Namibia

Hey readers. I apologize for not posting this earlier. I’m in South Africa now. There were only two days between Namibia and South Africa but I had absolutely no time to post an entry with the amount of readings and work I had to do for my classes. I have yet to explain how the curriculum works on this ship. There are A-Days and B-Days. My schedule has two classes on A-Days and two classes on B-Days. The program offers maybe 75 classes or something close to that. Everyone has to take at least one global studies class and everyone is required to take at least 12 credits. My classes are The Rise of New Great Powers (my global studies class), Communication Across Race and Culture, Positive Psychology, and International Management. Doing the work is easy since you have a lot of time on the ship. Every class has field work that requires you to go on specific trips or analyze the effects of a country’s history, politics, or culture. The reading gets heavy sometimes but my experience has been that the work is easy because the stuff you’re learning about is interesting, which is refreshing. The extra curricular activities on the ship are interesting, too. One that I have been involved in that I can’t wait to see pan out is the Sea Olympics. Every room belongs to one of ten “seas” and after we leave South Africa we’re going to have our Olympics. My sea is the Adriatic Sea and we’re going to own it. Hell yeah.

So Namibia! Most people signed up to do safaris in South Africa which, I think, is a big mistake. Cape Town alone has so much going on so I’m real glad I did my safari in Namibia. Namibia has plenty to do as well but it’s not as easy to get around to the different cities as it is in South Africa. Originally Namibia was colonized by the Germans and even now it seems like everywhere you go is owned or employed by German people. Namibia has got three main cities that I spent time in. Walvis Bay is where the ship was docked, Swakopmund is a smaller town that is all commercial with plenty to do, and then there’s Windhoek which is the capital so obviously there is a mess of things going on. Namibia is mostly sand and desert so there is a lot of space between cities. It’s one of the least densely populated countries in the world. It’s kind of sad that all anyone knew about the country before getting there was that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted one of their kids from there. I saw where they stayed in Namibia, it was real nice. Anyways, back to my trip. The first day I went to Windhoek and stayed at a enjoyable guest house with a few people. We went out to dinner with a Swedish couple who were on vacation in the area for a few weeks. Dinner was incredible. While eating with them it kind of hit me that growing up in Europe no one really has a choice but to know a plethora of languages. With all of those countries so close together it just comes natural for them. I never really cared to learn any other language besides English but when you’re with people that know a number of languages it’s straight up impressive. The next day was our safari. This safari wasn’t through SAS, it was an independent one that was much cheaper then any SAS offered. Something like 40 SAS kids ended up doing the same safari. We slept in tents and every day went to see animals. Not much to explain. The first day we came across three families of elephants all gathering at a water hole. The guides said it was a big deal and it never usually happened.

I don't have a picture of it but there was one elephant in the middle of about 20 other elephants that was colossal. There were loads of spring buck and zebra.

I’m one of the only people in my group that actually saw the cheetah. The lions we came across didn’t move much and our guide informed us that lions actually spend something like 20 hours a day resting. The only time I saw a rhinoceros was late at night. There was a watering hole next to each camp site we stayed at and the first night two rhinos came out really late at night. I couldn’t get a good picture of it but it was such an awesome thing to see. No one really cared about the wildebeests but I thought they were gnarly. Every time we passed them I got excited. Giraffes were fascinating creatures to see. I was eager to get a picture of one drinking water for you all to enjoy. At one point we stopped at this huge empty spot that used to be all water but now it’s just a big space of nothing. I know that just sounds stupid but it was actually an extraordinary sight. It was kind of depressing to see the environment unable to sustain itself. My roommate and I have all kinds of sick pictures but most are on other people’s cameras so this one will have to do. The last night of the safari our campsite was in between a bar, a pool, and a shop with a restaurant. It was some girl’s birthday and she reminded everyone all day and night. Besides that the most annoying thing for me was that everyone pointed to animals and would say the names of Disney characters instead of just being excited that there was a lion in front of them. Please, if you go on a safari, don’t stand there pointing at an elephant or lion saying Dumbo or Simba. Sorry for that outburst, back to the blog. This kid Mason who I met in line the first day taught a bunch of us how to play this game called Mao. It’s hard to explain but if you’ve heard of it then we must play together. It’s a card came where you have to get rid of your cards in the same way as Uno but there are all these rules that cause you to pick up cards. Some of the funny rules are that you can’t ask questions without calling a “point of order” and every time you get penalized you have to say thank you to the person who calls you out, being that it is a gentleman’s game. It was so much fun I can’t even put it into words. Everyone spent the last night at the bar having a good time. There were people from Switzerland, Finland, and Germany on the same safari and everyone was having a blast with them. Our tour guide, Lombard, was a character far before anyone spent a dollar at the bar. The guy from Finland was absolutely hysterical all night. For the entire 3-Day safari he was this quiet, polite guy and then all of a sudden he was super loud and outrageous, making everyone laugh. I slept on top of the safari bus that night because stargazing in Namibia is celestially unrivaled. If you ever go there try to spend at least one night stargazing. A good amount of people camped out in the desert to stargaze but sleeping on my safari bus was great for me. I saw more shooting stars in one night then I have in my whole life prior to Namibia. The food on the entire safari was cooked over open flames and for some reason it was always better than the food we eat on the ship. I hardly felt like I was roughing it. The last day of the safari we stopped at a wood carving market on the drive back. Each shop was real tiny but full of all kinds of African art and woodcarvings. I feel like I spent that entire day in the back of a van to get back to the ship. I actually thought it was awesome because we were driving towards the sun so any time I wasn’t sleeping there was a beautiful landscape and usually a sunset in front of me. I would just like to add that African sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking. There was one more day in Namibia and I spent it with my roommate exploring Swakopmund. We went to a bunch of different shops and ate good food and went 4x4ing through the desert! That was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I’ve never been interested in riding a quad before but having a desert with the largest sand dunes in the world to ride a quad in is straight up enlivening. It was only my roommate, the guide, and I, so we were able to go real fast. There was one point where we were all going full speed up this gargantuan dune and I was expecting a huge slope on the other side but when we got to the top it was this unbelievable view of the desert meeting the ocean. The sun was setting so it was just insane. I didn’t have my camera for some reason so that was one sight I can’t share with any of you and I apologize for that. We were already cutting it close on time before we drove the quads so we had to get to the ship in a hurry. I was the last person to swipe my card that day but it was the perfect way to end my time in Namibia. (I should probably elaborate on “swipe my card.” Everyone has I.D. cards and every time you leave or return to the ship you have to swipe your card so they know if you are on or off the ship. If you come back late on the day of departure then you get “dock time” for the next port. If you get dock time it means you have to spend time on the ship while everyone else is out having fun so dock time is not good times.) Namibia has a lot going on and I loved my time there. I should be writing about South Africa by the end of the week. Leave more comments!