Lake Malawi, Kayaking, and Big Foot

If you look at a map, Malawi is just a little sliver of land that is wedged between Zambia and Lake Malawi. Surprisingly, the population of Malawi is greater than Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia combined, making it one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. It was beautiful once we got there, but getting around in that part of the world using local transport is no easy/enjoyable task.

The Bus

The bus ride to get to Nkhata Bay was an adventure in itself. In Lilongwe, which is the capital of Malawi, we got on bus that was “scheduled to leave” for Nkhata Bay at 7 AM. We had also just travelled for 2 days just to get to Lilongwe, so we were already tired and sick of buses. Before we got on the bus, this was the dialogue between me and the driver:

Me:         How long does it take to get there?

Driver: 5 hours.

Me:         Just 5 hours?

Driver:    Yes.

Me:         So from here to Nkhata Bay, it only takes 5 hours?

Driver: Yes.

Me:         Ok cool. That’s not too bad. And when does the bus leave?

Driver: When its full.

If I had only known I was just lied to 4 times...... The bus did not leave when it was full as we know it, it left when it was jam packed. After the seats were full, they started letting people on to fill up the aisle. One by one, people continued to cram in with their bags, buckets of fish, and screaming babies until there was probably about 120 people (not exaggerating) on this one bus. Street vendors were continually yelling from the outside, holding up cans of Coke and cookies to the windows for the passengers to buy, and all the while we were merely observing the utter chaos in what was now a smoking hot bus from the intense Malawi sun. Now, being in the Peace Corps, Lindsey and I have gotten very used to being uncomfortable, but this was a whole new level. But rather than getting mad, the group of us just started laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually we left after a few hours of waiting, once the bus was “full”, and in 5 hours we thought we were close. Oh my, we were not close.

It is important to know that the distance between Lilongwe and Nkhata Bay is only 230 miles, so 5 hours is a pretty long drive considering the distance is not that far. How long did it actually take us to get there? Nearly 11 hours. Ridiculous right? I have not idea how that is even possible. That was 11 hours with no water, one bathroom break, and a few crackers we brought before we left. Again, the best solution in ridiculous situations that you can’t control is to laugh - so we laughed. We had no other choice. But finally, we arrived and chugged some serious water.

Mayoka Village

Our private bungalow.

The name of the backpackers we stayed at in Nkhata Bay was Mayoka Village. It was beautiful and cheap, which makes it a paradise for budget backpackers. Lindsey and I got a private bungalow that was about 10 feet away from the water for just $14 a night per person. We fell asleep to the sounds of the rolling waves breaking on the rocks, and woke up to an amazing view of the turquoise blue water with the mountains of Mozambique and Tanzania rising in the distance. Local fishermen were everywhere to be seen, floating in their dugout canoes made from carving out giant tree trunks. Surprisingly, 20% of the population in Malawi is Muslim, so the 5 daily calls to prayer could always be heard echoing throughout the bay. We bought avocados the size of football (again, not exaggerating) for the equivalent of $0.25 and feasted everyday on insane amounts of guacamole. 

The view from our balcony.

Snorkeling and Scuba

Lake Malawi is known as one of the best spots in the world for fresh water snorkeling and scuba diving. A crew from Planet Earth actually stayed in Nkhata Bay for about three months shooting the colorful cichlids in the water and the clouds of lake flies that are always rising in the distance. If you watch the fresh water episode, there is about a 5 minute clip in there all about Lake Malawi. 

We went snorkeling nearly everyday in the waters just around Mayoka and saw thousands of colorful fish. I also went scuba diving which was a good experience as I have never been on a fresh water dive. Are there hippos and crocs in Lake Malawi? Yes there are, but they are only in the southern part of the lake where there are beaches and the water is much shallower. The northern part of the lake, which is where we were, drops off to about 50 feet deep within 20 feet of the shore, so crocs and hippos do not hang around in those types of conditions.

I mentioned lake flies earlier - what are those you ask? Earlier European explorers saw giant, brownish grey clouds rising hundreds of feet into the sky and assumed the lake was smoking. From a long distance off, it certainly looks like smoke. Actually, those clouds are massive swarms of little flies (smaller than mosquitoes) that hatch at the surface of the lake, fly into the sky in a towering cloud, mate, and then fall back down to the surface where they lay their eggs and die. They have a very short lifespan. If you watch that Planet Earth episode, you will see them in action.

