road trip — the Maltahöhe plop

day 5

Look, the trip odometer flipped back to zero. We were at 1900+ yesterday.. 

We’re at 19 now, plus, I assume 2000, plus the first hundred before we remembered to track it. Nice. ^[1] 

It was our second to last day with the car, and we were headed to Sousessvlei.

Ali had lost her sunglasses, as one is wont to do during travel, and we procured a new pair, purchased food to braai, gassed up the car and headed out toward Maltahöhe—our final destination to be Sesriem.

By this time, I’d learned that Ali, while spectacular in many realms, is not always positive of her geography. It's not that she gets lost. Its the tone of uncertainty in her voice as you head in the right direction. It makes you scramble for the map. Just to make sure you're right, and that you can prevent her from swinging into a U-turn preemptively before you've gotten to the mile marker you're aiming for..

It doesn't help, though, that the tourist maps of Namibia have giant dots to indicate cities and villages, but are so large, they often block intersecting roads, and locales will be designated by their relative location, but sometimes on the opposing side of the road, or even a road over—according to the map, should the graphics prove too overpowering. (The reality is, though, it’s pretty hard to get lost in Namibia, even with a map that is lacking.)

Anyway, we hit a snag.

After the fact we designated it ‘the Plöp.’
Well, take a look for yourself. Do you see the problem?

the Plöp

A decidedly unfortunate turn of events.

One minute we’re slowly chugging down the road, the next, I’m cursing: Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Trying to correct the slide, but we've slipped through deep sand, and, upon spinning, encountered a ridge of sand that proves too great for the combined force and low wheel base.

Ali exits first, crawling through the back, and out the door. I’m hanging there, upside-down, attempting to process the fact I've just flipped a rental car that is, one, on my friend’s credit card. And, two, that we’re alive. Then I’m handing her sandals through the broken window.

I had trouble finding words.. Minor shock, I suppose.
Staring dejectedly at the car for a moment, I looked over at Ali. 
Shit. I am so fucking sorry..

Random snippets from my travelling companion immediately following the overturn:

At least I found my sunglasses.

The wine didn't even break. ^[2]

Hope, I know you don’t believe in God, but I had just taken my knees down from the dash. My legs would've broken.

Don't worry. We have no cell service, but we've got plenty of food. And a tent. ... I've got to pee. 
And off she went. A whirlwind, that one.

In my perturbed state after flipping a vehicle, while staring at the car, I for some reason pulled out my left earring and chucked it away from myself, only to realize my behavior was spastic, and then set to looking for it (to no avail), while gathering other random debris that had been evacuated from the car during the plop.

I tried to rescue the leftover pizza from the day before. 60-second rule, right? We were in the bush—desperate times, you know? (Ali will never let me live this down, so I must own to it, though at the time, I was attempting to be surreptitious. It was ham and pineapple pizza. Worth a salvage attempt, one would think.)

And, though we overturned in the middle of bushveld, with no cell service, it was almost midday – and halfway to Sesriem; within five minutes three vehicles had stopped.

One of the more excited tourists kept voicing, Surely, together, we could turn it over.. 

The Namibians on hand were of a more practical nature. I was whisked to a nearby lodge—Hammerstein—by a Mr. Opperman to deal with the immediate aftermath, and necessary phone calls, while Ali sat on a camping chair with Mrs. Opperman in the bush, waiting with the car.

I think she may have processed the whole thing better than I, as she had to sit staring at the thing for the better part of an hour.

By the time Ali reached the lodge, I’d managed to have the car arranged to be towed with the rental company and recovery service, had dealt with the mild (yet reasonable) hysteria from the Peace Corps office, confirmed for the eighth time that, ‘yes, we were wearing seat-belts.’ The morning pick-up to file a police report and for the obligatory chest and neck x-rays that follow any auto accident had been scheduled, and I had been head-butted by a rogue springbok. ^[3]

Unbeknownst to me, though, was that not only had the lodge staff stowed our bags in our room for the night, they’d done so in the intention of comp'ing our stay.
Hammerstein Lodge is wonderful. Full stop.

