October 18, 2007: Skeleton Coast, Namibia

It was going to be a two-day drive to Etosha and we drove the first day along the Skeleton Coast. Famed for the vast number of shipwrecks, we were hoping to see Spanish galleons or at least a pirate ship or two in shambles on the beach. Alas, most wrecks were long ago covered up by the shifting sands, and, today, all that is left is a sad wreck that appears to be suspiciously staged.

The sign for an "official" wreck:The "wraked wreck:"

It didn't stop everyone from jumping in the ocean (probably because that was our first shower in over a week), however, or playing rugby on the beach. Later we happened upon an old oil rig that had collapsed, slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding sands.

The rig:

Detail of rust:

Cormorants nesting on the rig:

Interior view:

Thought this looked cool:

The industrial looking site of former operations:

October 17 2007: Spitzkoppe (Again), Namibia

Once again full of food, we returned back to Spitzkoppe for another week of climbing. Where the first week of climbing had been a balmy 80-90 degrees, someone turned up the furnace full blast during our second week there and temperatures were well over 100 degrees in the shade. Nobody climbed between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. because our clothes would have likely melted off our bodies. Except for the first day where I let Matt B. and Emma talk me into getting up at 3 a.m. to make an early assault on Pontok Spitz.

Sunrise view from Pontok Spitz looking out on the desert:
View from the top of Pontok Spitz. The big feature is Spitzkoppe:
Matt getting ready to descend from the top of Pontok Spitz:
I couldn't stomach the thought of trying to do any multi-pitch climbing, so I seiged a ridiculously hard single pitch sport route with Joe over the course of the week because it was the only thing that was in the shade during the cool part of the day. And it only required that I climb maybe an hour each day.

When it's too hot to even sleep, we had to figure out ways to entertain ourselves while still conserving energy. My near disasterous attempt trying to do a handstand while using the truck crutches proved that it was really too difficult trying to move, and we devoted ourselves to more passive pursuits.

David paints his shoes gold. Definitely not a picture likely to appear in a climbing magazine:

Drew napping in the heat (but not for long!):

David thoughtfully sets up a marionette beer drinking system to reduce energy expenditure. Drew is clearly upset about being woken up from his nap:

Detail of marionette beer drinking version 3.0. This complicated system required two people to operate the ropes:
Hurray for marionette beer drinking!:
Time to move on to marionette juggling utilizing the truck crutches. Note Joe innocently eating lunch:
No one is safe! Joe gets hooked up for marionette eating:
A near miss with the sandwich:
Another satisfied customer:
David juggling with Sugarloaf in the background:

This week's random sign. Interestingly enough, the "Paining Areas" arrow does point to "Chain Climping":
Tired of the heat, flies, and weary of slabs, we were all ready to say goodbye to Spitzkoppe and go to Etosha Park for our first bona fide safari.

October 11, 2007: Swakopmund, Namibia

Sated from our Windhoek gorgefest, we drove to Swakopmund for an adrenaline rush of a different kind. Located on the Namibian coast where the Namib desert (one of the largest deserts in the world) and ocean meet, Swakopmund has developed into a bit of a sports junkie mecca. Skydiving, paragliding, land yachting, dune boarding, etc etc are all available for the moneyed tourist looking to kill some time at this beach town.

We were initially told that there was no skydiving due to some issues with the local airport. Most people, including myself, were completely gutted by the news. Skydiving was the reason most of us were taking time out from climbing at Spitzkoppe, after all. We spent the rest of the day moping about and generally being surly. The next day, however, we were told that all systems were go and tandem skydiving was now an option! I was completely excited at the prospect, having wanted to hurl myself from a plane at 10,000 feet for quite some time now. Yes, I'm a little touched in the head, but most of you knew that already.

Me in my Danger! jumpsuit:

Me and Matt R. in our sexy yellow jumpsuits ready for our turn:
Matt R. getting some last minute instruction:
What can I say? Skydiving was everything that I thought it would be and more. I loved every moment of it and was somewhat surprised to discover that I was not nervous about it at all. The 20 minute ride sitting in the open doorway of a small plane before reaching the appropriate altitude and jump spot was certainly enough to give a person plenty of time to reconsider the ludicrous act they were about to commit, not to mention plenty of time to dwell on practical things like, say, a will, any regrets about life, and the potential state of the human body after impact with the earth at terminal velocity.

The view from the top. Dunes marching to the sea with Swakopmund, the dark area on the coast, in the distance:

I was so busy gaping at the views that the ride was over before I knew it and it was time to jump. When the Skydive Master tapped me on the shoulder, I threw myself out the plane without thinking. I'm not exactly sure what that says about me. Clearly, the whole "look before you leap" lesson failed to have any impact on me in my formative years.

