Swakopmund

This post is about our trip to Namibia. Previous posts about Namibia can be found here, here and here.

Before the flat tyre, quad bike riding extravaganza and the trip to the dunes, the first place we visited in Namibia was Swakopmund. Situated on the coast of the South Atlantic Ocean and surrounded by the Namib Desert on three sides, Swakopmund is a different kind of place. It's where the desert meets the sea and it is bursting with German influence. Swakopmund in German means mouth of the water. 

Rare sun at the beach. 

Very German except for the palm trees.

Have you ever visited a place expecting one kind of weather and experiencing another? While I try very hard not to let weather dictate my level of enjoyment, when you go to the tropics and it's cool, windy and cloudy you can feel at a loss as to what to do with yourself especially if you've just spent a few days being battered by wind in Cape Town and were seeking some hot sun. Swakopmund isn't the tropics. It has what's called a mild desert climate, something which I didn't bother to research until I wrote this post. As sitting on the beach wasn't an option due to the wind, fog and cool temps, Mr. Deep and I decided to take a guided historic walking tour of Swakopmund. 

Our guide's name was Nandi. He told us his name means "never again." Nandi is the second of five children so obviously his parents changed their minds. He said he was a breech birth so I assume by the time he came out, his mother had reached her limit on pain. 

Nandi and Mr. Deep

Nandi explained the strange weather we were experiencing wasn't really strange at all. He told us that in Swakopmund the desert and ocean air are "fighting" with each other at the coast creating fog and wind. As part of the tour we walked several blocks inland and it was quite a bit warmer and sunnier there. 

Swakopmund was founded as the main harbour for the Imperial German Colony in 1892 in what was then German Southwest Africa (now Namibia.) After WWI, the Germans had to hand the area over to South Africa. Later, under South African rule apartheid was imposed and black people were moved to townships. In 1990, Namibia became an independent nation. 

Today the Namibian economy is largely comprised of tourism and mining but unemployment sits at 40%. According to Nandi people are not content to sit around doing nothing even if they are unemployed, they will try to make something that they can sell or do something to earn a bit of money. 

One of the claims to fame in Swakopmund is the Kristall Galerie, home of many beautiful crystals including the world's largest quartz crystal. I can PROMISE you if not for the tour  Mr. Deep and I NEVER would have visited the Kristall Galerie, and we would have likely made a joke about the "world's largest house of mud."  But I'm glad we ended up stopping by and the cool weather gave us the chance to learn a few things about Swakopmund that we likely never would have known. 

Yes, we were allowed to touch the world's largest quartz crystal. 

The Swakopmund Hotel, just a few blocks from the ocean and nice and sunny! 

90% of Namibians are Christian mostly Lutheran and Catholic. This is a Lutheran church. 

German war memorial. The red paint was thrown onto the memorial by protesters earlier this year. You can read more about that here. 

One of three towers that the Germans used to transmit information from Swakopmund. You can see the other two in the background one on the left and the other on the right. 

Another interesting thing about Namibia...it's empty. There's practically no one there. 

This hotel is also an old age home. The revenue from the hotel supports the old age home. Nandi told us "black people we don't put old people in homes." And below the garden at the old age home. 

Woermannhaus and tower originally used as a lookout point. We climbed the steps to the top to enjoy the view.

Swakopmund and the desert beyond.

Unique Accommodation

Namibian sunset. 

Sometimes, I lie awake at night thinking of things in life I regret doing or conversely, not doing. One thing that bothers me is that I never wrote a blog post about The Turbine Hotel in Knysna, on the garden route.  While I can't fix every regrettable situation in my life, I can write about the Turbine Hotel now, even if we did stay there quite some time ago. 

I could also lie awake thinking about the fact that this blog post is not a literary masterpiece, but the hotels are interesting and I think the photos show that. 

I got to thinking about The Turbine because of Le Mirage Hotel and Spa, the very unique hotel we stayed at recently in Namibia.  Although these two hotels have little in common, they are both in Southern Africa (over 1700 km/1000 miles apart but still, Southern Africa.) They are two of the most interesting and memorable hotels I've ever stayed at and I've stayed in many a hotel in my life. 

The Turbine Hotel used to be a power station. It is situated on a canal in the quiet (at least when we were there in April) town of Knysna. What makes the turbine hotel special is that when it was transformed into a hotel, all of the machinery that was formerly part of the power station was restored and remains in the hotel even in the rooms themselves.

In the lobby.

Dining room. 

Front entrance. 

In the bar.

View from our room.

And below are some of the gorgeous views from Knysna which I thought I'd add while I am revisiting the subject. 

We were a bit confused as to whether Le Mirage actually was an old German fort, or it if was just built to look like an old German fort. I couldn't find any info on the website about this either. But regardless Le Mirage was gorgeous. I loved the way it just popped up in the desert in the middle of nowhere. Like a mirage. 

Minor Details

I like details, organization and cleaning out closets.  I also like adventures and trying new things. I am not so focused on having everything a certain way that I can't go with the flow but I am not so wild and free as to have a messy junk drawer in my kitchen. 

