Previously on Far Away Fi: The One for Elley. Part 1.
Namibia & Botswana
So we left Cape Town with a heavy heart. What an amazing place this would be to live. There’s no hidden meaning here, I’m not moving to Cape Town any time soon. But you know. It’s nice to dream. We had our bags, walking sticks, peanut butter and cooler packed. It was a sad day, full of running around and ruining the hostel’s internet.
BUT new adventures were waiting, the only difference was that we had no idea what to expect. Or partly, at least. You see, to lessen the burden of having to plan a huge road trip through two countries we knew very little about, we decided to split the load. It was very simple: I planned our trip through Namibia, and Elley planned the trip through Botswana. This meant that we had no idea what to expect of the activities happening in the other country. We tried to explain to each other, but honestly, the words didn’t really mean anything until after some of those activities.
As we had to leave Kevin behind, we needed a new ride. We looked and looked, and looked some more for a car that would be a good fit with us. It took some time, but we found the perfect car. World; meet Joshua.
Namibia
Before we had decided to split the load, we’d agreed to head South in Namibia. We wanted to see deserts (no, not desserts), and eat sand. The North is known for it’s national parks and wildlife, but we were really tired of all that … I mean, potato, potato (do the accents for full effect).
Our adventure started with picking up the car. You see, I kind of found Josh without Ellen knowing about it, and so his appearance was a surprise for her. She doesn’t normally go for Josh’s type. She likes smaller guys, a little less masculine. After the Kevin disaster, she didn’t want to drive Josh right away, so I got the honor of navigating around Windhoek in this monstrous car, trying not to run over any Namibians or accidentally driving on the wrong side of the road.
Namibia reminded us of SA when it came to the people and Windhoek, but as soon as we left the city, a whole new world opened up. Like we did in SA, we started out using Google Maps to find our way, but that failed REALLY fast. Google kept telling us to go places that didn’t exist. So, we switched to a different tactic: MAPS. Like actual maps, on paper. The ones you have to fold open and read. It was a challenge, but as much to our surprise as to yours, it worked really well.
There’s nothing in Namibia. A whoooooole lot of nothing.
On picking up Josh, the rental company had instructed us how to set up our tent. They made it look so easy too! Well I can tell you it was NOT. That first night was a complete disaster. We were equipped with a table, some chairs, 2 gas pits and a few pots and pans. We went from camping at hostels and using the kitchens they provided, to camping on the roof of our Josh, making food in the DARK on our two fairly wobbly gas pits and storing food in our tiny fridge (yes, we had a fridge). A whole new dementia of “living in our car” was created.
Fish River Canyon
After our first night, with all the adventures it brought, we headed to our very first Namibia destination: Fish River Canyon. It’s the second biggest canyon in the world. Can anyone guess what the biggest one is ? No? No one? I’ll give you a tip; it’s graaaaaaaand (for those who still don’t know, shame on you. Go back to school or something).
On the way to the canyon, we came across a place called Giant’s playground. It was a great place to climb rocks and take a few crazy pictures. Who would leave a pile of rocks, in the middle of a field?
On the other side of the road was Quiver Tree Forest. It wasn’t a forest really, there were just a lot of quiver trees in that one area. There was a whole story to why they’re called quiver trees, and I’m sure google knows it, as I don’t.
After the forest that wasn’t really a forest, we finally made it to the canyon! Man, that canyon should be the biggest canyon in the world. It really deserves it. We walked around a bit, took in the view and simply enjoyed the fresh air.
So after we took in the view and did the walking, nature called (which in ironic because there was no cellphone service). I went to look for a bathroom, and meanwhile Elley was concocting a plan to attack me with a defrosted cucumber. We were having troubles with the fridge, and all of our food kept freezing. I can tell you there’s not a lot in this world that’s as gross as a defrosted cucumber. So I walk back to the car, and see her talking to the gopro (we’d established a habit of making vlogs). SHE THREW THE CUCUMBER AT ME AND I GOT DEFROSTED CUCUMBER JUICE ALL OVER ME, OKAY. Are you happy now?