Kayaking

This was by far the best part of our trip. If you readers out there ever happen to visit Nkhata Bay, find the company called Monkey Business Kayaking and go on a 4 day kayak trip with them - you won’t regret it. 

The sunrise from one of our campsites.

There was a group of 5 of us that went, three volunteers and two guides, on a 4 day, 4 night kayaking trip along the northern shore of the lake. We kayaked along the mountainous coast, passing all of the villages along the way where hundreds of kids would rush out of their homes yelling, “Muzungu!” (white person) and wave hysterically as if we were celebrities. 

We camped on the beaches at night and our two guides, Kumbu and Anderson, would cook all of our food on the fire. They also set up our tents, made tea and coffee every morning and night, and packed the kayaks after every stop. We kept asking if we could help, but they insisted that we just relax and enjoy ourselves. I was expecting to be hungry on our little expedition, but I was actually completely full the entire time.

The villages we passed along the way have no roads leading to them at all, so the people that live there rely 100% on the lake for transportation and most of their food. Since there are no roads, the only way for a tourist to see that part of Malawi up close is by kayaking there, and Lindsey and I were so happy that we decided to go on the trip despite my foot.

The usual kayaking view.

Lindsey and I at one of our stops.

One of our campsites after a long day.

Our entire kayaking group.

One of the many, many rock jumps along the way.

Do you see the lake flies in the background?

Andre and I with some of the local kids.

Big Foot

Wait..... Big Foot was seen on Lake Malawi? Yes, and it was me. My foot got really, really infected in Malawi and hence, the guides of our kayaking trip started calling me Big Foot. It swelled up like I had just sprained my ankle (but I hadn’t which was why the swelling was no bueno) and severely limited my movement for about 10 days since I was trying to stay off of it and keep it elevated. It was certainly the biggest downer of the trip for me because it kept me from being active. Yes, I went to the clinic at Nkhata Bay and got some antibiotics, but the first two rounds of antibiotics the doctor gave me did absolutely nothing. When I went back a third time about 10 days later when I ran out of the other antibiotics the doctor asked me, “Well, what do you think you should take?” To which I replied, “What do I think I should take? What do YOU think I should take? You are the doctor!” We debated for a long time about this issue and after a self diagnosis I luckily picked the right antibiotics that cleared up the infection after a few days.

It all started with a small blister from my sandal on my foot. Apparently, the lake has some kind of crazy bacteria in it that you absolutely do not want in open wounds. Lindsey had a small cut (the size of a pin prick that took over 3 weeks to heal!) on her knee that got infected and another volunteer cut his foot on a rock which also swelled up a few days later, so I was not the other one effected but my foot was certainly the worst. So while Lake Malawi was certainly beautiful with crystal clear waters, Africa always seems to have a trick up its sleeve. If you ever visit Lake Malawi, don’t swim with a cut or you will surely end up like Big Foot. We have some gnarly pictures of my foot, but I would like to save you the trouble from looking at them. If you really want to see them and are somehow excited by gross things, send Lindsey’s phone a Whatsapp and she will send you a picture. 

Coming Home

The trip home was actually much more stressful than the trip there. Our bus broke down for 6 hours on the side of the road, bribes had to be paid at borders, my wallet was stollen which of course made it difficult to pay the bribes, we slept in a bus station, and again we ate and drank almost nothing for 3 days. When we finally arrived back in Mayara, I don’t think I have ever been happier to see our mud huts.

Overall, being in Malawi was great. Getting there and back was terrible. 

The Last School Term

We are already on our last term as teachers in Namibia. We are done with the Peace Corps in just 4 months and time has absolutely flown by. I still have a significant amount of work to do on the playground, so that will be taking up most of my afternoons for the foreseeable future. Lindsey is in charge of Camp GLOW (don’t forget to donate to Camp GLOW if you haven’t yet at http://www.backabuddy.co.za/camp-glow-2014), so she will be very busy with that in the coming months.