We stayed at a unique hotel in the middle of the Namibian desert called Le Mirage.  We enjoyed Le Mirage but Le Mirage could use a bit more focus on details. Even as I write this post you might notice if you click the link to the Le Mirage website that there is a typo in their headline. In fairness, Le Mirage is located in the middle of nowhere and that's got to be difficult, not that being located in the middle of nowhere explains the typo but if you've been reading my blog you know I also have typos sometimes. I'm not perfect. 

Back to Le Mirage. The staff stay on site in staff quarters because there are no towns nearby. The food has to be flown or trucked in and the chef has to work with what he gets. There is no way to run out to the store for a few things. Le Mirage provides all daily meals for guests and also offers activities, otherwise there would be nothing to do. While the phrase daily activities might conjure up images of shuffleboard on the Lido Deck, I can assure you that the activities offered at Le Mirage are a little more exciting. 

The first activity we signed up for was quad biking in the desert. You might know quad biking better as four wheeling. At our scheduled quad biking time we all met up and waited near the bikes for our guide to arrive. He finally arrived seeming kind of annoyed. He said he had been waiting for us inside. Not a big deal but we were never told where we should meet him (detail) so to us meeting by the bikes seemed appropriate. 

I'm not sure if he was mad at us or if he just didn't feel like sharing the details of how to pilot a quad bike but regardless our quad bike orientation was very brief and not too informative. It went something like this "this is your gas, this is your front brake but don't use it or you will flip over, this is your back brake, this is your clutch, o.k. let's go." We then spent five minutes asking questions such as "which one is is the gas, which one is the front brake, which one is the back brake and which one is the clutch?" In true Africa form we signed no paperwork. We did however wear helmets. 

Riding a quad bike isn't that difficult but there were a few details that were omitted from our not so in depth overview. First, part of the quad bike, the part right by your right calf gets very hot as you ride and if your leg touches it, it hurts. I did know this from a time I rode go-karts but a reminder from our guide couldn't have hurt whereas brushing your leg against hot metal does. Second, we were told we had a clutch but we weren't really told how to use it. I did what I would do if I were driving a car, when the engine revved to a certain point, I switched gears. I was pretty proud of myself cruising around, flying through the sand, shifting gears like a pro, until I was in too high a gear, hit deep sand and then couldn't move. Mr. Deep had to get off his bike and bail me out. For some reason I didn't know how to downshift. Mr. Deep used a different approach and didn't shift at all. He spent the entire two hour session cruising around in first gear. Not sure if his quad bike is still functioning properly.

I told you Namibia looks like a another planet. 

The second activity involved an early morning drive to Sossusvlei to see the sand dunes including the largest dune in the area, known as Big Daddy.  We left Le Mirage at 5:30 a.m. when it was still dark. Our guide (different guy than quad bike guy) drive drove us into Namib-Naukluft National Park. What a beautiful place. 

Sand dunes look just as you would imagine. Just like in the movies. I expected to see guys riding camels coming over the ridge at any time. When we arrived at Big Daddy our guide told us we could climb up it and pointed to an area where he said we should make a turn and come back down. He said he would meet us on the back side of the dune. There were four of us and as we looked at where he was pointing from from the ground it wasn't really obvious where we would descend and meet him. I guess we all assumed these details would become clear as we walked up. 

While it was warm, it wasn't scorching hot as you might imagine the desert to be. There were some groups of other tourists climbing the dunes (lots of Europeans they seem to love Namibia) and some older people. I was impressed with the older people as climbing the dunes wasn't easy. As we walked our feet sunk into the sand. The sand was soft and velvety and gorgeous to look at. 

When we reached the point where we thought we should head back down none of us were sure which side to go down. The backside wasn't clear because as you know if you face one side the backside is behind you and if you face the opposite way the backside is again behind you. By now we were so high up that if our guide was standing down below somewhere waiting for us we couldn't see him, we could see people below but no distinguishing features. We discussed and unanimously agreed to go down the left hand side. I was tempted to just try to ski, run or roll down the side of the dune but I didn't want to get sand in my clothes and hair so I walked. 

At the bottom (on both sides of the dune) were salt pans. Salt pans are flat white areas of hard ground where over millions of years water has evaporated leaving salt and minerals behind. We explored the salt pans for a while still seeing no sign of our guide. We then determined that our guide must have meant that he would meet us back at the vehicle so we walked across the salt pans and over more smaller dunes back to the parking area. He had said "I will meet you" but as English wasn't his first language meeting he could have meant I will wait for you. When we arrived at the truck our guide was not there. 

Salt pans and close ups below. 

Another guide from Le Mirage was in the parking lot meeting another group and he seemed confused to see us alone. He asked us where our guide was. We explained that we couldn't find him. The other guide told us that our guide was waiting for us on the other side of the dune (the side that we didn't choose) a side that in my detail oriented mind would be called the right side not the backside or if I wanted to be more abstract I might have described it as the side with more trees vs. less trees, but who needs these details when backside provides for a much more interesting story.

The men went out to find him and when they returned with our guide, everyone was fine. I think in America we would have been angry at the guide and the guide at us but this was Namibia where details matter less.  

As we were leaving the park we stopped to see the Sesrium Canyon and walked down into it to explore a bit. 

Deep in the canyon.