Cold Namibian Nights

There we were on the South Atlantic coast at Luderitz, Katie drinking a Tab and trying to eat a frozen hard boiled egg, Tom trying to drink a frozen Coke. We realized each had frozen in a different way. The egg had frozen in the cold air the night before, the Coke had frozen in the car refrigerator that came with the rental pickup.

When we picked up the rental, we were pleased to find that in addition to the roof top tent, we had the above-mentioned fridge, table and chairs, full set of silverware, plates and bowls, a braai (grill kit) and pillows, among other luxuries. It was far cushier than we are used to camping.


On the other hand, the steering wheel was on the right side, the shifter was to the left of it, and it seemed everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road. This was briefly interesting, but quickly overcome, and we headed south out of Windhoek. The city quickly gave way to desert, and the hills around Windhoek more gradually gave way to flatter terrain. The vegetation also became more sparse as we headed south, until there was barely anything living. But this changed as we reached our first campsite, near Keetmanshoop in a quiver tree forest. We pulled up just as the sun was setting, providing a few minutes of good picture taking,

and we settled into what would become our approximately nightly routine of firing up the braai and cooking dinner. It was an early morning to catch the quiver trees at sunrise and after breakfast we headed over to the Giant's Playground, a landscape of boulders that appeared to have been stacked on top of each other. Relaxing on the rocks were some rodents we have yet to identify.

As we left Keetmanshoop and headed southeast, the terrain became more interesting again, with mountains and plateaus all around. We had now left most of Namibia's population behind and other than the road, saw little to show that anyone ever came this way. We reached our campsite for the night (Saturday night), Canon Roadhouse near Fish River Canyon. We took a look around the area, climbing up to the top of a plateau where the land was tiled with interesting volcanic formations. Then onto the main attraction of the day. About 15 miles away from the roadhouse, the rolling terrain suddenly dropped into Fish River Canyon to the river 1,800 ft below. The setting sun turns the canyon all different colors as it goes down. Only we didn't see this - clouds had filled the western sky, ending our prospects for a colorful sunset.

Across the canyon, we could see the the curtains of some rain showers which would surely dry up before reaching us. And then the rains came. Preparing dinner was a wet process, and dinner was eaten in the protection of the pickup.

Sunday morning, we awoke to sun, but the clouds made a return with some rain falling as we started the day's drive. We were about to enter even more remote and rugged terrain, reaching the Orange River and the South African border. It was a spectacular drive through terrain that changed quickly from open spaces to narrow canyons, rugged mountains to rolling plains.
We were however tiring of our one CD, a South African folk compilation with such songs as 'The one that sounds like a Paul Simon Song', 'The one where a guy coughs loudly in the middle' and 'The one where someone whistles and it sounds like the car broke'. The weather was changing quickly throughout the day, until we approached our destination, Aus, when we left all the clouds behind. As usual, we went out for a short hike to explore the area. This hike would be a sunset hike as the afternoon was getting on, and we followed the appropriately named Sunset Trail. When we reached some plains that looked like they'd be nice in the setting sun's light, we waited for the sun to set. And we waited, and waited, and waited...meanwhile noticing that it was quite a bit cooler here than it had been all the other places we'd stayed and that the wind was really blowing! Once the sun finally set, we returned to camp, by now both of us completely frigid. Dinner this night was pasta, which we were already expecting to be a challenge with a relatively weak burner (the one non-luxury of our setup). The cold and wind only added to the challenge, and we were soon huddled in the pickup for the second night in a row. Who knew it was so cold, windy & rainy in Namibia!? Once in our tent, the wind was blowing with furious gusts, leading us to wonder how much it would take to separate the tent from the roof. It went on like that all night and was still going in the morning, so we were glad we had planned to embark on our day's (Monday's) activities and eat breakfast in the car. Even so, just taking down the tent was enough to numb our fingers and as we left the campsite, we noticed a heavy frost on the desert plants.