Peace,

Tim 

The Himba Tribe and Epupa Falls

The Himba Tribe 

Namibia celebrated 24 years of independence on March 21st, which means we had a long weekend - which also means, travel. One of the last places in Namibia that we had yet to visit was a town called Opuwo, located in the northwest and is arguably the most isolated part of the country. It is also home to the amazing Himba tribe, whose lives have remained more or less unchanged for at least the last 400 years in one of the most extreme environments on earth. Because the northwest part of the country is naturally isolated, it has helped them cling to their traditional ways even when other parts of Namibia are quickly developing. Not to sound cheesy, but seeing these people was like stepping back in time to a different world. If you have ever seen the movie Babies, then you have already seen the Himba.

The Himba women have some of the most interesting and intricate style of dress (or lack there of) I have ever seen. They crush a rock called ochre, which is deep red, into a fine powder and mix it with animal fat and then proceed to rub it all over their bodies, multiple times a day. It helps protect them from being out in the sun all day and gives their skin a very unique red color. They also put the same mixture into their hair, leaving little “poofs” of their natural hair sticking out of the bottom. They wear leather skin loin clothes and a rich assortment of handmade jewelry over their whole body. Most of the buildings in the town are painted red from about 8 feet down on the outside walls to keep them from looking dirty if the Himba happen to lean up against them. 

A Himba woman that we took some pictures with.

*Interesting fact: the Himba women bathe one day in their entire lives - the day before they get married. 

I will admit, I was a bit of a creeper in Opuwo. Since my camera has such a big zoom, I would stand behind trees or inside of doorways to take pictures of Himba from 100 feet away without them knowing. It felt a bit creepy, but eventually our entire group would yell out, “Tim! Sneak attack!” when they saw a Himba they wanted me to snag a picture of. We also approached a few groups of women and asked (basically through sign language as they don’t speak a word of English) to take pictures of them and with them. Few things feel more awkward than asking if you can take a picture of someone you don’t know. 

So, the traditional Himba people don’t actually live in Opuwo, but rather in villages in the surrounding area. They do come in to buy food from time to time at the grocery store and they stay in tents outside the houses of their relatives or friends. They don’t stay inside the houses because they would cover the entire inside of the house with red dirt. Needless to say, it is weird to go into a grocery store and see a traditional Himba with a grocery cart reaching into the freezer to grab some butter. Not your everyday sight. So obviously, they are not completely “untouched” from civilization, but there are still thousands and thousands of Himba that are living in their secluded, traditional villages with round huts made of cow dung. We really enjoyed the fact that we got to see and interact with some of them.

A group of Himba women that we stopped to take pictures with.

Epupa Falls

A panoramic shot of the falls.

A few hours away from Opuwo, on the border between Namibia and Angola, lies Epupa Falls on the Kunene River. A few of us went out there and camped for the night (but no one actually slept in tents due to continuous, torrential downpours) and did a little bit of hiking and even swimming near the falls. Epupa is certainly not very big, especially compared to the giants like Victoria Falls, but it was certainly beautiful. For whatever reason, there are giant baobab trees scattered all around the waterfall which made it feel that much more “exotic”. It has been raining a lot in the area, so the flow of water over the falls was very powerful. Epupa is also right in the middle of a Himba village, so there were lots of kids running around in their little loin clothes and even a few men bathing in the river with their donkeys nearby.

Lindsey and I, being careful not to slip!

Some of the many Himba kids running around.

How often do you see a donkey at the edge of a waterfall?

Sunrise at the falls with some giant Baobab trees.

Spelling Bee

Lindsey and another teacher helped organize a spelling bee competition within the school. The students were given a word list corresponding to their grade level and had about a week to prepare and try to memorize the words. 3 boys and 3 girls were selected from grades 5 - 10 to compete against their classmates. For the event, the entire school (about 520 students and 21 teachers) came out and sat in chairs under a tree as the students competed. I was one of the listening judges, attempting to judge their correctness, and it was actually really hard! They pronounce their L’s and R’s almost the exact same, so we had to gather around and decide as a group if they spelled the words correct after some of the students went. Overall, it was a fun event and the students had a great time competing.

