From Cape Town, it was a 20 hour bus ride North to Windhoek, Namibia. This was a departure from our original plan to transit back across South Africa and head to Kreuger National Park and then onto Mozambique and Zimbabwe. With limited time and potential travel delays in Zimbabwe due to the political situation there, we decided a better path to Victoria falls would be through Namibia. Besides, although we will most likely visit Southern Africa again at some point in our lives, Namibia, unlike South Africa or Mozambique, would most likely not be on the itinerary.

Anyhow, we landed in Windhoek and were uninspired. As Namibia's capitol and largest city, Windhoek is home to only 250,000 people. We spent two days there and that was enough. There aren't any tourist attractions to speak of and everything seems to close around 5pm. So, we quickly decided to head to the Skeleton coast and the Namibian Desert. 

The Namib desert looks as if it is utterly barren. It is home to the world largest sand dunes and was our play ground for Sandboarding. Many of you may be familiar with stand up sandboarding which is a lot like snowboarding. However, you may be unaware of the fun that can be found using a slice of polished chip board. We kid you not... a can of pledge and some cheap wood and glue.... one large, steep sand dune and voila!!! 80km/hr is easily obtained as you hurtle down the mountains of sand on your belly! We spent a good part of a day enjoying this "sport."   It's a bit like sledding (sledging) although not as cold. Snow, however, does taste better than Namibian Sand... take our word for it... although we'd rather eat the yellow sand than yellow snow! And, it's awesome exercise for the gluts (ie., it's a pain in the arse climbing back to the top of the dunes!)

From some of the dunes, we could see out to the skeleton coast. The cold atlantic ocean has claimed many a ship along these shores due to the mist, fog and an unfriendly coastline. The beaches are littered with large rusty ships, but the cold icy waves of the ocean are warm in comparison to some of the attitudes we encountered while in Swakop. Racism is alive and thriving in this small town as we believe it is though much of Namibia and South Africa. And it was only while we were in Swakop that we really had the opportunity to experience first hand what it's like to be white or black in these countries.

We spent quite a bit of time at our guest house in Swakop and got to know the staff there. (To protect everyone involved, we won't mention the where exactly we were and the names have been changed.) Over time, we got to know Albert, a black staff member, who was responsible for almost everything.... he worked seven days a week, over 12 hours a day changing sheets, greeting guests, and answering phone calls. He cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed floors... but he was not allowed to handle money and the white "owners" treated him as if he was a servant and thief. They used every name in the book to refer to him and told continually told racist jokes. It's hard to relay how being in an environment like this makes you feel. For me, the first feeling was of extreme anger. How could Albert just take all of this so easily in stride and how could the "owners" be so blind as to treat this great guy, who was working so hard for them, so badly?

"The black man in Namibia is very low."  Albert explained one night as we sat around the pub drinking beers. He went on to explain that he needed the job and although his pay for one months work was less than we would spend on our 5 night stay, it was still much more than he could make working somewhere else. He was the oldest of 6 or 7 children and the money that he earned helped his younger siblings with their school fees. In the end, I really came to admire Albert's gentle spirit of acceptance...  and he helped me to see how he could continue to work at the guest house without getting angry, but my anger was replace by an overwhelming sadness with the whole situation and for those on all sids of the issue. We know it will take generations for South Africa and Namibia to overcome their recent history, but we pray that the transition will happen quickly and peacefully.