About an hour from Aus, we reached Kolmanskop, a town and mine which by the time WWI began, was providing 20% of the world's diamonds. They were so abundant that the preferred mining method was to line people up to crawl across the sand dunes picking up stones with cloth over their mouths to prevent swallowing any diamonds. Now the population of Kolmanskop is zero, and there are no diamonds, although other nearby mines are still producing (by more modern methods). The last inhabitants left a bit over 50 years ago, and with little in the way of elements, the buildings have held up pretty well. Except for one thing - blowing sand. Nearly every room in every building has been overtaken by it, all the way to the ceiling in places. The combination of still brightly colored walls and sculpted sand is quite striking.



After a thorough exploration, we made our way into Luderitz for our aforementioned picnic. After lunch, a look around town at the interesting and out of place seeming German-inspired buildings, and restocking our groceries, we started our return to Aus. We made one side trip to see the feral horses that roam the plains near Aus.


There are a variety of theories on how they got here, but basically all of them go back to wealthy Europeans. With strong winds and cool air, by now we had decided to eat at the restaurant where we were staying rather than endure cooking in the cold another night. It was quite a feast - including oryx steaks. Being warm while we were eating was quite a treat as well.

Here are the animals we've seen so far:

Monkeys (or some kind of primate) on the road not far south of Windhoek
Meerkats along the road south of Windhoek and near the quiver tree forest
Unidentified marmot-like animals in several rocky places
Springbok several places along the road
Red Hartebeest (or so we think, identified as the animal on the back of the Namibian $20 bill, otherwise Kudu) a couple times along the road near Fish River Canyon
Ostiches several times
Jackals first seen by Katie while Tom was taking a shower at the Canon Roadhouse campsite, and he came back to find her hiding in the car, then by both of us on the road between Aus and Luderitz
And the wild horses of the Namib near Aus

Zebra: The Other White Meat

So, after a day and a half in Namibia, we've eaten more wildlife than we've seen. Of course, we've been in the Namibia's capital, Windhoek, which is not particularly known for its wildlife.
It was a short flight from Jo'burg to here and we spent Wednesday afternoon relaxing at the guesthouse and talking over the details of our drive around southern Namibia (which we leave for tomorrow, Friday) with our guy at the tour company. For dinner, we went to Joe's Beerhouse, a Windhoek institution and tourist favorite, known for its wild game. After a snail appetizer, our main dishes came out - skewered springbok kebabs for me and a zebra stake for Katie. Both were very tasty. The zebra, as suggested in the title, was a rather light meat while the springbok was redder, and tasted pretty similar to beef. We also had some good beers for dinner. Besides being cheap (typically a beer is bit over a dollar for a bottle here), with Namibia's history of German influence, the beer here is also pretty good.
Today we struck off to explore the city. Warnings about safety abound at the guesthouse: don't park outside unless you want your car to be broken into; don't carry a bag unless you want to be robbed at knife point. So we took reasonable precautions, not carrying bags and not bringing more money than we needed, and we weren't hassled nor did we feel unsafe. I guess there's always the risk though. What we found was actually a clean orderly city. As with most 3rd world cities I've been in, there is an element of things seeming unfinished, or unmaintained, such as sidewalks suddenly turning to dirt, and nice landscaping interrupted by dirt lots. On the other hand, there really is almost no trash around the city. The main shopping center was comparable to any nice mall in the US, just with no GAP and more handicrafts for sale. The grocery store was as well stocked as any in the US, but with more German sausages and wild game biltong (basically jerky, but don't call it that!)
Our first stop was at the National Museum, which primarily focused on Namibia's independence struggles against Germany and South Africa, and the first elections as an independent country in 1990. Namibia never won independence from Germany, rather at the start of WWI South Africa invaded at the request of England and took over from Germany. Against the protest of much of the world, South Africa held on to Namibia until a 1988 treaty called for transition to independence to start in 1989, culminating with elections later that year, and a new constitution and independence early the following year.
From the museum we walked to the Parliament Building and around the gardens in front of it and to the Christukirche, a German Lutheran Church built in the early 1900s.


