Sossusvlei and Deadvlei-"What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlovely being alone can be."--Ellen Burstyn

Sossusvlei and Deadvlei,

Words cannot express the beauty and majesty of this area. We booked our  trip to Sossusvlei when we arrived at the hotel but I would strongly encourage you to book the tour early if visiting in the busy season. Sossusvlei was probably the busiest area we have seen. 

You can go on your own to the area, hike Dune 45, and then take a shuttle to Deadvlei, but I would not recommend it. The shuttle gets busy and crowded and the driving their on your own is dangerous because the sand is so fine, that you risk getting stuck in the sand or worse, in a pothole surrounded by sand. Spend the extra money and get a tour guide. 

We left the hotel at 6 in the morning with Michael, our tour guide and Melvin, the third person in our small little tour group. Michael drove, Melvin slept and Kiah and I watched the sun rise over the area and hit the sand dunes. When we started to get into the area, the morning was still early enough where the shadow of the sand dunes shaded the area to create a bright and dark contrast of the dunes. Kiah wanted to make sure she got some cool photos so here is one of her doing a handstand in front of some dunes. 

We passed what Michael called the famous trees (the ones that are the majority of the postcards featured above). He had stopped at what used to be the famous tree but a branch broke off so now it is not as famous. He then drove us to Deadvlei and Kiah, Melvin and myself started to hike "Big Daddy" which is the tallest sand dune in the world at 350 meters. I hiked up a small portion and said "fuck this" and went back down but not before getting an awesome photo. Michael met me down at the bottom and took me around to Deadvlei where Kiah and Melvin would meet us. Kiah and Melvin hiked to the top of the dune and then walked barefoot all the way down from the top into Deadvlei. Towards the bottom, I would recommend putting shoes on because twigs and sticks are in the sand and Kiah got a blister at the bottom of the hill. 

Deadvlei is beautiful. Truly. The sand dunes surround this area where a lake once sat. The dunes kept the water from coming in and the lake dried up. The sand was caught in the trees and just started growing bigger and bigger. The acacia trees in the area have been dead for about 600 years. The sun scorched their trunks, but although they are not petrified, they do not decompose because they are so dry. But the area is getting smaller and smaller and we saw one tree on the side that was about half covered as a testament of the area getting smaller. 

We took so many pictures because the landscape and area were so beautiful. the best ones were the photos that Melvin shot on his Go pro. We look like we are in an album cover. We spent maybe an hour in Deadvlei total and the whole hike and photos took about 3. 

After Deadvlei, we had lunch and then Michael drove us to Sesriem Canyon for some photos. He said that the last time the area got water was in 2011. We have seen water and flooding signs everywhere but seen no water at all while driving around. 

Later in the afternoon, we hiked up some mountains for a view of the sunset and had a BBQ at the hotel. The food was delicious and we were treated to some entertainment by the people at the hotel singing some songs. 

I would put Sossusvlei and Deadvlei on everyone's bucket list. 

It's a lifestyle. I don't own anything, but I travel-Kari, from Finland

Tuesday morning of our trip, we woke up and walked to pick up our Toyota Rav 4 for the next 10 days. We drove back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and as Kiah as co-pilot we made it. We kept reminding ourselves to drive on the left, turn to the left lane, stay on the left.

After a light breakfast, we were out and on the road. We drove for about 4 hours from Windhoek to Sossusvlei. When we picked up the rental car, we had to watch a safety video and I'm really glad we did. Leaving the city, the road is paved, but after a turn a third of the way, you turn on to a dirt, gravel road for the rest of the trip. The dirt road is bumpy and most of the way held the tires in place. However, there was a section of the road that I seriously thought we were going to spin out. It was about half way and the car started to veer to the left and into the side of the road. I overcompensated to the right and then the car started to loose it's traction and spin, but I remembered my high school car training and stepped off the brake and had the car slow it's self down to get ourselves situated again. It was a little scary being my first time skidding, but we were able to make it out ok. 

During the last third of the trip, there was a sign warning drivers about a steep gradient. Before the steep hill, the road turns from dirt to brick and is paved in a small brick pattern and thank goodness. There were portions of the road that when you got to the top and went over the hill, you couldn't see the rest of the road ahead and just hoped it was there. The anticipation of the road being there was the scariest part of the drive. The majority of the roads in Namibia are not paved so overall driving is a little scary and a little difficult. 

We arrived at Namib Naukflat safe and sound. We checked in and headed out for a sunset drive. We saw a few animals-geckos, springbok, oreck and warthog. I was trying to explain warthog to someone in the car we were in, and someone helped us out by saying "Pumba, from the Lion King" and Kiah thanked him for speaking Kiah. 

