This sign at a beach in Walvis Bay, Namibia seemed run of the mill at first – albeit a bit worse for wear. Then the hubbly bubbly ban caught our eye and we couldn’t resist a pic.
When my daughter was quite young, we would watch The Wild Thornberrys together on the couch and enjoy the antics of Darwin and Donnie, the teen angst of Debbie, and the adventures around the world that Eliza and her family had with wildlife. This was before our State Department lives were even a twinkle in our eyes.
Little did my daughter know how similar our lives would become to this fictional family. With visiting relatives here in Namibia, we were inspired to take it all to a whole new level at Walvis Bay.
A hint.
Hubs and I were ready for a break from driving our rented ‘Commvees’ and left it to the professionals for the required 4 wheeling deep sand driving. Once at Pelican Point we geared up and got in our kayaks. They had everything ready for us. Quite fashionable, no?
Visiting Aunt and Visiting Uncle with Kids home from their different schools.
And then we were off floating into the waters and into the throngs of entertaining seal antics. There were also some not very entertaining antics …ahem…one 6 foot teen deciding to randomly stand up in the kayak and pull a Titanic pose – his paddling sister unaware until my “SIT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” cut over the top of the seals’ noise.
The snorting, belching, bleating, and barking of the seals was fascinating. Even with all that chaos of noise and activity on the beach and in the shallows, it was an incredibly peaceful morning just cruising and floating among them. I’d go out and do this every morning here in Namibia if I could.
Little pups would scamper across the sand, maneuvering around the bulls and adolescents that were making most of the ruckus.
A flamingo sauntered through seal infested shores. I wonder what he thought of all the chaos. Or maybe he didn’t care. It was hard to tell with this flamingo.
There was great noise and movement. More scampering pups. You could glide right in to the middle of all this if you wanted. We stayed a few feet away from the edge, though, watching them dart in all directions around and under the kayak, as well as on land.
This is when having Eliza’s gift of understanding and speaking to animals would have been super cool. When not vocal or snoozing, there was a lot of scratching and grooming going on. You wonder what was being discussed – territory issues, seal gossip, fishing testimonials?
This is what they sounded like to our ears. It was magical!
Had my father still been living, we’d be celebrating his 71st birthday this month. 71 in’17. That is strange to wrap my head around. He is perpetually frozen in my mind in his 40s.
What I remember most about him is his love of the water – seashores with birds to watch. He would regularly take in the sunrise with the swans down by our town’s causeway, enjoying his coffee and the quiet. One vacation we took in Bar Harbor had the two of us getting up before daybreak to go do a sunrise beach photography class. He had high hopes of pinking sunrise skies and of birds waking up. Instead, we got fog so thick we couldn’t see the water resulting in cold, wet feet from frozen waves sneaking up on us.
The other day, while heading out with visiting family to Pelican Point, Walvis Bay, we found ourselves in that early morning misty coastline – a feel and place that my Dad would have loved so much. Along this shore you can see all sorts of water birds, in particular, though: flamingos.
As we were being driven to our morning meeting point, we looked out onto glassy still waters. A grey blue sky from the persistent cloud shelf hung low hugging the shore. We rode along and for a few endless seconds watched a flamingo gliding along side. Bright pink circles were on the back of its extended wings. It was so beautiful and graceful, it’s reflection in the water a perfect mirror. Nobody got a photo; we all just sighed with the beauty of it. It was too magical to miss looking away for a camera, for even one moment. Dad would have loved it.
I miss him.
Lesser flamingos feeding off of the Walvis Bay shoreline.
On the way to the Pan in Etosha National Park. Heat and flat scrub create mirages in the distance.
We have been waiting for the rains. There have been a few showers here and there, and though we should be grateful, we long for the downpours to start refilling water tables and reservoirs.
A distant shower in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
Everyone has been talking about how the rains should arrive early – like they did the last “La Niña” season, five years ago. We knew it should only be a matter of time, but the storms had their own mirage quality about them – dissipating when near, but more often disappearing into unknown horizons. At our campsite on Boxer Day, it seemed to be more of the same tease. Our neighboring campers who had been in our assigned zone days prior said they’ve watched the storms form and float by in the distance. Whether in the middle of dinner preparations or, like us, just having finished our meal; everyone settled in for the show.