We stopped for lunch at a cafe next to Zoo Park, a grassy park in the center of town. From there we watched the activity (or lack thereof, as most of the park visitors seemed to be pretty inactive) of the park, and observed an apparent unofficial, presumably economic, segregation. All the people eating at the cafe were white, while all the people in the park, as well as the waiters at the cafe, were black.
We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out arts & crafts, grocery shopping, and attempting to buy a cell phone we'll be able to use during our trip. The phone situation is a bit different here than in the US, so it took some fact finding to figure out what we need to get, but I think we have it all sorted out and will be able to pick one up tomorrow before we head south.
So tomorrow we start our drive through Southern Namibia. We'll be in a rented pickup and our sleeping accommodations will be the tent that sets up on top of the truck, hopefully out of reach of the wildlife. It will be interesting. We are now at the Chameleon Guesthouse and have a really cool, safari inspired room, with our own private bath. Nice private room, tent on top of a truck...we like to mix it up :)

Out of Norway and into Africa

For our last weekend in Norway we returned to the mountains to stay at the family hut in Fekjan, about a 2.5 hour drive from the farm. We left Thursday afternoon with Petter (Tom's cousin) heading northwest, partly following the route we took to Sogndal when we first got to Norway. The last 12km were on a gravel road, climbing steeply from the valley below. When we arrived at the hut, in a grassy meadow surrounded by trees, we started the hut-opening procedure, opening all the windows, getting water from the well and starting fires in the stoves despite the strong sun and warm temperatures.


Business complete, we went for a quick swim in the chilly waters of the main river through the area before dinner. Dinner was a fancy meal of hotdogs :)

Friday morning we went for the obligatory hike up Fekjafjell, the high peak behind the hut. At 4,000 ft high, it's well above treeline and offers great views of the surrounding plateau and in the distance, higher, still snowy peaks and glaciers.


The trail follows clear mountain creeks where we could drink without fear of stomach problems, goes through bogs where you must choose your step carefully to avoid being sucked in, and passes alpine lakes, choppy under the wind. To Tom's disappointment, Katie was a quick learner when it came to the art of carefully walking in bogs without falling in and "plumpa-ing" (the Norwegian word for the specific situation of falling in water when clothed).


By the time we were down, John and Kristina had arrived from their brief tour of western Norway, and after lunch we took off for an afternoon hike to another smaller peak. All hiked out for the day, some of us went for a chilly swim before we all (Katie, Tom, Petter, Magnus, Kristina, and John), enjoyed a great meal of pork chops and sauerkraut that Tom's grandma and aunt sent with us.



If anyone is wondering what we did the next day...we hiked! We were headed for a farther off peak named Hallingnatten, but later learned (thanks to Tom's GPS) that we didn't quite make it far enough.


The return route took us up Fekjafjell again. After another dip in the river, we relaxed a bit, listened to Norwegian radio mixes on the Party Boy 500,


and drank an international assortment of beers and spirits, including imported Sam Adams and Underberg. Just after midnight, in the early hours of July 4th, we started a celebratory bonfire with a dried out pile of cleared brush.

The rest of our time in Norway was spent making sure we were all set for Africa, spending time with family, and eating more really good meals. We even had moose, which was a first for Katie. We are now in Johannesburg airport waiting for our flight to Windhoek after a long flight from and long layover in London. We had a great time in Norway and can't wait to return. Skål!

The Family Farm

Last Friday we left Solvorn for Tom's family's farm, which is in Hakadal, 45 minutes outside of Oslo. It took three buses, one ferry, and two trains and a pickup from the last train station. But no complaints, because it was a beautiful trip. The first two buses took us to the town of Kaupanger where we took a ferry to Gudvangen through one of Norway's narrowest fjords - as little as about 800 ft wide and with mountains up to about 4000 feet high and snowcapped.


The walls were lined with waterfalls tumbling from the snowfields all the way down.

After the ferry (and our third bus ride) were were in the town of Flåm. By this time, we clearly were not in a remote, quiet Norwegian village - we were right on the tourist trail with tons of people fresh off their cruises. It was a bit of an adjustment, but the train ride we took out of town was well worth it. It is a scenic train that goes up and into the mountains. The train makes a quick stop at Kjosfossen, not the tallest waterfall we have seen yet, but with a tremendous flow. Dancers from the Norwegian ballet school were dancing in the waterfall's mist dressed as a Huldra.