There really is no other sensation in the world like freefalling. Granted, a Skydive Master was strapped to my back, but it still counts in my book. My initial reaction was "Wow, it's so windy!" The force of the air whistling past allows one to be surprisingly comfortable in the spreadeagle position, and makes it easy to do tricks. I spent a couple seconds thinking "Suh-weet! This is the coolest thing ever!" before unintentionally initiating a flat spin when I tried to point at something. Ever suave, I realized what I was doing and immediately recovered by spinning the opposite direction, as though I had meant to do that all along. I think it took the Skydive Master a bit by surprise, but he took it all in stride, only taking precaution to prevent us from spinning too quickly. After 35 seconds of watching the ground approach at an increasingly alarming rate while spinning in circles like a dog looking for a place to lie down, the Skydive Master popped the chute and we were suddenly floating in midair.

In contrast to the excitement and noisy wind of the freefall, it was incredibly peaceful and quiet once the chute was open. It was almost blissful floating gently down and turning lazily while taking in the view. Until, that is, the Skydive Master tipped the chute forward into a dive and we were immediately rocketing toward the ground once again. It was rather disconcerting to see the chute almost below us and find myself practically facedown once more. Then, abruptly, the Skydive Master pulled on the cords, the chute swung over our heads, and for a split second I experienced weightlessness in the air. It was the most amazing feeling ever. In that instant I saw myself going back to university, getting a degree in astrophysics, and becoming an astronaut. Then the moment passed and I remembered that I don't particularly like math. And that another decade of schooling has about as much appeal to me as the intestinal flu. But that didn't stop me from asking the Skydive Master to do the same maneuver repeatedly the rest of the way down. We must have done the weightlessness thing another five or six times while I hooted with excitement like early man discovering fire. I was on an incredible high for the rest of the day and started considering how I might be able to skydive on a regular basis (that night I ran into one of the Skydive Masters and he told me a story about a buddy of his who sold his brother's possessions and car without the brother's consent to finance his skydive addiction). One of the top experiences in my life, hands down.

And yet, the day wasn't over. A few of us had also signed up to do the world's longest zipline -- 1.2 kilometers of cable stretched between two desert peaks -- that afternoon.

Carrying the homemade, rusting zipline equipment. L to R: Diana, Mike, Steve, Andrew:

Built by a complete nutter who also ran balloon rides, the operation had never been inspected by engineers or even an insurance company, despite the fact that it is possible to reach speeds of over 80 mph. Not exactly confidence inspiring.

The view from the top. The cable stretches all the way to the small peak in the distance:

I thought the fellow was telling us that to scare us, and then I saw the equipment. Let's just say it was quite a bit more intense than skydiving.

October 5, 2007: Spitzkoppe, Namibia

The mountains of Spitzkoppe rise conspicuously out of the Namibian Desert, dominating the surrounding landscape.

Spitzkoppe is the big mountain on the left. The Pontok spitz mountains are on the right:
We were all quite excited to climb there, although my own personal excitement was quickly tempered when I realized that most of the climbing in the area is on slabs. Turns out, I hate slab climbing. For you non-climbers reading this, slab climbing is mostly friction climbing on sloping rock. Friction climbing means that holds are basically non-existent (or super tiny) and a climber depends upon the friction from his shoes and hands to get up a route. Anything the width of a credit card (yes, I mean the thin edge) makes a great foothold.

Dave demonstrating good slab technique??:

Well, not for me -- I needed something about the size of the edge of a nickel to get my toe on. To make matters worse, for some reason slab climbs are especially runout in Spitzkoppe, meaning the distance between protection or bolts is really far apart. In some cases, more than 50 to 60 meters which is the length of a typical climbing route. Why would anyone do that, you ask? That is the exact same thing I was asking myself.

I was forced to do some bouldering when the slabs got to be too much:

The only answer that makes any sense is that the people who originally bolted the routes must have been dropped on their head repeatedly as small children. Some people are very good climbing slabs, but I never quite got used to the feeling that my feet were constantly slipping down the rock. At least the campsite was really great.

Sunset view of Spitzkoppe (on left). Rhino horn is the column on the right. Our campsite was just to the right of the big boulders far right.:

Until the flies came out, that is.

I'm used to the mosquito clouds of Alaska that buzz annoyingly around, but these Namibian Desert flies were something else. Definitely Satan's minions. The outhouse was about 1 kilometer down the road, which, for the first few days before the emergence of the flying black devils, was actually a pleasant morning experience moseying along while admiring the color of the rock in the early morning light. Once the demon spawn hatched or molted or whatever it is that flies do, however, a trip to the outhouse turned everyone into a wildly gesticulating feral being, frantically kicking while simultaneously waving arms and toilet paper around in an effort to keep the flies at bay. Any outsider would have undoubtedly recommended that the person be sent to solitary confinement in a psychiatric ward.

View of sunrise over Pontoks as we start climbing Spitzkoppe:

Cool cave on the way up Spitzkoppe:
Me on top of Spitzkoppe:After about a week of scaring myself silly on the airy slabs, we went to Windhoek to pick up three people joining the trip.