We’d planned to stay in the area for two days, as we thought we could do some hiking. Turns out you’re not aloud to hike around the canyon, so there was not a lot to do. There was a hot spring a little to the south, and people were really enthusiastic about it. We ended up visiting it, and questioning humanity afterwards. WHAT THE ACTUALLY EF, WORLD? That was the worst place in the world. Like really. The hot spring was a little stream. And there was a hotel, and a restaurant. It was tourist hell. We had lunch, and left. We came across a big, round rock on the way back, so we HAD to stop and make some pictures. Now I know they all look the same when you don’t look at the details. So LOOK AT THE DETAILS. I especially like the one where Elley shows me her butt.
Goan met dieje peirdekup
After the LOVELY outing to the hotsprings, it was time to move on to Luderitz. If any of you ever decide to go to Namibia, DON’T go to Luderitz. Oh my word, there was literally nothing to do in this town. We walked around for a bit, and saw everything there was to see, and then that was it. There was nothing else to do. We’d seen everything by walking around. I don’t even have pictures of the place, can you imagine?
On the way to Luderitz, before we knew how little there was to do, we stopped in Aus to have lunch and see wild horses. It was so cool. It was just the two of us, looking at these amazing creatures and enjoying the view. Let me take you to Aus and show you the horses:
Sossusvlei
OOOOOOH MY WOOOOOORD.
SOSSUSVLEI WAS THA BOOOOOMB!
Imagine dunes. BIG dunes. Imagine sand. RED sand. Okay, now put those two together. What do you get? YOU GET AWESOMENESS.
I’m finding it hard to describe Sossusvlei. The memories I have of this place leave me speechless (can you imagine? Me? Speechless? Must be really something, huh). It’s one of Namibia’s highlights, and I understand why. There’s nothing but sand. And it’s simply amazing. We stopped over at the first dune we saw, and decided to climb it. Well I can tell you that was a mistake. The wind kept blowing into our legs, which hurt A LOT, and we just never seemed to reach the top. It’s like it kept moving further and further away. The view from the almost-top was lovely, though.
Our story at Deadvlei starts off at the “parking lot” (read: a patch of sand with some cars). There was a sign that you were aloud to drive your own car if was a 4×4 (which Josh was), and if not, you could take the “bus”. So obviously, we decided to take our own car, but there was just one smaaaall-ish problem. Neither of us had ever driven in that amount of sand before. So what would you do in a situation like that? Exactly, you wing it. We deflated our tires and just kind of went for it. It worked out perfectly fine. We even stopped on the way there to help push the car of a couple who’d gotten stuck. We got to a second “parking lot” and had to walk the rest of the way to the deadvlei. Elley decided to go barefoot, I didn’t want to get any sand in my only pair of shoes, so I wore flipflops.
The first part of the walk was mostly more sand. It was really pretty sand, though. The deadvlei is this dried-out patch with some dead trees on it. It’s very weird, but very cool. If you want more information on the deadvlei than this, click here.
You’d think that we had learned our lesson after climbing that first dune, no? Yeah, well, we didn’t. We decided to climb a second one. Because you know, why not? We really wanted to see the view over the entire “vlei” from all the way up on the dune.
As you can see in the yellow circle, it didn’t quite work out (yes, that’s Elley). Those dunes are REALLY high and the sand is REALLY hot. Ellen’s feet were burning, hahaaaaa loser. I said “I told you so” at the time, but just in case, let me say it again: I TOLD YOU SO. Who goes into a desert without any shoes on? That’s just weird. So anyway, we had to give up halfway. It was the middle of the day and about 40°C and well, we were melting.
Okay so we got back to the parking lot, and had to pump up our tires. We had never done that before so what would you do in a situation like that? Exactly, you ask the locals for help. Josh had a compressor, but we had no idea how to use it. We thought we were pumping air into the tires, but nothing seemed to happen. The lovely locals helped us by noticing that the meter was broken. Oops. Our tire was on 3.5 bar and ready to explode. Oops. We did bring a portable meter (thanks, dad) so everything worked out in the end, but not without a few laughs from the locals first.
We had an entire second day for the Vlei planned out, but didn’t need it. We’d seen it all in that one very tiring day. We’d found some information on a hike at the desk of our campsite, and for the second time in two days, we decided to wing it. We drove out and had a lovely hike in Namibia’s jungle.