The final train we took started high in the treeless plateau and made its way down through forest and farmland, with beautiful scenery the whole way.

Since we've been at the Døhlie Farm, we have had a wonderful time with lots and lots of great food. The morning starts with homemade buns and homemade strawberry jam, lunch is usually smoked salmon, and dinners have been feasts. I hope to replicate some when I return home. One night we had Pinnekjøtt, which translates as "stick meat" for the birch twigs used in place of a steamer for cooking. It was lamb that has soaked for weeks in a brine. The following night we had a seafood stew and tonight we had trout that actually looked and tasted a lot like salmon.

Aside from all of the great eating, we've also been active here. We've been biking in the forest and went on a hike to the top of the ski mountain across from the farm, which is also where the family has a cute hut that Tom and I plan to stay at tomorrow night.

Yesterday we took the train into Oslo with Kristina and John (Tom's sister and brother-in-law) who arrived at the farm the day after us. We walked down some beautiful streets - everyone here has such beautiful flower pots and window flowers.


We also visited some of the main sights to see, like Vigelandspark which displays 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland.


We walked along the waterfront and treated ourselves to lunch there (Considering a hotdog and a soda from a convenient store is about $8 US, you can only image what a treat it is to eat in a restaurant with linens... :) After meeting up with some childhood friends of Tom and Kristina, and with their cousin Magnus, we walked through the old fort,


had a beer at the Dubliner, walked to the Opera House, which has an amazing roof that slopes to the water and is more like a beach where there are concerts, then caught the train home.
As always, we've been busy, but having a great time. We have one more week here, and lots more to do :)

Into Blue Ice

After a quiet day of taking care of business (ATM [aka mini bank] & groceries) it was time to return to excitement. We had signed up for a trip with Ice Troll where we would kayak across a lake, hike to a glacier, then have a while to explore the glacier before the return hike and kayak. The glacier, Tunsbergdalsbreen, is Norway's longest valley glacier, and is fed by Jostedalsbreen, the biggest glacier in continental Europe.
We had a relatively early wake up (for those of you not on vacation, we will not specify what early means to us) and yet another beautiful drive into a wild valley

where we met our guide, Carlos. Joining us for the trip were our host at Eplet and a friend of his, a guy from Germany working here for the summer, two Dutch guests and a Belgian couple who met us there. Carlos, as you may have guessed by the name, was not Norwegian, but Argentinian, from Tierra del Fuego.
So, we headed out on two person kayaks for about an hour and a half, paddling along a glacial lake with steep walls and waterfalls everywhere.


We left the kayaks on a beach at the far end of the lake and started our walk to the glacier, first on glacial silt mudflats then up a gorge carved by the raging glacial melt.



After an hour or so of hiking, plus a lunch stop, we reached the glacier and donned ice axes and crampons. One of our first interesting glacial feature was a blue ice cave


and we continued on stopping to look at other interesting features.



Our return trip followed the same route, although we may have gone a little faster inspired by the thought of dinner when we returned to Eplet.

Today was another quiet day, partly due to the expectation of bad weather. We also hadn't spent much time looking around town, so we wanted to see some of the old port buildings.


We made our way to a beach a bit outside town and rested there for a while, hoping the rain would stay away. When we got back to town, we sat down for lunch at the cafe, and the sun came out, and would remain that way the rest of the afternoon, which we spent reading on the grass of Eplet. A nice way to spend our last day in this beautiful part of Norway.

Relaxing the Tom Way

So, as many of you know, vacation with Tom does not always equal relaxing, but it does equal fun and exciting. Yesterday we took the ferry across the fjord to the town of Ornes where we biked 26km round trip on a road that is along side the fjord. We biked out to a waterfall that is the second tallest of its kind in Norway (only we don't know what kind it is...). We walked pretty close to it and could drink straight from the stream. Back where we started (but up a hill) was Urnes stave church, one of the oldest of its kind left in Norway. It was built around 1130 when Catholicism had made its way to Norway.