This gentleman ended up joining us for dinner. His name was Kari, from Finland who I got the title of this post from. Very nice guy, traveled all over and we were able to talk to him about his many adventures. After a delicious dinner of chicken stew and oreck ribs, we headed to our hotel room to get ready to get up at 6 the next morning. Our first day of driving was completed and our 10 day trip around the country was beginning. 

Windhoek Day 2-To Every Man His Own -- Namibian Motto

Kiah and I walked into town on our second day in Windhoek. We noticed that it was much livelier on the Monday than Sunday. Children were in school, cars were zooming around us and people were out on the street. Forgot to mention that they drive on the left side of the road in Namibia. Kiah pointed it out and reminded me that we will be driving on the left side of the road and that left me a little worried so I spent the day reminding myself, left, they drive on the left, stick to the left. 

I also forgot to mention that most things are gated with barbed wire. The houses, stores, shops were hard to get to because of the gates and wire. While we felt safe walking around, it did kind if hard to feel that the city felt at ease with the community. 

We first went to the bookstore "Book Den". Small bookstore but good. We went in looking to find more books to read as well as books about the area or from local authors. We bought 5 books in total (one is a gift) to share back and forth as we have time to read.

We then went to the Craft Center in Windhoek. The idea is that you could buy locally crafted items and are open 9-1. The problem is that all of the stalls had all of the same times so it looked more mass produced than anything else so we didn't buy anything. However, if we decide we do want something, we know where to go. 

After the craft fair, we went to Christkurche which was built in 1910. On TripAdvisor, it's one of the top rated things to see in Windhoek. We walked in, walked around and then walked out not sure what we were supposed to see or notice. 

Looking around Christkurche, we noticed a building across the street and then proceeded to walk towards the much more impressive and modern building that turned out to be the Namibian Independence Museum. The museum was free and all you had to do was sign in. The bronze work for the museum was outstanding and I personally think stood out and spoke louder than the rest of the pieces in the museum. The museum itself raised more questions than answered such as-If Namibia was colonized by the Germans, how did it then gain their independence from South Africa? What is SWAPO? It took 50 years for them to get their independence? And so on. We went home and went on Wikipedia and did a little more research to fill in the gaps. 

This a very, very simplified history of Namibia-- After World War I, Namibia fell under English rule. We believe, that when cars were becoming popular, under British rule, Namibia then found themselves driving on the left side of the street. After a few more decades, South Africa's apartheid ruled Namibia. Guerrilla warfare broke out, war and then after several petitions to the UN, South Africa granted their independence. After about a year of writing their constitution, Namibia became independent in 1990. It's weird to think about, but I'm older than this country. 

After the Independence museum, we went to lunch at Joe's Beerhouse. They took the tiki, outdoors theme and ran with it. Dining tables were under individual huts with lanterns on the tables. It reminded me of the area around Indiana Jones at Disneyland. The food was a little too fried for us, but good. We had the hardest time opening a bottle of water but after trying to cut it off, a gentleman at a neighboring table was able to get the bottle opened for us. 

After lunch, we went to the cultural museum-Owela. This museum was also free after signing in. There was so much information to read that it was overwhelming. So many cultures and tribes and people. I wished they had a tour guide to kind of sum up the information or make it more interactive. There was so much to read that after a while, you just looked at the pictures to get an idea. I would recommend the Independence museum over Owela. But to be fair, Owela was a work in progress and you could see that so maybe in some months or years, it'll be much more streamlined. 

After the museum, we went to a coffee shop - Slowtown to read and relax. The coffee at this place was amazing and so good and fresh. I got an ice coffee and it was the best ratio of cream, ice and coffee. Yum. 

From coffee, we went to our hotel to relax until dinner. We walked down to the restaurant Nice (Namibian  ) for dinner. And wow, did it live up to it's name. The ambiance, the food, the hospitality were all great. It was also one of the few places in the city that didn't seem to be gated or barb wired up. The bathroom also was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen. They do all of their food as fresh as possible and really made the place feel very high class without being expensive. 

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel to prepare for the next day. Day 2 in Windhoek, complete. 

Windhoek-First Day in Namibia

Kiah and I arrived in Windhoek earlier today. I after my 27 hour flight and Kiah after her 13 hour flight are in our hotel room planning for the next day. We arrived at about 2 pm, and after going through customs (which a local told us they just updated their system last week ) arrived at our hotel a few hours later. The airport, Hosea Kutako International Airport (WDH) is about 20 miles outside from the main part of the city. We were expecting to see nature and animals and already on our way here, we already saw 3 monkeys and an ostrich on the side of the road.

After checking in to our hotel, we went for a walk to buy water and explore the city. We were told by our taxi driver that stores would be open, even on a Sunday but when we started walking around, we couldn't find anything open. We were able to walk through the mall, but they were already closed as we walked through at about 6. We even tried to find something to eat and thought just by walking around we might find something but still had a hard time trying to find something. We finally decided to walk to the Hilton hotel we could see from a far figuring that there should be food places near the tourists and finally found a place to eat. 

