Beetles and Land Rovers in Swakopmond

For those who have followed my blog will know of the posts about Land Rovers in the Falklands or Las Malvinas and my trip through Mexico where I took a whole library of photos of Beetles. And lo and behold, there are both in Swakopmond!

The most common colour was white so it was always going to be a challenge to get another colour.

A local conversion.

A long wheel base with a roof rack.

 A short wheel based version in green with side lights for the back..

 A long wheel base version with insulated back.

 A traditional pickup version for carrying people.

 A long wheel base with side lights for the back.

 A light green version in the museum that was owned by the museums founder.

A short wheel base with side lights in the back.

 A rare coloured version of a long wheel base.

 And the most distinctive beetle in the town although I also saw a red beetle but couldn't get the camera out fast enough to take a photo.

But it wasn't the only unique and distinctive beetle in town.

 And this one had angled tyres at the back and an exposed motor.

 But pink isn't that unusual in Swakopmond.

Swakopmond

What a change. Swakopmond is a microcosm of a Germanic township transhipped to Africa.  There is as much German spoken here as English. There were white faces of both tourists and locals in the streets. The streets are neat, tidy and have trees, flowers and grass in the central vegetations. There are modern individual houses surrounded by manicured gardens with trees and palms for shade. They had garages and cars were mostly parked in garages and the driveways and streets opposite the houses are free of parked vehicles. There were street lamps. The streets were clean and free of litter and of dust despite being in a desert area. The cars were modern recent designs, clean, shiny with recently waxed surfaces sparkling in the sun.

There was industry and commerce areas arranged in neat industrial estates. There are clean logoed delivery vehicles dropping off goods. The people were well dressed and would not look out of place on any European city street. Workers wear company logoed uniforms or overalls. People have shoes and none of the clothes were dirty, threadbare or torn.

The buildings were all neatly painted and well maintained. The roads are set out in an orderly grid pattern and all had their names on signs at every corner, something that I realised that I had not seen in Africa over the previous four months of travel. Despite being largely of modern designs, there was a distinct Bavarian or Germanic feel. Most of the city is single or two storey with just a few buildings in the central business district being three stories. There were several church spires of Catholic and Lutheran churches. Except for a few street names of famous local African celebrities, you might think that you were in an Bavarian Alpine town.

A street scene.

 The Otavi railway station, now a vegetarian restaurant and garden centre.

 Another view of the former station with some railway paraphernalia.

Another of the buildings on site, the Omeg Hall. The railway was completed in 1902 and connected the harbour at Swakopmond to the mines operated by Otavi Mineral Exploration Gesellschaft.

 I visited the local museum down by the harbour which was fascinating. I took this picture of a stuffed pangolin as most people have never seen one and some of you have emailed me about it.

 This is the former main station, now a four star hotel.

The reception area of the hotel which is as it was when it was a railway station.

 The bar in the hotel and again it is as it was when it was built.

 This is the replacement station built when the hotel bought the original station. But this is now not used as the tracks have been realigned and now do not even reach this station. The new station is still being built and is currently just a concrete base and work has been stopped as there are no plans to reintroduce any passenger services.

And despite seeing a lot of tracks and being in Namibia for over a week, this to date is the only rolling stock that I have seen.

Skeleton Coast

Beyond the mountains is the coast which is all sandy desert and flat. The wind howls across the sand whipping up dust. It collects in any hollow or behind any rock. It stings the skin. Despite being in the tropics it is cold here. You know when you are near the coast as the temperature drops markedly.

Offshore is the cold Benguela Current which flows north from the Antarctic. It is rich in minerals and great for fishing but the cold current makes to air cold and it is blown inland. Sometimes the cold moist air hits the hot air inland and forms thick fog.

 Dust collecting behind a rock.

 It is called the Skeleton Coast as there are many shipwrecks along the coast. If you are ship wrecked here and make it safely ashore there is nothing but sand for hundreds of kilometres. This is the wreck of an oil rig.

 Part of the rusting superstructure.

 The central section of the rig.

 The winding gear at the top of the derrick which has collapsed.

 A metal panel which is rusting away in a pretty pattern.

 Another wreck, this one of the whaler 'Eagle'. It was a wooden ship and most of it has washed away except for some metal of the boilers.

 And the steel clad wooden keel.

 Another part of the keel.

 And not all of the wrecks are old and ships still get washed ashore. On the beach was helicopter and support vehicle.

 Offshore was a grounded vessel (white one) with a tug standing by (the darker ship to the right).

 The grounded ship. The helicopter was there to ferry engineers and equipment out to the stricken ship. It was leaking oil as a result of the grounding and the oil tank had to be drained for the damage to be repaired by welding and the split oil cleaned up. It was carrying frozen tuna but needed the fuel to run the generators to keep the tuna frozen.

 The tug was standing by ready to help pull the ship off the sand on the next high tide once the oil tank was repaired

 And just along the coast was another trawler that had grounded although this one was grounded and abandoned in 2008.

Damaraland, Namibia

I went to an ethnographic living museum to be shown how the locals traditionally live in the desert. First stop with my guide Somol was to visit the pharmacy. They make use of al the local plants and everything that nature provides.  An ostrich egg can be blown and provides scrambled egg which soothes an upset stomach. The shell can be used as a drinking vessel. Red ochre is used as a cosmetic and to protect against ,mosquitos. The stinky poo tree soothes upset stomachs and drunk as a tea gets rid of wind. Another tree is used as a police to cover and heal cuts and other plants are used for all sorts of purposes.

 A chiefs hut. The men can have as many wives as he can afford but each wife has a separate hut which he has to make. The branches are tied together with the bark of a desert tree.

 One of the wives hut.

 The brewery. Grass seeds are gathered after the rainy season and added to water and honey and left to ferment to create beer.

 A traditional game which is played all over Africa although the rules differ depending on the tribal area.

 One of the locals using a sharp tool to remove hair from a hide. The hair is used to weave into a blanket.

 Seeds and shells are shaped and worked into beads for decoration and for selling.

 A demonstration of the blacksmiths art. Iron stone is gathered from the desert and smelted and worked into scrapers, spears, knives and other tools.. They still make their own tools but now buh iron rods from the hardware store to make into tools.

 We were shown how to make fire using two sticks, some donkey dung, elephant poo and grass.

 Every seven year old boy learns to lit a fire. It is an essential skill to master as he can not marry until he can prove that he can light a fire.

Later I visited an octagonal columnar basalt outcrop. After seeing the Giants Causeway and massive columnar basalt lava flows in Iceland, I was rather underwhelmed with this tiny outcrop. But if it is your first time it is interesting. 

 Along the road we came across a troupe of baboons foraging along side the road.

 Some baboons playing in a tree.

 We had bought both the sticks and some donkey dung from the Damara village. We stopped for a bush camp and got out the fire making kit. Somal had make it look so easy with just four or five twists of the stick to get the donkey dung smoking and then transferring it onto the coarser elephant poo and blowing on it to create fire. However hard we tried, it just didn't work for else. Most people had a go and tried different techniques. Eventually we reverted to matches otherwise we would still be there now!