There were even pools!
The sun set on that last day at Sossusvlei and the time for a new adventure had come (#melig).
Walvisbay and Swakopmund
After all this duneclimbing we really needed a break. A non-tent break. A real food break. An inside break. So we did. We spent two days in Walvis Bay in a lighthouse hotel. We walked on the beach, had AMAZING food and slept in a bed. A bed with a mattress.
The funniest activity we did on our trip, was kayaking with seals. There were A LOT of seals on the island and a friend had recommended to spend the day in a boat and see them from up close (thanks, Vic!). They put us in “waterproof” clothing and put us in a kayak. It was hilarious. Somehow only the two of us were wearing non-waterproof clothes, so our stuff smelled of fish for about a week (laundry is a luxury, okay?!). Of course it didn’t help that on the way back to land a seal came on board and fell onto our luggage (this actually happened, I swear).
Once we were fully rested and smelling of fish, we headed to Swakopmund. Anna had set us up with Ray-Ray-Raymond (just Raymond for the friends), who runs a township tour in Swakop (yes, I speak slang). He took us all over the townships to local “doctors”, a preschool and he took us to his house for some local food. Later that same day we sent SANDBOARDING, whooooohoooooow! There’s not a lot to say about sandboarding, except that it’s like snowboarding, only on sand.
For those of you ever wanting to go sandboarding, I do have one tip for you guys: wear a hat. Ooh, and drink water. One of us may not have done that and may have puked on the way back to Windhoek. Oops.
Botswana
Our trip to Namibia had almost come to an end. We spent one night on the border with Angola, where I was viciously attacked by a horse. I was just sitting outside peacefully and reading a book. Elley was asleep because she sleeps through anything (it’s annoying, we’ve been through this). She comes out of the tent, and the horse, who’d been standing around peacefully until that moment, comes straight for me and steals my bread! He shook it around a little and the loaf went EVERYWHERE. He did it just to annoy me too! That bastard. We had a stare-off. I lost.
Drotsky
Our first official stop in Botswana were the Drotsky Caves. The only thing is, we didn’t go to the caves. We ran into someone at our campsite who told us that he’d never been anywhere as boring as Drotsky (I’m thinking he’d never been to Luderitz). So instead of going to the caves, we went to a national park. Ellen had arranged the whole thing, she just didn’t realize that the park was in Namibia. So just to clarify: our first outing in Botswana, was actually in Namibia. It’s okay though, we made great friends at the border control post.
We ended up having a great first day in Botswana! It was a tiny national park and we didn’t get lost once. That was, of course, before I was viciously attacked by moneys. First the horse, now the STUPID monkeys. So Ellen was brushing her teeth, and we had closed the car because of all the monkeys in the area. I was filling up our water bottles and I hear something in the back. I go look and there’s three monkeys in our trunk!! So I yell: “ELLEEEEEEN HEEEEEELP, THE MONKEEEEEYS ARE EVERYYYWHEEEEEEERE”. She shows up, and all she does is laugh at me, that bitch! There were three monkeys ON the car, another three IN the trunk stealing our food and one more in the back, where I was originally filling the water bottles. Stupid monkeys.
Okavango Delta
We didn’t need maps in Botswana, there’s only like three roads. One of those roads tooks us to Maun, the capital. Botswana was very different from Namibia. As good as the roads were in Namibia (better than in Belgium in most places), that’s how bad they were in Botswana. You’re driving next to the road the majority of the time and that makes for very slow traveling.
Ellen had arranged to go on a three day mokoro trip to the Okavango Delta. A mokoro is a very shallow, narrow boat that’s steered with a pole. We brought our tent, enough food and water for three days and set out in a mokoro with a local guide. He mokorod us around the delta until we found an empty campsite where we set up camp for the next three days.
Our days on this trip were super relaxing. We went on walking safaris, tried to learn how to steer a mokoro boat (which is super freaking hard, by the way), and did the dishes in the river. We made friends with the neighbors (of course we did), who were locals catering a camp. We ended up teaching all of them how to play Uno and had a few laughs. The chef turned out to be a master chessplayer and beat Elley EVERY SINGLE TIME. To thank us for the games he made us bread one morning. Ah, the simple life.