We ate at a very American inspired place called "Spur". I took a picture of the restaurant and if you notice, a couple of the Spur staff gave me great big smiles. I had a very delicious t-bone from Namibian beef which was one of the best I have had in a long time. Our waitress, Devine, was a local girl of about 17 or 18 who said we had "popped her cherry" because we were the first Americans she had ever met. She also wanted to make sure we were safe in the country and reminded us to keep our items close to us. She was very sweet and asked if we could keep in touch.

We found Windhoek to be a very quiet and slow paced city. My Namibian friends had warned me about that, but I thought they were telling me that because they knew I have lived in Los Angeles all my life and anything slower than that, would be considered quiet. But in general, we saw very few people driving or walking around. It is one of the quietest cities I have ever visited. I cannot stress how quiet the city was. We took a couple of photos and didn't have any problems trying to get cars out of the shot because there were none. Today we took it slow and hope tomorrow we will see more people and get to check off some of the items on our to see list. 

Naples Napoli

It has been years since I have posted on this blog and a lot has changed. The biggest thing is that I have a job at a prestigious university, that I love and am truly blessed to have. I get to travel for work and that is what has brought me to Naples. We have an alumni trip that starts tomorrow that will travel around the Amalfi Coast. I arrived a day and a half early and was able to explore.

I spent the first day walking, much like I do in every city and ended up shopping, which I hardly do. I found some really reasonable, great fitting and great looking pieces. The problem is that I am carrying around towels, thermoses and notebooks to provide to our tour guides at the end of our trip. So until then, I am stuffed to the brim of clothes. I also bought my new Harry Potter book (I buy one from each country with the countries language and different cover to add to my collection) and gloves for my mom. I'm basically done with my shopping unless there is some souvenir that screams out to me. I have looked already but nothing seemed worthy to pass out.

I arrived, yesterday, June 30th to Napoli. I stayed at a hostel near the old downtown area near Piazza San Gaetano. The streets are small. A little more to let one car pass through. The streets were built small to bottleneck any invaders that might have tried to overtake the town. Scooters honk you out of the way and tend to use the "one way" signs as loose guidelines.

After my shopping, I went to L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele and ordered a Margherita pizza. It's supposedly the oldest pizza place in Italy, maybe the world. Naples is the birth place of pizza so it was a must eat. I felt like the pizza was sweeter than normal. From the last time I was in Italy, I heard that they put sugar in the dough. Maybe this place did as well. What I don't like about getting a pizza in Italy is that it's one size and it's HUGE. But I ate all of it, the dough was thin enough where I didn't feel guilty but thinking about how big it was, it's like ugh, just make different sizes!

From the pizza to my hostel room I went in to crash early. I did not sleep well on the plane due to all the turbulence on the plane so I needed my rest. Due to climate change, scientists are saying that turbulence is only going to get worse. This was the worst turbulence I had ever experienced. So I hope that it doesn't get worse cause I don't know if I can go through that again.

Today, July 1st I woke up after a horrible night's sleep. I stayed in a hostel to keep the cost of this trip small BUT I did get a private room cause....no more shared rooms if I can help it. I slept about 4 hours and was woken up by a bang in the hostel from somewhere. To be fair, it was about 2 o'clock and in hostel life people are just falling asleep so not a big deal but I was unable to go back to sleep at that point. After 2 Sherlock episodes, I was able to go back to sleep for the last 2 hours.

After breakfast, I went to the Underground Napoli tour. It was pretty cool. They took you on a tour of the aqueduct system that was built by the Greeks and expanded by the Romans. Our guide put it this way, the Greeks were a people, but the Romans were an empire. The aqueduct had many stairs leading down that opened into a wide space. The aqueduct hadn't been filled for about 150-200 years after a cholera outbreak forced them to close the wells. During World War II they were able to use the space for a bomb shelter. I did not realize this but the Italians were bombed by the Allies due to Fascism. I never had really thought about Italy being bombed and learned something new.

After my tour of the underground, I got lost in the city. I walked around until lunch looking at artwork and the things they were selling. After lunch, I walked to my hostel to pick up my luggage and started my 1.6 mile walk down to my hotel. I didn't want to get a taxi but even if I wanted to, I did have to walk a ways to a taxi stand because they don't drive to the area I was staying. I learned that there were only 3 main roads and then expanded to about 6. You can drive down the other roads but they don't really do that. And walking with a rollie luggage is not easy on cobblestone or large stoned sidewalks. My luggage must have toppled over 50 times. No joke. But I was able to find shops along the way that let me find leather gloves for my mom so that was a win.

All in all, a very good beginning.