Camp Glow

If you remember from last year (crazy that it has already been a year since then) I wrote a little blurb about an event called Camp GLOW that Lindsey and I were both counselors in. GLOW stands for Guys and Girls Leading Our World and is a week long leadership conference that is held yearly in Windhoek. This year’s camp will be held during the August break, and 80 students and about 25 counselors from all over Namibia will come together for a week of fun, games, and learning. Lindsey is actually one of the co-chairs of the camp and business for her will probably get pretty hectic in the next few months trying to get things together. 

Camp GLOW is run nearly entirely through donations, so it is important to start raising funds early. Food, lodging, transportation and materials to be used during the camp must be provided for over 100 people for an entire week. As you can imagine, it is no cheap event to host a project of this magnitude. Hence, here is our humble request:

If you would like to donate or have friends that you think would be interested, please visit the secure page: 

http://www.backabuddy.co.za/camp-glow-2014

Any donations will help and remember that your money will directly help make this year’s camp a success. AND, remember that the conversation rate from USD to Namibian dollars is (last I checked) 1 USD = 10.59 Namibian Dollars. The exchange rate is certainly in our favor so please, don’t be shy!

If you would like to see the actual Camp GLOW website for more information, please visit:

http://campglownamibia.weebly.com

Traveling Yet Again

Believe it or not, this April-May break will be our last big break before we leave Namibia for good. My... how time flies. The students are currently taking their exams, and will have a month long break after their last exam of Term 1 on April 11th. We are headed out to Malawi with a few friends where we will spend our days relaxing on the beautiful beaches of Lake Malawi and snorkeling with the most colorful freshwater fish in existence. If you don’t believe me that a lake can be pretty (the lakes around me growing up certainly weren’t), just Google “lake malawi”. It looks like a mix between the Caribbean and heaven. I will let you know more about it when we get back, but that is where we are headed.

In The Meantime

I have been working a project, a rather big one actually - I started building a playground for our school. And not just any playground, I wanted to build the best playground in the entire Kavango Region (which, most likely will be entirely true when I am done). I have been spending all my afternoons cutting and welding steal bars that are slowly beginning to take shape. With only one saw and one welding machine, the work progress is a bit slow, so I still have a long way to go. I will let you know more about it when I am done.

I keep telling the kids not to look at the spark, but they refuse to listen.

Until next time

Peace,

Tim

Painting, Porridge, and Dancing

Rainy Season vs. Dry Season

Here are two pictures - the first one was taken about a year and a half ago on our first day in Mayara. It was the peak of the dry season. All the grass was dead and sand was everywhere. The second is one that I just took yesterday. The grass grows to be about three feet high and I even had to dig out a path for us to walk in to avoid walking through waist high grass. Our fence isn’t in as good of shape, but it is still doing pretty good considering it is in the midst of its second rainy season. A little different eh?

Our homestead after many, many months of no rain.

Our homestead now.

Namibia Map

This was a project that Lindsey and I actually finished back in December during finals. Like the World Map we painted last August, we also wanted to paint a map of Namibia on the school to help the students learn about their own country. Most of the kids here have never even left the village, so we wanted to give them something that would help them visualize where and what things are in Namibia. This was not a big project that lots of students helped with or anything like the world map we painted- it was just Lindsey and I. It was still a lot of fun and gave us something to do in the downtime during finals last year.

The finished product.

Feeding Program

Those are the giant iron pots they cook the porridge in.

Do you ever feel tired or cranky after missing a single meal? Now imagine this as your daily routine: You wake up in the dark and walk 3 miles one way to school (maybe even hop in a canoe and float across the Kavango River first). No breakfast, no lunch, maybe dinner if porridge is available at home. You are at school from 7:30AM to 3:30PM in the 100+ degree heat and are expected to be alert and focused the entire day. Sound impossible? Well, I just described the daily life of many of our students. How can they possibly stay alert and focused if they haven’t had a bite to eat the entire day? They can’t..... could you? 