On our last morning, as I got out of our tent, I heard something move right next to our camp. Our guide told me to be really quiet and go with him, and Elley had to stay in the tent. Turns our there was an elephant about 50 meters away from our camp, just on the other side of the river. Kind of scary, but also an incredible thing to wake up to.
Because of the Elleyphant (see what I did there) we couldn’t leave our camp, so we had to postpone our afternoon walking safari. We played some more games to keep ourselves busy and had a cup of river water tea. After he left, we finally set out on our last walk. We walked around for a few hours and when we tried to head back to camp, it turned out that our friend Mr Elephanto had returned and was hanging around our mokoro. Conclusion? We couldn’t go back to camp. Our guide decided to walk to a camp nearby and hang out there until we could get back to ours. About halfway there he tells us to duck and be really, REALLY quiet. Turns out there was another elephant at the other camp, and we were headed right to him. There was no way back, as there was nowhere for us to hide. We made it to the camp and had a little show or elephants to enjoy. They were reaaaaaaally close by. Oh my.
As it says in all the travel books, you HAVE TO visit Moremi National Park. So we did. An we were very disappointed, haha. We’d had such amazing days on our mokoro trip, that Moremi just couldn’t compete. We saw a few giraffes and some more elephants, but that was pretty much it. Plus it’s a really big park and we got lost a few times, so it just wasn’t as much fun as walking around and seeing everything in the delta (yes, I DO realize how spoiled that sounds). We saw a giraffe with a really short neck, though. Look at that freak!!
Salt Pans
The next few days we went more and more to the East making a few stops along the way. We spent a day adventuring around the Nxai pan, which was partly but not fully dried out. Let me tell you, Botswana is just FULL of elephants. I mean we saw elephants EVERYWHERE. Nxai was no exception.
We stopped on the pan for an AMAZING lunch. Man, I really miss those lunches. So after lunch we tried to drive around the salt pans, but as they weren’t fully dried out, that wasn’t possible. Instead of driving around the pans, we stopped and did a photoshoot. It was a great photoshoot, Ellen’s first picture was AMAZING straight away. Not sure if it’s her or if the photographer was just simply amazing …
She looks so magestical, right?! So it was my turn next … I swear my body is incapable of looking normal. I mean, what is this??? And those are only the pictutres I kept. There were many, MANY more attempts to make me look magestical too.
One last story before we call it a wrap (wrap it up, call it a day, whah-evs), what do you think? Our last big outing was with a place called planet baobab. Until we got to the campsite, we weren’t sure if we would be able to go on the trip. It was the very first trip of the year, and it was all weather dependent. Obviously we went on the trip, otherwise this would be a REALLY bad story.
The day started out with 6 Dutch people (yowsa) and a two hour drive to go see STOKSTAARTJES (aka “meerkat”)!! Totally worth the drive (and the Dutchies)! Look at that Timone sitting on me!
After this wonder, we set out to the Makgadigadi Salt Pans for an overnight trip. We were going to our campsite (which was in the middle of the pans) by quadbike. The guide was going kind of slow, but the view was simply breathtaking. There was NOTHING around us (except for a lot of Dutch people). We stopped for sunset, sat down and didn’t say a word for 10 minutes. There was NO sound at all. Nothing. No birds chirping, no cars coming by, NOTHING.
When we arrived at the campsite, it turned out that “campsite” in Botswana means “chairs under the open air” and “you’re going to sleep in a roll under the starlit sky”. We had an amazing dinner by the campfire under the stars. There was a LOT of wind, so we put on all of our sweaters and went to bed. What a great experience.
Until it started raining, that is. They woke us up to and told us to evacuate. Or I should say they woke ME up, as yet again, Elley was sound asleep and not able to be woken up. When I eventually did manage to wake her, she thought that I woke her up just to tell her that I couldn’t sleep. Of course she hadn’t noticed that it was POURING down with rain. And when I say pouring, mean REALLY REALLY POURING. Raining cats and dogs pouring.
So we jumped on our quadbikes and went back to the hotel. We went back at full speed, woohoo! The two hour drive back was not so much fun. It was an open car, and we were all completely soaked to the bone. The hotel did get us a hotelroom with a hot shower and a nice kuppa tea, so we didn’t have to sleep in our tent. You see, I haven’t really mentioned this, but Namibia and Botswana are COLD at night. Especially when you’re soaked.
