The 1000 Day Holiday

This place is tops. It feels just like wellington.

Except of course that instead of parking meters for cars, they have people standing every 50 meters down each street, and they print you a ticket from a hand held machine.

Hiked Table Mountain. Nice walk, and found my first wild live snake ever!

Well I managed it. Hitched all the way from Windhoek to Capetown. No problems apart from being dropped off in random places like Grünau ( a shell petrol station 150km from the border) in the dark.

The first truck driver taught me about underground rivers and how to find them in the desert, and how to tell how deep they are by the trees growing there.

After a 3 or 4 hour wait in the middle of the desert at the major intersection. Finally a truck was going the right way and I scored a ride.

The second one we listened to Gospel Music cd’s for around 500km at full volume. One song on repeat for a good hundred clicks or so. So dont worry, “The devil will do me no harm”

He had said he was going to Capetown, awesome. Ended up dropping me off at the turnoff to Picketburg around 9pm… a quaint small city around 120km from Capetown.

So I walked up the road, hoping to spot a B&B, hotel, motel anything. I wasn’t having much luck. And there was no one on the streets. I saw a woman in an Audi pull up to a workshop and check the doors were locked. I called out to her, but I think she ignored me.

She drove past me really slowly, stopped and asked if I needed a place to stay. There was a guesthouse next to her home! score…

This morning I was asking the GH owner about bus/shuttle options into Cape Town as everyone says to avoid the suburbs at your lifes cost. There was one bus at 1pm. But didnt want to wait that long. She said the shuttles were for coloureds.

Anyway none of those were going either. So I hitched again. The woman from guesthouse really didn’t believe I was serious about hitching and was saying she would give me a ride to the bus.

In the end she dropped me off on the highway with a can of juice and wished me luck. She said she would check later to make sure I was gone. Bummer that she dropped me at a different intersection. 100km zone, very small shoulder with the road coming around a long sweeping bend. I wasn’t hopeful.

15 Minutes later a car pulled up.  The hubcaps still spinning when the car had stopped. COOL! The boot was welded shut (quality mazda 323!), so jammed my bag in and off we went. The wife was telling me its a great day as this is the first time her husband has been able to drive in 6 months as he had a car accident and just got the all clear from the doctor. Then proceeded to point out where the accident happened.. ARGH.  

They dropped me off at an offramp 60km out from Capetown. I crossed to the onramp and started the wait. After 20 minutes of no luck a corporate painted Toyota Hilux turns the corner, defininately not the type to pick up a hitcher. I saw him look, then a second of thought then pulled over and backed up!

He said he never picks up hitchhikers but I didn’t look like a normal hitcher, and I would probably have some funny stories. Dropped me right in Cape Town!

Did a flight over the Namib Desert & some of the shipwrecks on the skeleton coast yesterday. asolutely amazing. And true to what seems form for small planes my travel buddy Julia was not at al happy.spending large portion of the flight focusing on a small spot on the seat in front of her. Definately reminiscent of the mildord flight w rachael & steph in the milford

Back in Windhoek now, Hitching for Capetown tomorrow

Spent this morning Sandboarding the dunes around walvis bay with Julia. Helped by a trusty quad bike to make the jaunt to the top stress free. It rode very much like heavy powder.

Great day, pics are up

Also popped past the lagoon where speed week is on. This is a week long event for kite surfers and windsurfers trying to break the speed record. Currently for a kite being ~77km/h over a 500m course.

However they haven’t had any wind at all so no kiting, and no watching insane speed kiting either.

Windhoek doesnt look like africa at all. Very western looking.

Kinda reinforcing an idea i heard a few weeks ago. If youre going to travel africa. Go from north to south. His reason was racial. People being scared of the “locals” for most of their trip. And the further south you go the more crime.

The backpackers here has signs up eveywhere saying do not take a bag with you to town, as everyone will know youre a tourist. and youll get mugged at knifepoint!

Not to worry about me tho. Today I have a chopper moustache, wife beater singlet and $4 sunnies I bought on the street. No one would mess with me!

Well that was 2 different trucks that I hitch hiked on in Botswana.

The first truck driver spotted me on the Zambian side of the border and told me to find him on the other side. Hanging out waiting for his papers to be completed turned into 4 hours. And then he couldn’t find the last page of the paperwork.

During this time he had explained the noises coming from under his bed. He was smuggling birds from the Congo. In the end he was stuck at the border, and I cut my losses around 4pm.

The driver of the next truck to pick me up was downing the beers. Didnt seem to matter too much as it was a 300km straight road, Although once it was dark we did fly past a elephant seriously close to the road.. hmm.

ended up stuck at a vet/foot n mouth control point in the middle of the desert as the trucks arent allowed to drive after 6pm. So it looked like i was spending the night in the open.

The police on the post took an interest in me, told me to sit with them and have a chat and they’ll sort a ride out for me. All the other hitch hikers booted off the trucks were swamping the few cars coming thru the checkpoint.

After an hour or so a very flash and new looking car pulled up to the check point. The cops said this would be my ride so grab my bags. It turned out to be a government car. He took me to the town of Nata 50km away where the N-S & W-E roads meet. A town comprising of gas stations w attached bottleshops and diners.

He even arranged a motel for me. Told me to lock the door, and watch the satellite TV. Turned out that the satellite TV was only the 7 free to air GOD channels.

Then on the way from Maun to Windhoek I had the pleasure of Rod Stewart, Whitney houston love ballads. It was good tho, as I covered 800km in ~10 hours. Fastest ever

Hitchhiking is king. Payment is expected tho. The going rate is a crazy $1/100km… A real bank breaker.

Wow, Yesterday body boarded and rafted the Zambezi. Was an awesome day. I thought we would be boarding the smaller rapids, however we were put thru grade 5′s on the boards. Totally awesome. The waves and holes are insanely big when looking at them from 6 inches off the water

We flipped on rapid 12b. Didnt manage to get back to the raft and got sucked under. A totally surreal experience. Couldnt tell which way was up so just had to chill out and wait for my vest to pop me up eventually.

Very peacefull, lots of pretty bubbles in brown water to look at.

Completed the day by doing a microlight flight over the falls. Seeing a croc launch into the water was super cool/spooky how fast it disappeared.

Tomorrow Im heading into Botswana towards the Okovango Delta.

Headed from Salima to Zambia, only to realise at the border town I hadn’t tried all the beers in Malawi.

So I stopped in Mchinji, Had a carlsberg Stout. and a 1L carton of beer called Shake Shake.

Its a lovely maize beer with lots of floaty bitys, milk products and all for the grand price of 50cents.

Now in Chipata in Zambia.. woot more new beers to try.

Popped thru these places.

Kandy was an overland truck version of nhakata bay. so everyone was in their cliques. However had a good beach, if only it had more wind for kitesurfing.

Salima was just a place to sleep met a cool local guy tho. ohhh.  and Im addicted to Nali. Chilli sauce that comes in lots of different flavours…  yummy!

Spent the last few days hanging out on lake malawi. Nkhata Bay mainly. Doing an advanced diving course at the moment, in preparation for the shark diving in South Africa.

Its been really cool. A great bunch of people at the lodge to hang out and talk rubbish with. The locals have really good english too. So that keeps it interesting. They all say very seriously. I must talk to you later on. All they want is my adidas & nike gear :) 

There has been some wind, so as soon as the whitecaps appear im lokking for someone with a kite/windsurfer… but none to be had. maybe further down the lake.

Will be headed inland for Zambia after this. Oh and I’m loving the $8/hr internet