To help solve this problem, The Ministry of Education started a school feeding program where bags and bags of iron fortified porridge are delivered each term to the schools in villages. The porridge is cooked in giant cooking pots over a fire by a few of the community members each day and is distributed to the kids usually around 1:00 PM. This at least puts something in their bellies to help get them through the rest of the day and keeps them from falling asleep during afternoon study. The kids are always so excited to eat, and are incredibly satisfied when they are finished.

The distribution of the porridge.

While the feeding program is an excellent thing to have in place for village schools, there are a couple of problems that we consistently run into. First, the Ministry is often late in getting the bags of porridge delivered to the school. For example, we have had school everyday for the last 6 weeks and we just received the bags of porridge yesterday. So the kids have had nothing to eat since school has begun and probably won’t for another week or so, or at least until they find some community members to cook for the students. Second, we are always given enough porridge to last the entire term if each student is given about half a liter of porridge each day (it certainly is not a lot, but better than nothing). The problem is rationing. The cooks are not really monitored, nor given instruction or training on what to do, so usually the porridge that is supposed to last for 3 months is cooked and gone in 1 month. So while the feeding program is definitely a step in the right direction for Namibia, it still needs a few tweaks here and there to make it more reliable and effective. For the meantime, the students sure do enjoy the feast during that one month though when they eat an entire plateful of porridge each day.

The happy costumers.

Talent Show

Right before the chugging began when I still had a smile on my face.

Lindsey and another teacher at our school helped plan and organize the first ever talent show in Mayara history. It gave the students a chance to come together and sing, dance, read a poem, or show off any other talent they had. I competed in a drinking competition (with Coke... relax) against 7 other students as a “filler” in between acts. We raced in drinking an entire liter of cold, fizzy, freshly opened Coke from a glass bottle. Let me say, it was truly terrible. Drinking that much of anything is hard, but when it is cold and fizzy - it is the worst. I didn’t win but I somehow managed to get second place by default since a few competitors were disqualified for not stopping when the judges yelled, “STOP!”, and a few others immediately threw the Coke back up on the ground when they finished. Yum.

Overall, the talent show was a huge success and everyone had a great time. It started a little late, about three hours late actually, and went until 1:30 AM. More than 250 people came, both students and community members, and the school raised about N$740 - which is a big chunk of change here. It was also great to see some of the students come out of their shells. Most of them are so timid and shy in class (which is mostly the culture of all students in the Kavango Region), but they have no problem jumping in front of a crowd of hundreds to bust out their dance moves. And man, they can dance. 

Some of the students dancing. 

Lindsey with some of the students after they performed.

Books

An organization called Darian Books donated a box of books via Lindsey’s request to put in our school Library, which is sufficiently lacking good books. She opened the box with her 7th grade class and they were incredibly excited.

Some happy students showing off their new books.

The Night Of The Spitting Cobra - An Epic Tale

This was by far the most scary of our snake experiences so far. Lindsey woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and after a few steps outside in the pitch black heard a loud hissssssss just a few feet away from her. She of course had a flash light, but being that we hadn’t seen a snake in several months, we had both grown a little lax on scanning for snakes before we stepped outside at night. She yelled, “Tim! Snake!”, which of course caused me to jump up out of bed with my adrenaline pumping and my heart racing. I looked outside and Lindsey was standing about 10 feet away from a 4 foot long cobra with its head reared and hood spread, which was now constantly scanning back and forth between the two of us like a pendulum (I was still in the hut looking outside). I didn’t want to try to hit it with a stick, being that it was pitch dark outside and the fact that it was a spitting cobra - I didn’t see it as wise to get close enough to try to kill it with a 3 foot stick. In my dazed mindset (remember I had just been jolted awake), it took me a few minutes to figure out what to do. Lindsey was at a safe distance and it would have been possible just to leave the thing alone and let it slither away off into the bush. But then you always run into the possibility of it coming back later and hiding somewhere else (maybe inside our hut) or, it could end up biting someone else, like one of the little students who play soccer barefoot nearby. Anyway, in my opinion, it is always better to kill a deadly snake when you see one instead of letting it get away.

