We have had a most lovely last couple of weeks! It was especially nice to hang out with Armidale friends in Nambia, an unplanned pleasantry really :-) David & Alisan Greeff with their two kids Ettienne & Caris have been working with CMS there for about the last 4 years, and Nicky Brown has been over there since March helping to home-school the kids. While we were there Amy Gow & Heather Gant came holidaying/visiting, so it was a full on Armidale reunion.
They had been working up in the North of Nambia, but were right in the middle of moving to Walvis Bay right when we arrived. We'd bussed 30 something hours from Johannesburg to Walvis, and stayed in a B&B our first night, then met them when they arrived in town the next day. Our week or so with them was fairly relaxed, and mainly involved helping unpack and settle in, adventuring into town for shopping or coffee, watching soccer, walking around the lagoon waterfront and playing with the kids. Nik commented more than once “it's nice to just be in a home and be able to make myself a cup of tea whenever I want :-)
Walvis Bay is surrounded by the Namib desert on one side, and freezing Atlantic currents on the other. Along with Swakopmund which is about 30 min North, it's the area of Nambia where Nambians go for summer holidays. There's a big German influence, especially in Swakop. I know the North is different to this comparatively wealthy, touristy area, but Nambia isn't how I imagined it. It's much more like South Africa than the Eastern African countries we visited, with decent infrastructure, Western cities and services.
We enjoyed going to church on Sunday, after which Nicky took us to Swakopmund to look around. There was an amazing sunset we watched from a bar at the end of the pier at Long Beach, with seals playing in the waves – talk about picturesque! On Wednesday we went with Amy, Heather & Nicky to Dune 7, where we attempted sandboarding with home made boards they girls had bought from a service station for A$6 each :-) After climbing up the first dune we thought there was no way we'd have enough energy to board down more than once, but after a few attempts we did get the hang of it and had lots of fun and laughs as we hurtled down (and sometimes into) the dunes. Rather than walking back down to the car park I thought I'd board down; this proved to be a not such a smart idea as it was steeper and much longer than the other dunes we'd been going on. My thought processes went something like “going too fast, must use feet to brake.... feet are now burning, maybe going fast wasn't so bad after all.... nope, going this fast really not good, must use feet again” and resulted in ripping some skin off a couple of my toes. Silly boy! After heading home for much a much needed shower we went up to Swakop again for more exploring and dinner.
Wednesday we said goodbye to the girls as they headed North for some more adventuring, while we enjoyed a couple more days with the Greeffs. David took me to visit the local gaol where he will (hopefully, Lord allowing) be involved in some ministry stuff, although our 3 trips out there didn't eventuate into actual face-to-face time with inmates, but did prove to be useful and interesting. On Friday we flew straight from Walvis to Cape Town, for our last few days in Africa.
Cape Town is a most beautiful city, certainly one of our favourite big cities we've visited so far. Table Mountain is amazing just sitting in the middle of everything. We found a cheap (and nice!) hostel just 500 metres from their flash new stadium, and about a half hour walk from the city centre. We did a good amount of walking while we were there; in and out of the city, down to the waterfront, down along the beaches and from Table Mountain back into the city. The “Waterfront” is kinda like Darling Harbour, on a slightly smaller scale. Our walk on Sunday morning from Green Point down through Sea Point, Bantry Bay to Clifton Beach was very pretty, with plenty of dream houses filling us with ideas :-)
We caught a taxi to the Table Mountain cable car base station, and rode up to the top, 1060m above sea level. It's an unreal view, you can see all the way down the cape, the city spilling around the base of the mountain, and beaches stretching away up to the North. We had a slightly eccentric tour guide at the top, who matter-of-factly confirmed deaths were not uncommon and that an American had slipped to his death just last week.
As we walked back through town to our hostel, streams of people were already heading to various official Soccer World Cup outdoor fan fests, decked out in crazy Spanish or Dutch supporting clothing. We walked into the city later in the afternoon and met up with Harry, a friend from our South American tour. He conveniently convinced the security guard on the door of the Irish pub he was at to let us slip past the queue of people waiting to get into bar that was already at capacity, where we squeezed in and watched the what turned out to be rather scrappy final. The streets were awash with partying Spanish supporters afterwards, pretty cool to actually be in South Africa for it!
The next day we walked down to the waterfront early and took a ferry to Robben Island for a tour. It ended up being free because they left two hours late (for a three hour tour!), and enough irate customers complained. Being late was a bit of a shame because the whole thing was subsequently rushed, but still was a great thought provoking tour. Robben Island has a long history, including being a leper colony a couple of hundred years ago, and more recently the home of a high security prison where many political prisoners of South Africa apartheid regime were housed, including Mandela. Still confronts me the stuff that was going on here within my lifetime.
Our last day we spent down in the “richo” suburb of Camps Bay, with its very pretty beach. Brunch, walking, reading, napping in the sun :-) We filled up on greasy fish and chips before our 21 hour bus back to Joburg, the left overs of which we gave to a couple of homeless guys who we got chatting with. Cape Town seems to be the town of refined beggars, who have honed their spiel to something believable :-P We bought for a lady who'd been kicked out of home a couple of loaves of bread (being 6 months pregnant's a good story and hard to fake), a lame guy (waiting on compensation – with a folder complete with police reports etc :-P) the same, and gave someone asking for money half a bag of carrots.
Back to Joburg for another night with Ans (thanks again!), then flying up to transit Entebbe on our way to London. That's where we are at the moment, after spending another night in an airport, somewhat unexpectedly. We'd booked a hotel but found out our previous visa wasn't still valid, so would have needed a new one for the less than 12 hours we'd be spending out of the airport.
So, we're looking forward to a good sleep in London, where we're spending a week with Beth,Cam & Hannah. Then on to Cairo for the start of a 5 week Middle East tour. We hit the 5 month mark today, pretty much exactly half way through our trip. Some days we still wake up amazed that we're actually wherever we are, so far away from little old Armidale :-)
Shalom!
Nicky, trudging to the top of a dune
Amy, beginning a decent!
Armidale united in Namibia
Table Mountain - Cape Town
One of the ships used to ferry the last political prisoners to the mainland from Robben Island
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