This was the defining moment, though.
Rain squalls and lightening parade in Etosha. Photo by Dakota.
It was right around this lightening strike that the winds shifted. A grainy humidity was driven into our parched dusty faces on growing invisible tides with a very distinct message: It was coming for us. All campers jumped and scurried to secure their sites as the winds grew fierce, throwing embers from camp fires and bending everything in their path.
Up to this point of the evening we had set up tables, chairs and tents – one large on on the ground and two tents up on top of one of our rented vehicle. Furiously, Jack scrambled to put the raised tents down while we threw heavy objects in to hold down the ground tent. Everything else got shoved into the backs of the vehicles. We abandoned the roof top tents as the weather quickly turned perilous, all taking refuge inside the vehicles as the sky turned pitch black – illuminated only by lightening flashes – rain pounding down, the winds rocking and sometimes shaking the vehicle. A few times we felt like a Weeble.
It was the raised roof tents what saved us when the campsite tree fell on us. One tent took the brunt, keeping the extended branched from shattering the windshield. As it rested, it just remotely skimmed the cowering ground tent held into place with not only our chairs and tables, but also a four inch lake of water.
No harm, no foul. Except for a phone fight in the middle of the night and following morning with the vehicle rental insurance.
Ground tent and internal pond successfully extracted from under the arc of the tree trunk.
There was not an untouched campsite. Most flooded. Many of the camp road ways were still under heavy water by daybreak, but nowhere near the knee high depths they reached in the middle of the night. After the worst of the storm, rain still drizzling, we sledged through the muddy waters by flashlight to reach flooded muddy bathrooms, chatting with and asking how other campers were doing. As we made our way through, though, we could hear many talking about us; we were known to everyone because of the tree that fell on us.
Throughout the night – minus 5 hours of bungalow gifted rooms for sleep by the Park – we were visited by concerned, helpful, and curious neighbor-campers. [This would be the second campsite that we were ‘famous’ at on this trip – that story to follow, perhaps.] In the aftermath and throughout the following early morning fellow campers popped in, brought food, offered shelter and assistance, showed up ready to help. And these were our fellow campers who spent their nights soaking wet in their cars. We heard from them that the lions and hyenas were so loud and active in the wee hours that many campers feared they were running through the campsite. Elephants too. Few got little, if any sleep. By the time we were able to leave (nearly noon) most of the area had been evacuated.
Abandoned in the morning aftermath of the storm.
We were ready to be out of there. The tree got cut down without further damage to the car – in the end it was only the tent that got stabbed with thorny branches. Saturated items were mostly dried and packed away. We got the clear to continue on to our next (non-camping, thank God) location. Tires were not punctured. The skies held back for the rest our our travels, until just an hour or so outside of our Windhoek return.
And then last night, we got what just might hopefully be the start of the rains down in Africa/Windhoek for this season. Long, drenching, pouring rains. Fill the pool rains. Blessing rains. Messy rains. I’m sure much of the city looks like that campsite above. I know many were greatly inconvenienced and damage occurred. Injuries too. There don’t seem to be the gentler rains here that I remember from my childhood or that we watched in the Netherlands without fear of the aftermath. Rain here, when it really comes, is almost always wild.
Back in 2012 we posted our wee-bitties New Year Baby photos from safari and travel adventures. Before we get going in 2017, here are a few Namibian Baby New Year inspired photos of baby African wildlife.
Seal pup with mom on beach at Walvis Bay, Namibia.
Bigger brother, perhaps, watching over this young giraffe calf.
Fuzzy zebra foal with mom and grazing herd. Etosha National Park, Namibia. Photo taken by Dakota.
Christmas sparkle and jingle.
May your heart be merry and bright.
And may you hang your stockings with hopeful prayer.
Because a certain someone comes tonight.
Wishing you all a magical Christmas full of love, hope, family, and peace.
And Star Wars – lots of Star Wars
