visa. I may have to do the whole thing over again in a month.
I didn't have high hopes for this trip. It was a necessity, not a luxury. We were told by everyone who knew the drive that it was beautiful, but I guess I was a little skeptical. The road up to Namibia, after all, is the major North-South artery connecting Cape Town and Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. I imagined the road would be like I-5 from L.A. to San Francisco, or I-95 from D.C. to New York. I was prepared for traffic jams and eight-lane freeways, for holiday traffic and backups at the gas pumps at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop.
I was not prepared for this:
There wasn't even a line down the middle of the road.
The scenery was like one long and wonderful nature film, moving from beautiful wine regions just north of Cape Town to the jagged Cederberg Mountains to a series of plateaus to increasingly more arid tableaus that were fascinating for their vast emptiness. There were some tiny little towns and some interesting place names, like Vwfmylpoort, a mountain pass described in our Rough Guide as "scrabble-winning." At one point right before the border, we drove through a series of hills--or, more accurately, gigantic rock piles--
that looked like they had been swept up by giants. Then we came down a slope to the Orange River and the border post, and after a brief stop, back out into an even more expansive semi-desert on the edges of the Kalahari that was unlike anything we'd ever seen before.And there was adventure along the way, as well. At one point, with Katie asleep in the passenger seat, I saw three mid-sized trucks approaching. And as the first one passed us, I saw the back of the third one tip. Even as the first two trucks kept going toward the horizon, I saw the last truck head off the road into a shallow gully, and land on its side in a gigantic pile of dust.
This happened about an hour and a half into the trip, and about 8 a.m. So we weren't too far out into the wilderness. There happened to be a small town nearby, and some kids were out on the road and saw the whole thing happen. So as I am pulling off the road, these kids in grungy t-shirts are already running toward the truck. When I get there, the first of what turned out to be three occupants of the cab is standing on the side--now the top--of the truck and reaching down to help the second guy out. They assure me everyone is okay. Petrol is leaking out of the chassis. I offer the use of my cell phone. They think that's a great idea.
Katie has already fished the phone out of our bags when I get back to the car, and we walk over there just as the third guy gets out of the truck rubbing his shoulder. They call their boss and have a conversation in Afrikaans while the local kids sort of mill around underfoot. This was clearly the most exciting thing that was going to happen on this particular stretch of the road today, so they were in no hurry to go anywhere.
But in the end, there wasn't much we could do. They arranged for someone to come and help them, and assured us they would be fine. And with their truck's wheels still spinning idly and with petrol dripping slowly onto the dirt, we wished them well and went on our merry way.
The drive up to the tiny town where we had booked a hotel took eleven hours. That was a lot of time in the car, and certainly by the end we were very ready to get there. But our glimpse at southern Namibia made us anxious to get back when Katie is
done with her studies. We want to spend more time on the Orange River, and see the Fish River Canyon, the Namib desert and the silver sands of Etosha National Park.And the drive proved something else: Swamp Thing is up to the job. Our little beater of a car didn't complain once as we headed off into the desert. The temperature gauge didn't waver as we sped along at 80 miles and hour in the 100 degree heat.
The pictures we took--most of them by Katie from the car window--don't really capture the expansiveness of the scenery. But you can take a look here.
This one of our car's shadow, taken at around 6:30 a.m. as the sun was just coming up, is my favorite.
The kicker to the story is a little bit of a downer: usually, the South African government gives out 90 day visas to all and sundry. That would have been perfect, since we plan to fly to London on March 24. But the Home Affairs official who got my passport was in a very grumpy mood and didn't understand a particular piece of paper I had that showed why I didn't need to show my departing plane ticket (there's another long story to do with that, but it's for another time). So this power-tripping functionary told me that she was only giving me a 30 day visa. I may have to do the whole thing over again in a month.
posted by Erik at 4:41 pm
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