So I decided to pick up a brick that was outside of our hut door and chunk it at the snake with the hopes of crushing it. I stood behind the door of our hut, kind of like it was my shield, and threw the brick as hard as I could. It smacked the snake and hurt it, but unfortunately it just rolled over the body instead of pinning the snake down as I had hoped. Then the injured, hissing, scared, and angry cobra tried to seek shelter inside of our hut. Inside of the hut that I was in. Not good. 

It came at me full speed and luckily I slammed the door closed in just enough time to pin its head in between the door and the door frame, about six inches from my bare feet. Nice. I grabbed one of my trusty axe handles, conveniently located next to the doors in each of our huts for just these situations, and raised it up to smash the head. Just before I came down with it though, it pulled its stupid head back out and slithered around to the front of our hut. My adrenaline was in full force now to say the least so I was certainly not thinking clearly at this point. Hence, I opened the door, threw another brick, and chased after it like a wild man with my axe handle in hand. I chased after it for maybe a total of 5 seconds and hit it about 10 times before it stopped moving. Neither of us slept the rest of the night.

What I haven’t mentioned yet was that both of our cats (Shiner, the cat we got after our last spitting cobra incident and one of her kittens) were also present during this event, watching from about 5 feet away. Who knows how long they had been watching/messing with the snake before Lindsey went outside? They both seemed fine after I killed the snake, so we assumed they were both fine. However, the next morning when we rolled out of bed after a long, sleepless night, Shiner was nowhere to be seen which has never happened before. The kitten appeared to have been spit on because his eyes were completely swollen shut and all goopy. I was then incredibly angry. Angry at the fact that I had just laid in bed for 5 hours without sleeping and that our cat was most likely dead (if you read anything about cats, they always disappear when they know they are about to die). When we went to school, the other teachers told us not to worry because they claimed that cats can be bit by snakes but will never actually die. I however, was not so optimistic. Shiner was gone the entire next day and we both just accepted that she wondered off to die somewhere. Then, out of nowhere, she appeared in the middle of the next night and started meowing like nothing had ever happened. She was definitely bit, maybe even a few times, but somehow survived. I guess curiosity doesn’t always kill the cat.

Also, everyone here has always said, “It is good that you have cats because cats kill snakes.” Well, it is clear now that cats in fact do not kill snakes, but rather just deter them from coming. Snakes will come more readily if there is food around, which is usually mice, and cats kill mice which will theoretically make the chances of a snake coming by slightly less. I think. No joke though, Shiner has killed one to two mice every single night for the past two months. I don’t even know where she gets them! If our cat weren’t around though, it would be mice galore around here and we would certainly encounter even more snakes.

Last Sunday around noon, Lindsey and I were washing our clothes and we heard some of the other teachers yelling at the house next to ours. I asked what was going on and they said, “Thiyoka! Wiye Timo!” Snake! Come here Tim! Of course, I grabbed my axe handle and ran over. What was there? Another spitting cobra. And what did I do? I threw a brick at it and promptly beat it to death. I am developing an effective system here I think. That is two spitting cobras in the last two weeks. I feel like I have met my snake killing quota for my Peace Corps service.

Peace!

Tim

The American Invasion: Part 2

So I split this post into two parts because I knew if I posted it all the same day, most of you would skim through the words because it would have been excessively long for one post. Here is the second part of our journey.

Arrive Daniel and Elyse:

*Daniel is my brother and Elyse is his wife

We met up with Daniel and Elyse in Cape Town after our ridiculously long bus ride, and stayed there just long enough to grab some lunch before we hit the road again. To give you an overview of the trip: We started in Cape Town, drove up the eastern coast, flew out of Johannesburg, and had and awesome time along the way. Also, there is a video at the end, so be sure you click the link to watch it after you have read everything!

Robertson

Cheers!

There are literally hundreds of vineyards around the Cape Town area and it is known for having some of the best wine in the world, so wine tasting is obviously a pretty big attraction for anyone coming to visit. We stayed our first night in a small town called Robertson, mainly because it was on the way to our next destination. However, we ended up going by a vineyard (which was not planned) to taste some of their wine and were met with an unexpected surprise - all wine tastings in Robertson are 100% free (which I believe you have to pay everywhere else to try wine) and you can basically have as much as you want. To give an example, one of the waitresses at a vineyard just brought us several full bottles of wine from their sample list and left them on our table. When we left, she asked, “Wait, is that all?” Relax parents, we were responsible. Responsiblish. 

