Carry Your Name: Part Two... Adventure across Namibia!

When people say they took “trains, planes, and automobiles” to get somewhere, I would have to say that I now have that beat, just add boat, bus, and foot!!

Once school ended, Laura (another volunteer) and I decided we wanted to take some time to get away from Katima and maybe see more of Namibia. So we of course went straight to google. And after some research, we found that to travel to the coast wouldn’t be as hard as we thought! So we booked our little adventure on Friday, and headed out on Sunday afternoon! Talk about a short turn around!

So the adventure begins. Our intercape bus was scheduled to leave Katima around 3:30pm. So we arrived about 45 minutes early just to be sure everything was in order! To our surprise, the bus didn’t even show up at the station until 5pm!!! Everything and I mean everything here runs on “Africa” time. So once we loaded on and were ready to go, we pulled out onto the road to Windhoek. Windhoek is the capital city of Namibia, and about a 16 hour bus ride from Katima. Yikes!

But obviously, as I am writing this, I am glad to say that we survived that trip! We arrived in Windhoek around 8am Monday morning! But you see our adventure had two legs of travel. The second is a train ride from Windhoek to Swakopomund, a coastal town. The train was not scheduled to leave until about 7pm on Monday, so we had an entire day to wander through the capital. We definitely got our walking in. Hoofing it all around the city and through all the fun craft shops and touristy things to see. We also ended up taking a bus tour around Windhoek. That was really great because we got to learn about a lot of history, and we got to see a lot of the city we would have never gotten to see. The guide took us to several townships around the area and gave us the history and the events that took place in those areas when Namibia was trying to gain independence from South Africa. It was really fascinating.

We got to the train station and prepared to board the train. We splurged… (Which isn’t really splurging when you consider the exchange rate, our tickets were dirt cheap) and bought first class tickets. So as we board the train we were at first really impressed, tons of legroom, nice big seats, and even a TV in the train car. But our minds were quickly changed once the train got to moving. Talk about an adventure. Our train ride was another overnight trip, totaling another 11 hours in travel time! To our surprise it was freezing on the train, which we were not at all prepared for. Luckily, most of the time we just found ourselves laughing at our ridiculous situation!!

We arrived in Swakopmund around 7am local time on Tuesday. You could smell the sea air the second you stepped off the train. We then made our way through town to the hostel we had made reservations at. Walking into that room and seeing a nice plush bed made all the travel worth it! We didn’t hang out long at the lodge too long though; we were quickly on our way to finding the beach!

Such a beautiful sight we walked up on. To our left, the rolling sand dunes of the Namib dessert, and straight in front of us the roaring waves of the Atlantic ocean. Wow. God really did some great work when He made this place.

We spent the day touring the city by foot and explored all of the local shops, of course! We watched the beautiful sunset from atop of a restaurant at the end of the pier. Talk about breathtaking. Down below we had dinner, and lets just say, I saw steak on the menu so I just had to get it. What I seemingly forgot was that I don’t really understand the metric system, so when it said 800g of meat, I thought nothing of it. That steak was bigger than my head! It was huge, but oh so delicious!

The next day, Wednesday, we scheduled a seal and dolphin cruise in Walvis Bay. Talk about an adventure! Although the day was terribly cold and foggy (keep in mind we are in the southern hemisphere so its almost winter here), the 4-hour tour was totally worth it! We saw everything, including wild seals that jumped aboard the boat with us! I even met a man from Dallas Texas! Talk about a small world! We had such fun seeing the seals, the dolphins, and just being on the water! The rest of the day Wednesday was quite the relaxing one. Considering we needed time to thaw out, we spend the afternoon just enjoying having nothing to do!

Thursday was our last day in Swakopmund, we would be boarding the train that night to start our journey back to Katima. We enjoyed the day shopping some, and napping on the warm sand by the water! Although I was sad to leave that beautiful place, I knew I was ready to be back to what has become the new normal! But I could have done without all the traveling!! As our train was pulling into Windhoek Friday morning we were greeted with giraffes (tons of them), kudu, wild dogs, and other animals! It was a fun sight to wake up to!

Friday was another day in Windhoek spent trying to fill the hours until our bus was scheduled to leave.

We finally made it back to Katima around 8am Saturday morning, and I can say I was never so excited to see small little Katima.

Our adventure was fantastic, and I feel so blessed that I am able to experience so many different cultures, and see such a different part of the world. I still have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure that I am actually here!

Of course I have added some visual aids to go along with this story!

Enjoy!