A billboard we passed outside a small town near Spitzkoppe on our way to Windhoek. You can just make out the word "Drive," although I find it much more provocative in its current form. The funny part is that there was also a gas station within 100 meters:
Seen from the road: The possibilities are endless:
Sadly, none of us particularly cared that new people were joining, we were just looking forward to gorging ourselves on food in a major city (a definite pattern has begun to emerge with regards to food). And gorge we did. One night, all 17 of us crammed into a van about the size of a small car and went to a restaurant that served local African game food. After trying some zebra and eland that was on other people's plates, my own order finally arrived. I started with an oryx carpaccio (stunning) for a starter followed by a selection of springbok and kudu cold cuts and sausages accompanied by a few cheeses with bread (outstanding), then dug into my main course, a gemsbok filet. The filet was definitely one of the top three (if not the best) steaks I have ever had in my life. It was cooked perfectly, delicate in flavor, and melted in my mouth. After that meal, I started urging our driver, Henry, to run over any game animal that happened to be in the road.

September 30, 2007: Botswana

The main climbing destination in Botswana is a small hill that is about a 10 minute walk from an upscale mall in the capital, Gabarone. We had gotten up at the crack of dawn in order to beat the heat and be at the crag by 5:30 a.m., only to be greeted by a chilly, overcast day. After parking BiRT next to the mall's fake climbing wall (which seemed to be a baboon magnet), we sleepily trooped toward the crag and discovered that there was a partially dirt-covered dump at the base of the hill. Rotting garbage and humidity make for a potent morning wake-up smell. And then there were visually disturbing sights like the bag of cow hooves. But no matter, we were seasoned pros used to seeing dead bodies (ah, good ol' Montagu) and nothing would stop us from climbing.

Or so we thought. After daintily picking our way through broken glass, animal skulls, and things that crunched mysteriously beneath the thin layer of dirt underfoot, we arrived at the first climbing area and couldn't help but notice the epically terrible stench of nine months worth of baboon feces and urine. The rains had yet to come, and the accumulated excrement had been baked into the rock by the sun. When combined with the rotting smells of unknown organic origin from the dump below, the result was enough to induce not-so-dry heaves. Some people immediately returned back to the mall for some nerve-calming coffee, while the rest of us considered the merits of attempting to climb so as not to offend our host (we were staying at his hostel and he had joined us before he had to go to work) versus the risk of contracting any number of exotic African diseases undoubtedly festering all around us. Politeness won out for the majority of us, and I made a mental note to scrub myself in Clorox later that night. I only lasted a couple of hours before I beat a hasty retreat back to the mall and treated myself to the biggest piece of chocolate cake I've ever seen served at a food establishment. And the biggest piece of cheesecake. And the biggest piece of carrot cake (What can I say? I was hungry.). Although the climbing was actually pretty decent, the first impression created by the baboon crap and garbage was a deal breaker for everyone, and we voted to get out of Botswana as soon as possible and spend an extra week in Namibia.

Because we had some extra time, we detoured a bit on our way to Namibia to spend the night at a campground in the Kalahari Desert run by a group of San people, better known as Kalahari Bushmen. We visited the village of D'Kar near our campground and went to a small museum devoted to the San. They have only relatively recently begun to politically organize their many tribes, and one aspect of their culture that they are developing and promoting is their art. Similar in some ways to the paintings of Australian Aborigines, the San tend to depict the animals and plants around them in a modern, yet innocent, way using vibrant colors. I bought a small painting by someone named Dada from the museum gift shop, drawn to the contrast between the artist's use of rich red against the white canvas.

As I was leaving the museum, Emma, our trip leader, said there was an elderly woman who wanted to show us a house or workshop or something. Having no idea where we were going or why we were following the diminutive woman shuffling along in front of us, we nonetheless decided she was harmless and followed her to a squat, stone building. She unlocked the door and we stepped into an amazing artist studio obviously shared by a number of the local artists.

Village children peeking into the studio:

Although she didn't speak any English, she proudly showed us some of her pieces and I realized that she was Dada, the artist that had created the painting I bought earlier in the day.

Dada:

Detail of a Dada painting:

So, groupie that I am, I borrowed a pen and asked her to sign her painting a second time. It was great to actually meet the artist, for once!

Not content with just local art exposure, we arranged for some of the San to perform traditional dances for us at our campsite later that night. After building a raging bonfire that tempted some of the folks from Hot Rock to leapfrog over it (not me, I value my man bits), we settled in and watched the show. The women and girls arranged themselves in a line on one side of the fire and kept time for the dancing men and boys through rhythmic singing and clapping.

Matt R. watching while the San women sing:

The men wore interesting, intricate ceremonial leggings around their ankles and lower legs made from chiseled ostrich egg pieces that sounded similar to marimbas when they moved. All the dances seemed to be named after animals, and, as you can see from the photo, repeatedly circled the fire, creating a dual track.

Feeling way too cultured, we lit out the next morning for Namibia and a climbing area known as Spitzkoppe.