Day 24 – Sea, Salt and Sand

Sept 21st

Sea, Salt and Sand
I got up at 8AM for a tour of the area. First we headed to Walvis Bay lagoon to try and spot brightly-colored flamingos and rare white pelicans. The few we saw were sequestered far off in the distance. We briefly saw Bird Island’s wooden platforms, which were erected to collect guano for fertilizer. That’s when I knew what gift I was bringing home. Then we headed to Namibian salt mining operations, which are the largest in the world. Since the facilities were closed, we admired the salt fields, which are flooded with water and turn a glorious pink before the salt crystallizes out. After we were supposed to head to an Oyster farm to taste glorified Namibian oysters, but these facilities were also closed on Sunday. The morning looked pretty grim as we were all cranky from lack of sleep and hung overs. The freezing morning fog did nothing to lift our spirits. (Africa was much colder than anticipated! I guess because it was their Fall.) The last stop was Dune 7 where they gave us an hour to climb the highest dune in the area or to relax among the palm trees and picnic tables. (I disappointingly found out there is no Dune 5 or Dune 6. It is named because it is 7km from the post office.) It took us a good 15 mins to climb since the sand acted like a giant stair stepper. Every two steps you take, you slide one step back. We took numerous breaks along the way, but the view from the top was incredible. You could see for miles across the Namib desert. After running, rolling and sliding down, we headed back to the boat.

Sand boarding
After lunch, a group of us meet up with Wayne, a sand boarding instructor that came to get us at the harbor. He shuttled us to Dune 7 and unloaded all the snowboarding gear that would soon become our sand boarding experience. He and Marcus rode us up to the top of the dune via quad bikes (thank god) and we made our way down ourselves. Despite my inexperience snowboarding or sand boarding, I quickly felt comfortable making my way straight down the steep slope. I loved every min of it, except maybe when Goldie and I decided to make a sled out of a board and ride down together. With our feet on the sides of the board to steady us, we ended up spraying sand all over ourselves and fully engulfing our ears, eyes, mouths and hair with sand. The best way to explain it is as Becca put it “We turned to see a giant sand ball flying down the hill… then we realized it was you guys and weren’t surprised.” Right after our misadventure, Christina showed us up by daintily sliding down without any flying sand. In the meantime, we snacked on juice and fruit courtesy of Wayne, while Barbara kidnapped an adorable little boy named DeeDee who had been playing in the sand. Goldie and I let him ride our “sled” but only with proper instruction and warning so he wouldn’t suffer our same fate. By the end of the day, Tierney explained the experience best as “walking after sand boarding is like exfoliating your vagina.” After a tiring afternoon, we headed back to the ship to clean up for dinner.

Swakopmund at Night
Sara, Goldie, Cassidy and I squeezed into a clown car that at final count unbelievably held 10 SAS students. After arriving at Hotel Europa in Swakopmund, which is a beach town about 35 mins North of Walvis Bay, we headed to Kuckis Pub for dinner. I had ostrich with monkey gland sauce (my new fav condiment). We then dropped our stuff off in the hotel (since we finally ran into Brit who had the key from the night before) and prepped for a night out. Just by wandering the streets, we easily found the bars, which attract SAS students like moths to a flame. We went to ‘Threesome’ an upstairs bar that reminded me of a Caribbean oasis. We hung out there until 11PM when they ended alcohol service and closed the place (since it was Sunday). Unsure what to do with ourselves, most SAS kids mingled in the streets before someone decided to start a beach party. Thus, we all headed to the gas station for beer and firewood and headed to the beach. While I had a great time warming up next to the fire, the Cali kids keep insisting it was “too high school” for them. We made it safely back to our German cottage hotel by 4PM to stuff four of us in one large bed for the night.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was when Goldie and I made our own little sandstorm. My “low” was watching drunk kids stumble around a huge bonfire (thankfully no one fell in).