New Years Eve

We spent New Years Eve at one of the coolest beaches I have ever seen in a town called Sedgefield. That night was quite a spectacle (sorry, no pictures though). There were hundreds of people on the beach, most of whom were setting off fireworks literally right above our heads. You know those Chinese Lanterns that have a candle at the base and float up into the sky? Well, hundreds of those were flying out over the ocean for several hours. There were a few “fire twirlers” that had flaming balls on the end of their spinning strings while they were dancing around like crazy people. Lights, fire, and explosions were everywhere around us it seemed. It was a great time and something we would be very unlikely to see back in the U.S.

Kloofing

In a town called Wilderness, the four of us spent the day kloofing. Kloofing you ask? What the heck is that? Well, typically whilst one kloofs, you hike/swim along the banks of a river through a gorge or deep ravine and spend the day swimming and jumping off cliffs down into the water. It is the dream day for an adrenaline junky.  Some of the jumps we went off of were pretty intense, with the highest of the day being about 35 feet. I would talk more about this, but instead - just watch the video at the end! Thanks to Daniel’s GoPro camera, we were able to get some great action video throughout the trip.

Me, jumping off into the dark water

The whole group posing for a picture during kloofing.

The whole group, right before we went swimming at the base of a waterfall.

Safari Time

Daniel and Elyse, of course, wanted to go on a safari while in Africa (who wouldn’t?) so we spent an entire day in two different game parks, both conveniently located right next to each other. The first one we went into was called Addo Elephant Park, and for good reason too - I have never seen so many elephants! Within five minutes of being in the park, we could of practically reached out and touched the herds of elephants that were next to the dirt road. We saw herds numbering around 100 elephants at the same waterhole, just drinking and rolling around in the mud.

Some of the many elephants we saw at Addo Elephant Park.

After Addo, we went into the private game reserve right next door called Schotia for a 6 hour guided safari, followed with dinner and drinks. We saw two white rhinos (white rhinos are the second biggest land mammal behind elephants) and we were lucky enough to see a female lion with a fresh kill from about 20 feet away. Watching a lion eat is not as pleasant as I thought it would be.... snapping tendons is not really a nice sound (a short 2 second clip is in the video)

A full grown, male lion. He was huge.

The female lion we saw, digging in deep for a hearty bite from a dead Blesbock.

Side note: Poaching

Namibia and South Africa have some of the best conservation programs in the world, and are doing a great job overall. However, despite their efforts, poaching is still a huge problem throughout Africa. Here are some facts: It is estimated that 50 years ago, there were 200,000 lions in Namibia. Do you know how many there are now? About 800. In 2012, South Africa lost an average of two rhinos per day due to poaching. Lions are hunted for their bones and rhinos are hunted, obviously, for their horns. But do you know who is supplying the demand for lion bones and rhino horns? The Chinese. Who would have thought? It is a wildly held belief in China (and has been for thousands of years) that rhino horns can cure anything from the flu to hangovers to cancer, while the science says they have absolutely no health benefits at all. Rhino horns are made of the exact same thing as our finger nails and will grow back if you shave them off. But, that is not the belief in China and the wealthy Chinese are willing to pay up to $65,000 per kg of rhino horn. They are worth more than their weight in gold. With lion bones, they make some weird sex potion that is also completely unsubstantiated by science. Weird. Either way, there is big time money in poaching and it has gotten much worse in recent years due to the booming Chinese economy. There are talks of having tightly regulated legal horn trade to try to curve the rhino poaching and eventually kill the black market trade. I guess time will tell, but something needs to happen fast.

Two white rhinos who were poached about one year ago. Luckily, they just cut off the horns and didn't kill them

Hogsback 

This bathtub probably has the best view in the world.

Hogsback is said to be the fantastical area that J. R. R. Tolkien used to visit as a child, which eventually inspired him to write the acclaimed book The Hobbit. Whether or not that is true, I have no idea. But what I do know is that when we went on our 5 hour hike in the forrest around Hogsback, it felt like we were in a fairy tail. Waterfalls, streams, bright green moss, and noisy monkeys were everywhere around us. We went for a swim in a couple of the swimming holes and were able to eat fresh blackberries, picked straight from the bushes along the way.