After taking the ferry back, showering, and eating, we went out for a night walk; however, it was still totally light outside. Our hike took us up the road out of town a little, through a cow farm, up through the trees (no switch-backs here) and to a point where we realized that we probably wouldn't summit. We did go just a bit higher to get a view

and were greeted by some curious sheep. I wish I could say I was all cool with it, but when I had sheep bahhing at me, staring me down, and walk right towards me, I turned to Tom for protection.....but he thought I was ridiculous and assured me that sheep are herbivores (which I knew, but they could still be biters...). Another thing is that Norway apparently doesn't have sheep dogs, which is good because we've had run ins with them before, and that really is scary! Anyhow, after escaping the sheep unharmed we returned back to Eplet and were back by 12:20, with plenty of light left.

Yesterday was just a warm up for what we did today. Our day started with biking up the road that comes down into town. It is not super steep, but it is alllllll up. Normally, I probably would have walked my bike a little, but the night before one of the couples here was talking about how they made it to the top without walking their bikes at all, so I guess my competitive streak came out. Once we were at the top of that road, it was more biking, still uphill generally. We then got to a dirt road, and I will admit, we pushed our bikes up those hills a bit. At the top we stopped and....climbed a mountain of course! We climbed to the top of Molden, at 1118 masl (3667 ft above sea level). We know that doesn't sound like a ton to our Denver friends, but starting at zero, it's still a climb!! We were rewarded at the top with beautiful views of the area and the fjord.

When we got to the bottom, we still had the second half of our bike ride to do. As described by the guy who runs our inn, it was "rolling" which we knew now meant more "up" than "down" (at least it felt like that at this point). We rode along the fjord again and though beautiful farms and pastures. At one point though, I saw Tom, who was ahead of me, being stopped by about four kids all under the age of six stringing a rope across the road so we couldn't pass. I could only image what was going on. It ended up that they were helping to move cows up the road and had to block were we were coming from so the last cow didn't walk the wrong way. So after the cow passed, we were back on our way. We rode on to a farm at the end of the road, perched right on the cliff above Solvorn. The owners let you walk across their field to the edge where you have a bird's eye view of Solvorn. We got finally got our payback for all the uphill we'd done with a long descent back to Solvorn to end the day (following a bit less direct route than the potential route shown above!)

And, tomorrow, the itinerary is to RELAX!

Ahhhhhhhhh... (said with a sigh of relief)

After a couple days of stressful travel, we have found our happy place. We have made it to Solvorn, Norway.


And they even welcomed us with a parade!


When we left off in Madrid, we were headed to the airport with standby seats on a flight to Copenhagen, and no plans for onward travel. We made it to Copenhagen, and on the way decided we would take the night bus to Oslo, then a bus all day the next day (Saturday) to connect with a quick local ride to bring us to Solvorn, Norway, home of Eplet Bed & Apple. Well, in our case, tent and apple, as we've set up camp with the view seen in the picture.

So we had a few hours in Copenhagen, enough to take a quick look around and get some dinner and a couple Tuborg beers. The bus to Oslo started off crossing the Øresund Bridge, the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe connecting Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. We rode through the night, sleeping occasionally. It got dark after 11, and by 3, things were starting to brighten up again.

We arrived in Oslo with just over 3 hours until our next bus to Sogndal, in the middle of fjord country. We spent the time waiting for a breakfast place to open up, and watching the antics of the survivors of a Friday night in Oslo. The bus took us through idyllic and increasing dramatic scenery, gradually up into the mountains above tree line before plunging down to the fjords. When we arrived in Sogndal we quickly got on the local bus to bring us to Solvorn, where we really were greeted with a parade. As the bus rounded the last corner into the center of town, we were confronted with a mass of marchers dressed in traditional Norwegian dress. They were celebrating Norway's National Day, May 17th. Except it was all in show for a German tv show they've been filming here for the last few weeks. We were actually lucky to see what we did, as today's filming was the climax of the film.

Katie here...just wanted to also include a picture of the cutest little girl ever in the parade.


So, we plan to stick around here a few days. We'll do some hikes and bike rides in the area nearby, then hopefully head out for a few days on a hut to hut hiking trip.