I will say, that such prompt assistance, and ending up at a place with such a warm staff was great luck in a bad situation. Titus (one of the nicest men in Namibia) plied us with espresso and hot chocolate, then insisted we dine with the other guests, but that first, we should rest before the nature walk to see the cats. Pardon, wait, what? Did you say cats?

She's braver than I am.
I'm not into petting animals I'm not acquainted with. Wild or not. I stood nearby the guide, Calvin..
The last cheetah I encountered was decidedly bad tempered.

In the end, that rental car bill will cost us—but, we’re alive, and it’s only money.

^[1] If you count the additional 80 km from Maltahöhe, and the 100 or so from Mariental... We made it about 2299 kilometres before calamity struck. Ali has made the joke that we've now fully integrated as Namibians.

^[2] I would later break this same bottle of wine, by swinging the mini-fridge door open too quickly.

[3] That particular springbok later stood about a half metre away, chewing its cud, staring me directly in the eye, while taking a hefty dump. I guess he told me.

For photos of this leg of the trip, check out my google+ album, here.

< day 4 | day 6+ >

road trip — Keets/Mariental

day 4

Brought to consciousness early—by the industrious sounds of camp being packed all around us, I stumbled over Ali and out of the tent, my bladder compelled in the cardinal direction of the ablution block.

Arriving back at our campsite (no. 11, picked for its proximity to the toilets and it's relative privacy), Ali was standing sleepily looking over the remnants of the previous night's festivities.

We agreed to breakfast at the canyon, and began to pack up camp.

The fire pit was easy work, as I’d cleared most of it the night previous, apart from the coals. It was the tent which proved to be moderately vexing.

When I said we flung it open the night previous, I wasn't joking.

You pop it into the air, it opens up, et voilà.

It had been a while since when I’d packed the sucker last, but my memory served to remind me that the five step process suggested by the pictorial instructions, was in reality three steps that harbored very little similarity to those on paper.

We figured it out, threw it in the back, and trundled out to the rim for breakfast before we would head to Keetmanshoop for our next stop.

Due to some miscommunication, once in cell service we found ourselves without a place to stay for the night, so we decided to take in all Keets had to offer, then head north to another volunteer’s site in Mariental.

It turns out Keets has a thing or two to offer, those things just differ greatly from person to person. In Ali’s mind, I think that offering came in the shape of the tripod pug at the Quiver Tree forest site. She reacted with the same wonder and joy I would witness the next day upon her interaction with cheetahs.

For me, the hyraxes topped the Kokerboomwoud (Quiver Tree forest). Hyraxes are thick, furry and rounded herbivores, usually around the size of a household cat. Once pegged as harmless tourists – and therefore no threat – the mother of the hoard opted to ignore us, sunning herself atop a mound of stones. The adolescents scrambled at any sound, and the babies, curious, peered from the rock crevices, less adventurous, and more likely to take cues from their matriarch.

After we downed the bulk of a couple pizzas under observation of an encroaching flock of birds, we hop, skipped, jumped down the road to Giant’s Playground... which was for me, a bit meh.. But, Ali is down for bouldering, likely due to her geographic origins, so off she went exploring the odd and random geometric patterns effected from wind erosion, while I would occasionally holler to ascertain her location, trying to figure out if there was anything to see here, other than a tourist’s trap..

Midday, we headed up to Mariental to hang with Sinthu and Evie.

I think in the end, it was better all the same for the change of overnight locale…
Oh, and I finally took a picture of this: 

Namibia is host to a large number of ephemeral rivers. Though most of the year they are dry basins, they are never-the-less marked at each bridge along the highway. In the north, the names of these dry tributaries are varied—in the south, such imagination isn't evident. Aub, for example is, I'm told, a Herero word for watering hole. Wasser is, well, wasser.

From day one, we'd taken to calling out the names of the river placards as we passed them. 

Aub, Aub, Aub, Wasser, Fish, Aub... 

This was day four, yes? 

We'd gotten to the point we'd just call out: 'Aub, aub, aub, fish, aub' at random.

For photos of this leg of the trip, check out my google+ album, here.

< day 3 | day 5 >