The next day we took the day off and sat in a treehouse for hours. We made some lunch, drank some tea and just sat around in our treehouse. Man, that was a great day.
So guys, that was it. It took us a few days to get back to Windhoek and we spent our very last night in Namibia cooking up a “camp pie” (read: put all of the “ingredients” you have left into a pot, put it on your gaspit and get cookin).
Photo Collections
I’ve now shared most of our adventures with you. OOH, except for the story of our very last night. We had to spend two more days in Johannesburg on our way home. We took some tours, saw some museums and went to a CONCERT of the one and only JESSE CLEGG!! We didn’t just go to the concert, we OWNED the concert. We met Jesse Clegg, and you’ll be happy to know we’ll be getting married on October 3rd.
Our new theme song is by Jesse. Don’t forget to check it out in the menu!
The one thing that’s missing from this blog is actually my favorite part of the trip. Somewhere along the road, Elley and I started collecting pictures. Not just any pictures, but very specific pictures of things we thought were funny.
DOBBY IS A FREE ELF
I wanted to take pictures with my Dobby socks. Let’s face it, Dobby is everyone’s favorite elf. And we all cried when he (SPOILER ALERT!!) died in the end. So with this collection, I just want to make a small tribute to the world’s greatest elf.
Signs
Okay so this is obviously not my collection. I wanted to take pictures of fun things. Things that would make me laugh when I would see them again. Elley on the other hand, wanted to take pictures of signs. Stupid signs. She made me stop and turn back MULTIPLE times to take these. So there you go, Elley, here are your signs. Enjoy.
The Grinch
This is probably the best set of pictures in this blog. Ever. Has anyone ever seen The Grinch? Of course you have, Christmas is only just out the door (which is a great reminder of how late I am writing this post), and it’s THE Christmas classic …. There’s a scene where he’s trying on different outfits, and can’t find the right one. Eventually he goes outside, steals a happy yodeler’s HOT orange overalls, looks at himself in the mirror and does MY MOVE: he leans forward and grabs his butt. For those who don’t know the scene, watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnoJdK8cmwQ
Around 1:44 he grabs his butt, and you’ll see that everything will start making sense.
I might have been imitating this scene, and Elley might have taken a picture, and ever since, everywhere we went, we had to get a Grinch-picture to add to the collection. Enjoy, they’re priceless.
Shoutouts
This trip would not have been what it was, if it weren’t for a few special people.
A HUGE thanks to Ruth and Wouter. You took in Ellen without thinking twice (I still wonder why). You took me in for a few nights, even after all the awful stories Ellen must’ve told you. You are simply amazing people, the way you welcomed us into your home. Congratulations on the birth of your beautiful son, Micah!
Aunt Koetie, Ruth’s aunt, opened her home to us on Easter. Aunt Koetie and Francis, we send you love and hugs from Belgium. We had a lovely time with your family and couldn’t be more thankful for everything you did for us.
Let’s end this post with a MASSIVE hug and never-ending love for my best friend, Elley. There’s not a lot of people in the world I would have survived this trip with. This was my first non-solo travel and I wouldn’t change a thing about our 2 months together. Okay, maybe I would change the way you tried to spoon me every night, but let’s not go there …. Oh, and the smell of her feet.
“There’s also the chance that the person you can count on for a lifetime, the person who knows you, sometimes better than you know yourself, is the same person who’s been standing beside you all along.”
Cheers to our PEP blankets. Cheers to Kevin #DEKEKKEUH. Cheers to Josh. Cheers to not killing each other just yet. Cheers to our new house. Cheers to Het Sneuvelkasteel. Cheers to Jane – #Janawaarbenje – our third musketeer who couldn’t join us on this trip due to having a life. And who bought a house!! Let’s all do a little dance for Jana en Pirre!
Cheers, Elley, this one’s for you.
I hope someday
We’ll sit down together
And laugh with each other
About these days, these days
All our troubles
We’ll lay to rest
And we’ll wish we could come back to these days
Love
Fi
Far Away Fi 