Divundu - Swakopmound 12 Days 1100km

Divundu, Ndonga, Rundu, Grootfontein, Otavi, Otjawarango, Omaruru, Osakos. Swakopmound

I left Divundu after a day of rest. I needed a break after the long ride to get there. The scenery and conditions were much the same until I got to Ndonga - long straight roads and very hot.

The Ovakango river

I spent the evening at a farm stay right on the Ovakango river. The people were incredibly friendly and I had Eland stew with them for dinner. We discussed my planned route through Namibia. They suggested the direct route Swakopmund because Namibia is in the middle of the worst drought since the 70's and there would be no water along the way. I took their advice but I knew it was going to be a long hot journey with not a lot to see. Still it was better than running out of water in the middle of nowhere.

Things are getting pretty desperate when you take cow photos but they were good looking cows.

I did get to have a bike race with the locals. They rode up and I asked them what they wanted and they said it was a challenge. I was 90k into the day and a bit tired so I said no. However when they went past I couldn't help myself so it was game on. Once again the superior technology on my bike gave me the win.

It was just more of the same day after day and town after town. Both my MP3 players broke so I couldn't sing as I bike (this is very important)  and all I have to do is think. People I want to have conversations with, the past, the present, the future. Its a mixture of dehydration, fatigue, boredom, a little bit of madness and quite a lot of pain. I had accumulated around 12 open sores on the right side of my ass (I had to take a photo to see and its very small at the end of this if you really want to see) so the biking was a little difficult. It started with a  blister, then a mosquito bite and finally a hair follicle that was rubbed by my bike shorts/seat so often that it wanted to leave. Eventually it did leave but it left a gaping hold where it used to be. Then because I was changing how I sat on the seat the other sores appeared as they weren't used to being sat on. I got to the Pharmacy in Rundu for a fix but it took until Swakop for it to come good again. In Rundu I accumulated 20 new mosquito bites, 3 of which would become infected and finally another blister that too became infected. All of this is an occupational hazard and I guess I was a little lucky that it happened in Namibia and not anywhere sooner.

The 12000k mark near Otavi


There was another 200k day from Rundu to a campsite near Grootfontein. It seemed much easier than the previous 200k day but it still took 10 hours. I even biked 60k the next day to Grootfontein but it was very slowly and quite difficult. I setup camp there and was bitten by something on the leg. It was some unknown African insect but my leg swelled from above my knee to my ankle so I wasn't going anywhere.

One of these legs is not like the other

So it was 3 days of rest and relaxation. I got to see the NZ v Aus cricket, Super Rugby and the 6 Nations so it wasn't all bad.

The sign promised Warthogs

There were Warthogs south of Otjawarango

There are some monkey in there somewhere

One of the joys of Namibia is that they have rest stop points every 10k to 20k. These have been a luxury as usually I park the bike somewhere under a tree and rest there. 

Sometimes the local also take the roof off the rest stop so its a little warm.

I would like to say this part of the journey was great but it wasn't. It was just long hot days looking at the same scenery and the occasional animal. I would bike along and say out loud how bored I was. It was just the same stuff day after day. Even the towns I stopped in were dull. Instead of the Africa I was used to everything was totally organised. There were banks, supermarkets, fast food places, pharmacy's and shopping malls. In Lusaka I had people talking to me about Namibia being called "Africa Lite" and it really was. I was in Africa but it was a strange mix of German, Afrikaans, Africans and a very strange sense of order.

 Its better than Cow photos

After biking 100k to Osakso I grabbed a beer from the store next to the supermarket. I asked the nice woman behind the counter to open the bottle and she asked me where I was going to drink it. This was all totally foreign. I told her it would be outside, there were people drinking outside and she told me it wasn't OK. I said give me the bottle and I will drink outside the shop because there are other people drinking out there. So I sat outside the shop, sat down and casually drank my beer next to the shop. After 5 minutes a man came up and introduced himself. I knew he wanted something and after he sat down he said he wanted some money to buy bread for his family. 

I looked at him in his Addidas sneakers, Bafana Bafana shirt and work trouser and listened to him change his story from I need bread to I loaned money to a friend who brought a car and then too I need money. I wasn't really that bothered by his presence, it gave me time to work on my African bullshit skills and it had been a few weeks since I had the chance.

The African bullshit skills are what you use when you want to avoid anyone anyone ever knowing who you are, where you are from and most importantly where you are staying. You don't want anyone to know any of this because if you give this information  up then you will see that same person over and over again. I spent nearly a month in Addis Ababa being called Steve from Australia. I often walked away from a shop hearing people stay Australians are always like that and cracking up with laughter. I have been Albanian, American, Canadian, English, Swedish and Tongan. I have also been to the Olympics (Winter and Summer) and am very famous in my home country, wherever that may be.

In this case a nice man called Francois who owned the grocery shop came down from the balcony where he had been watching the whole thing and told him to "please leave" (fuck off)  in Afrikaans. Then Francois gave me a free beer from his supermarket so it all ended well.

Its clear to say that Namibia is "Africa Lite" and although its easy I miss the challenge that was the other African nations. It makes little sense because when going through Africa all I wanted was a little normal and now that its here I find it very dull. It makes me think of what life for me will be like in NZ and I know its going to be very hard to adjust to the "normal" life again. I always knew that this journey would change me but although I look forward to the end in Cape Town it scares me at the same time.

The ass photo is further down if you are interested.