Bush Camping at Spitzkoppe

February 6, 2010

Spitzkoppe, Namibia

I sadly left my beautiful chalet at Etosha and headed to Spitzkoppe, where we would be bush camping: a drop toilet, no showers. It was very hot and dusty when we arrived, and our campsite, pictured below, was almost unearthly.

The rocks glowed red and pink and orange as the sun set. Absolutely magnificent! I was also happy to hear that there was a rock pool, of rainwater trapped by the rocks, an easy climb up from our campsite. I walked to see some rock paintings which were, disappointingly, only 200 - 4,000 years old. (I want to see the paintings that are 50,000 years old!) After the rock art, I hopped in the somewhat dirty rock pool. There could have been bilharzia in that pool and it's possible that I'll pay for it later, but for now, it's water!

We ate "cottage pie" (mashed potatoes and veggies) and toasted marshmallows around the campfire. I opened a bottle of rose that was the same colour as the rocks around us. Bush camping or not, it was a perfectly lovely evening! And the food was great. I haven't mentioned it yet, but the food on tour has been delicious and the leaders are very good at catering for vegetarians. We eat stir fry, burritos, beef (tofu) stroganoff, salads and lots of other delicious foods. Everything is fresh and made from scratch by us, the intrepid overlanders. under the guidance of our leaders.

For an inexplicable reason, everyone that night was dressed up in crazy costumes (lingerie, leopard skin camisoles, dive suits) from secondhand shops that they had acquired in Malawi. (I can't explain why. It's simply inexplicable.)

That night in Spitzkoppe I'm such a diva that I actually pitched my tent while everyone else slept outside on the rocks.

A Note about the Tour: I've gotten a few questions about why I stayed on the tour for the southern Africa when it has been clear that I was less than totally happy on tour in East Africa. It's simply because southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia) are really difficult to travel through independently. You can't get to the central Kalahari, Etosha, or Spitzkoppe, for instance, via public transportation. You could hire a car, but if so, it would probably need to be 4WD and it would be totally expensive. Also, my instincts were right: the tour from Livingstone to Cape Town has been totally different from East Africa (no mud) and absolutely amazing so far! Silly overlanders aside, I'm having a blast!

Books read: The best book I've read so far this year has been The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. It's an existential book of fantasty about a kid in Brooklyn who is a magician. As it turns out, finding other worlds (which would seem to fulfill your heart's desire) do not make you happy if you're a miserable person to begin with. I liked it so much that when I finished it, I started it all over again. How many books can you say that about?