Ghanzi, Bushmen, Windhoek and Christmas

After we left the Delta, we drove for about 400kms ( a very long day) to a little town called Ghanzi in Botswana.  This was really nothing more than a stop on our wway to Windhoek which is the capital of Namibia and is over 900kms from the Delta.  This is nearly 900 kms of the Kalahari Desert which as I mentioned is flat, sandy with low scrub vegetation (because of the record rains there last year).  We saw the occasional Ostrich, Kudu, Oryx and Elephant but very little else.  Even the towns were stretched out by 4-500 kms so other than good roads (with no powerlines or other obstructions), we didn't see much.

Our camera battery had died on the last morning of the Delta and we weren't able to charge it until we got to Windhoek so we have a dearth of pictures, but here is one that shows what the Kalahari looks like.

Even the Elephant was bored of the surroundings!

The Kalahari has its charms, but the sheer size of it is whats most astonishing.  We drove for most of three days to get through it and the details were fascinating, the kids found it a little tedious at times.

The pace of this trip was a little hectic!

The kids (all 7 of them plus a few of the young women who Rachel had attached herself to (and Shawn had crushes on - Monica and Mattie) usually sat up front and played Scum - an Aussie Rules card game they really enjoyed where the winner is the Emperor and the loser is Scum.

Anyway, after a very long day on the 24th, we arrived in the bushmen's village in Ghanzi in time to setup our tents (we were getting extremely good at this by now) and set out on a short hike with a bushmen tribe.  This was nothing like the one we did in Tanzania with the Hdazabe as instead of a nice small group of 4, we had 23 but they wore the traditional clothing (women topless in all their glory and men in loin cloths - which Shawn/Rachel didn't bat an eye at).  They showed us some of the indigenous plants and their purposes (roots for brushing teeth and curing kidney stones, etc.) and then made a fire with sticks - I guess this is the big tourist draw item.  I timed them this time and they did it from start to finish in a shade under 2 minutes.  I wanted to tell them that there was a tribe in Tanzania who were twice as fast! :-)

They had some babies and small kids with them (carried in skins on their backs) who were completely adorable.  The bushmen are a very attractive race as they have slightly Chinese features and ready smiles.  Its hard to believe that they were hunted to within an inch of their existence - in early times for being seen as poachers on livestock, and later by the South African's because they were excellent trackers to use in their wars with Angola.  The bushmen also have two other physiological differences.  They have an amazing capability to store water and fat in their buttocks.  You can almost watch their butts grow as they gorge themselves after a kill.  In this way they can store large reserves to last them for the next meal which may be days away.  The other is that they are extremely fast.  Another tour group joined us (so we had about 40) and one of the other guys was a sprinter and challenged two of the boys to a race.  He bet them his shoes he could beat them (against their shawls).  They setup a track about 300 metres long and we all lined up along the sides.  He went through all the motions of stretches and practicing his start with the bushmen watching him curiously.  Then they lined up and took off.  The bushmen jumped into the lead right away and then despite his size (he was 6' or so), kept increasing the lead so that they left him in the dust.  It wasn't even close.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone run that fast.

We later learned that the star of the "gods must be crazy" could run down an Oryx which is one of the fastest antelopes.  We also learned that he died a few years ago.  We don't have pictures of this yet, but our tour compatriots will be putting theirs online so I'll add some as I get them.

After Ghanzi, we left for a 500km drive to Windhoek on Christmas Day.   Windhoek is a very modern town with obviously German influences.  The Churches were Luthern as you'd expect and the streets were neat and tidy.  We also saw lots of Mercedes and VW's.  The wealth and prosperity of the locals was astonishing after the past 6 weeks in Africa.  Obviously Namibia is in even better shape than Botswana - astonishing when you consider it was a war zone in 1990.  We wandered around town and went into a shopping centre (stores closed of course) with eyes drooling after our depredation.  Then it was off to our campsite outside Windhoek to setup the tents and then back in for Christmas Dinner which we did as a group.  We did a Secret Santa  which was fun and Shawn ended up with a load of fireworks which helped kick off his Pyromania.  Every time you'd turn around he was setting off some firework when you'd least expect it.  We all missed our families but this was different and nice as we were with good friends by now.

Instead of turkey, and all the fixings we had a continuous round of African dishes including most of the game animals you can think of.. Zebra, Kudu, etc.  Merry Christmas!