The backpackers that we stayed at was called Away With The Fairies (funny name, I know) and they claim to have the world’s scariest treehouse. Let me tell you, it definitely lives up to the claim. It was about 50 feet up in a tree and had a sketchy series of ladders and an even sketchier “house” at the top. To give you an idea of the sketchiness, Lindsey refused to climb up it and Elyse wouldn’t stand up once we were on the top even though the view was spectacular. One day, that thing is coming down. So yes, I would agree that it is probably the world’s scariest treehouse.

One of the many waterfalls we saw while hiking.

Coffee Bay

This was my favorite destination on the trip. Coffee Bay is located on The Wild Coast of South Africa and is certainly deserving of its name. It is said to be a hikers’ paradise with incredible views of endless coastline, jagged cliffs, and sheltered bays. There are also scattered seaside villages with traditional huts and all the domesticated animals  you can think of grazing right up next to the beach and on the edge of cliffs. It literally was wild as wild can be. We met this one crazy German guy at our backpackers that said, “When I first came here, I only checked in for one night, but I somehow ended up staying for six years.” I would never stay that long, but I could certainly see the draw to the place.

Some of the many sheep we saw scattered across the hills on the Wild Coast.

The view of our hiking trail along the coast

We went on a full day hike along the coast and through several villages to a place known as The Hole in the Wall. It is a secluded bay that is almost completely surrounded by high cliffs, except that one of the cliffs has a big hole (more like a cave really) at the base leading out to the ocean, where the waves from the outside were constantly crashing through. Lindsey and I swam out to it, but kept a safe distance away  from the rocks and the pounding waves. 

The whole group before we started our full day hike.

Lindsey and Elyse... flexing?

Daniel and I spent a few hours boogie boarding and surfing in the ocean by our backpackers. Before we started, the surf instructor said, “Yeah so, today is pretty much the worst conditions you can possibly have for surfing. The wind is howling, the waves are breaking early, and the current is relentless. But, you will probably still have fun.”  To me, surfing that day was more frustrating than fun since we were constantly fighting the current and our boards kept trying to fly away like kites in the wind, but I am still glad we did it.

Daniel and I fighting the wind to keep our boards from flying away.

I was practicing my signature move, called falling.

Scuba Diving

The last part of our adventure with Daniel and Elyse was in the town of Ukomaas, where we went scuba diving on a reef called the  Aliwal Shoal. The Aliwal Shoal is rated as one of the best 10 dive locations in the world. The area is known for the thousands of ragged tooth sharks that hang around the reef and feed during their annual migration. Unfortunately for us, the sharks had already migrated through so we didn’t see any on our dives. However, the dives were still awesome. I have only been on a few dives before, and these two were far better. There was colorful and abundant sea life on the reef all around us, ranging from giant tortoises to tiny orange clownfish and their anemones. The current was so strong that our dive group got separated a few times in a matter of seconds - It happens when you are looking down, watching the fish and then you look up to make sure you are still with the group and find yourself all alone. It can happen really fast and is a little scary when you find ourself on the outside of the group.

Elyse, looking at the camera on the way down.

We said goodbye to Daniel and Elyse right before they flew out of Johannesburg airport, and Lindsey and I followed the next day. To you guys - we had an absolute blast, went on some awesome hikes, and we love and will miss you both a lot. Be safe and have fun in your new house up in Oklahoma. We will come for a visit when we get back!

VIDEO - MUST WATCH!!!

To watch a video of our trip, click here to take you to youtube, or click the play button below.

Back in the Village

Alas, after a month of nonstop traveling, we returned back to the “village chillage” of Mayara. School just started back up, and Lindsey and I are going to try to make the most of our last 9 months in Namibia. We are pumped to get this year started and will hopefully get a lot of productive things done this term. While teaching is still the main reason that we are here, both of us are going to try to put more emphasis on doing things/projects outside of the classroom this year. I will give you more info about that as things happen! As always, thanks everyone for your prayers and until next time..

Peace,

Tim