Nichole's Adventures in Namibia: Swakopmund

Hello everyone! I'm so sorry that I have not been able to write for a few days. When I started this blog it was my goal to write a little blurb everyday, but as my Dad pointed out to me, we take our internet access for granted in the U.S.! Although I will still try my best to write several times per week, I know that my internet will not always allow me to do so. So bear with me if you don't see a post everyday as I had originally planned. We have pretty slow internet here in Windhoek but this past weekend I was in Swakopmund on the coast of Namibia, the internet was 10x slower in my room but I have so much I want to share with you all so I'll try and keep it as brief and interesting as possible!

Swakopmund is a little German settlement on the coast of Namibia, about a four hour drive away from Windhoek. We left for our little adventure at 7:00 on Friday morning and after our long drive of which I slept most of the way :) We arrived in a beautiful little town with a dutch feel like Lynden, but surrounded by sand dunes on one side, and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. Fun fact...apparently Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt own a house in this little African Oasis, or so I was told by several tourist trap employees! We stayed in the Hansa Hotel and it was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in!!! The American dollar is at about 10.5 to 1 Namibian dollar so a room that cost nearly $300 a night only cost us $30.00!

After we had settled in to our hotel we took some time to explore the town. There were tons of tourist shops and restaurants and I began to notice something very unsettling. A lot of the restaurants had a primarily white client base that was being served by a primarily african workforce. This wouldn't have been quite so unsettling if I had seen some Africans eating at these establishments as well, but I never did. Instead I saw these locals serving at these restaurants, begging passerby tourists to buy from their shops laid out on blankets on the ground, or constructing makeshift tents out of eyesight from everyone else to sleep. The financial differences I saw in this town were tremendous and very unsettling as I remembered my sleeping accommodations back at the hotel. My thoughts on this topic go much further than I will say here, but this first week has really shown me a lot of the cultural divides here in Namibia and I will be writing a blog post on this further in the near future.

The next day we went down to catch a catamaran and go on a boat trip. This trip was one of the most amazing I have had so far!!! On our way to catch the boat I saw pelicans that came up past my hip! They were huge and yet so unfazed by people you could stand right next to them and they would just stare at you! When we got to the dock shortly before we began to board a seal hopped onto the dock and started waddling it's way towards us, I have never been so close to such an animal before and it was amazing, but that's not even the best part! When I sat down on the boat and the captain came to the front to say hello I was quickly taken off guard when a wild seal came waddling up behind me and for lack of a better explanation gave me a big seal hug! The captain held fish over my head and the seal was all to eager to use me as a ladder to get to that fish! Almost like my dad dangling a toy over my head for our dogs only to lunge onto my lap, only this time the dog was a seal. I have some great pictures I will put below for you all to see. I was allowed to pet the seal and take a few pictures before it jumped back into the ocean and swam off.

The next day we went quaking through the sand dunes. I've had the opportunity to quad with my grandparents before back in Vermejo, so it was so fun to get back on the quad, and it was such a beautiful atmosphere to ride in. We rode up and down the sand dunes until we reached the ocean and I was again amazed at the beautiful scenery this country has to offer.

I know this isn't every little detail but I'm hoping you are enjoying reading as much as I am enjoying writing these posts for you all, I wish you all the best back home and I'll talk to you again soon!