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.

Leaving Peru

I don't know or don't remember how this came up but, when we were at my friend Loren's wedding, his friend Catherine's husband leaned in and told Kiah and I "Lima reminds me or Iraq." Kiah and I turned to each other and before we could say anything in response, we were interrupted by the festivities of the evening. Kiah and I talked about it later. Lima reminded him of Iraq? That's pretty bad. Lima, at least the part that Kiah and I were in, does not have any charm to speak of. To be fair, we hadn't ventured far since we were only in Lima for the wedding but still, the part we did see, was not anything that subdued us into leaving Lima with a good impression. 

Our last night we spent in Miraflores, the upper class area of Lima. They had named brand hotels, American restaurants,  tourists and the beach. It was beautiful and totally was the exact opposite of the first couple days of Lima. Our hostel was very party esque and down the street from a drive thru Starbucks. We spent the last day walking around, shopping and eating typical Peru food that we hadn't gotten earlier in the trip. I finally got my ceviche. Yum. And my papas salchichas from a specialty restaurant that only had various flavors of papas salchichas.  Felt like a little kid again. 

As with any big metropolitan town you imagine some sort of public transportation. The buses in Peru are large vans that have general street or suburb names listed on the side of the van but you don't know exactly where that van is heading until someone hops out of the van while it is still in motion and shouts where the bus will be off to next. In reading blogs and books about Peru, everything recommended taking taxis....I stand by that fact. 

When we first arrived in Lima, we saw tons of dogs. The only thing that all the cities we have visited have in common is that there are TONS of stray dogs that roam the streets. Although, sometimes it was hard to tell if they were stray or loose but regardless, each city had dog, after dog just walking around the city. In one city, Kiah turned to me and said "this country has the most dogs I have ever seen. And I've never seen half of these breeds before." The dogs aren't rabid, they aren't vicious, they don't beg, they were just there....in the background of all of these cities. They all looked well fed and would casually just meander around the town or watch you as you walked by. 

However, walking around Miraflores we didn't see ANY dogs. We saw only cats. We found where all the cats live. Of course they lived in the posh area of town. They invaded the parks, streets and stores. The opposite of the rest of Peru. It was so weird. 

All in all it was such a whirl wind trip that when we tell people I get tired trying to remember what we did. Each day wad a different adventure and I'm glad Kiah and I had the samr attitude-"go big or go home"

Colca...Colca Can-canyon-(sing to the tune of Copacabana)

Kiah and I awoke in the little sleepy town of Chivay multiple times throughout the night for various reasons. Our alarm officially went off at 5:00 and we slowly dragged ourselves out of bed. The night before we realized that our toilet leaked so we did everything we could to avoid the bathroom as we got ready. The other nifty thing about this hostel was that it was freezing in the public areas because one of the windows above the doors was completely missing. Although that hostel in Chivay was the worst one we have stayed at in all of our hostel life, it didn't look like the worst one in Chivay.

We ate our bread and tea (and I cannot wait for a breakfast that offers me something else than bread) and were off to drive around Colca Canyon. Colca Canyon is a canyon in Peru that is twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. We visited three different cities inside the canyon and each one was smaller than the other. There were Quechua women selling the opportunity to have you picture taken with alpacas, hawks, and llamas. You could also buy your Peruvian goods to take back home if the mood suited you. 

After visiting the little sleepy towns of Colca Canyon we went to this Condor Sancatuary. The condors fly around the deepest part of the canyon and tourists wait in various locations waiting for a picture of one of the condors. What did you learn today you ask?  I learned that the pre-adult condors are brown and the adult condors are black with a white streak around their neck and back. The female condors have redish brownish eyes and the males have black eyes. And now we all know how to tell a male and female adult or pre-adult condor apart. And yes, I did get a picture of one of the condors. 

We had lunch and Kiah and I slept on and off until we got back to Arequipa. We were to be dropped off at the airport. The van that we were in stopped down the street from the airport (maybe 3 or 4 blocks away)....(oh and let me add that it was a main street that runs through the town) and Paola (our tourguide) pointed and said "there is the airport. You can walk but it's a little far, let me get a taxi." and she called a taxi over to us and we climbed in. We arrived at the airport 4 hours early for our flight. Unable to check in until 2 hours before our flight, we played cards and hung out at the lovely Arequipa airport. 

Bon voyage Arequipa.

The day that would never end

As Kiah and I were blissfully stretched out and sleeping in our warm beds, I was jolted awake by a 4.9 earthquake. I laid on the top bunk of our bunk bed thinking "Oh shit, if this is a big earthquake, I don't know how I will get down fast enough." (Also....bunk beds have stairs.....I could not walk down stairs fast enough after Machu Picchu let alone go down a ladder from a bed during an earthquake). After the shaking had stopped, I asked Kiah, "Are you ok?" Kiah responded with "Yeah. Why?" And I said "Did you feel the earthquake?" And Kiah responded with, "Oh yeah, I thought it was part of my dream."   And I said "Oh, ok, well good night." Word on the street, is that Peru averages about a reasonably sized earthquake about every other week. That might have been good advice to be found in all of our reading. We learned about the wet and dry seasons, safety, money, electricity, voltages, verified by visa but NOTHING about earthquakes. Good news was, we were both able to go back to sleep. 

We awoke at 7 because we did not know if our tour would pick us up at the hostel or if we had to go to the travel agency. Supposedly, the night before we were supposed to contact the travel agency to make sure everything was in order. We got to the hostel late and they were closed. We tried multiple phone numbers but no success. So we decided to wake up at 7 to try and contact the agency to see if they would pick us up or if we had to go there. We had to either be at the travel agency at 8 or they would pick us up between 8:00a.m.-8:30a.m. The lady at the front desk was very sweet and called all the numbers (4 different phone numbers-work and cell) on our voucher and was still not able to get a response. She called all the numbers 3 times, 7:30, 8:00, and about 8:15. AND Googled more numbers to try and contact the agency. At 8:25 she tried calling different agencies to try and find a phone number that would connect her to someone at our travel agency. At 8:29, Kiah comes in and tells me that they are here to pick us up. We grabbed our stuff and hopped in the bus. 

The rest of our day, has been pretty uneventful, considering how eventful the rest of our trip has been. We were in a bus, driving around the country side, seeing llamas and alpacas, and rocks, and vacunas. On the bright side, we learned the difference between llamas and alpacas-Llamas are bigger, and can be different colors and they have bigger ears. Alpacas are white, and have smaller ears and are just smaller in size. And now, we all know the difference between alpacas and llamas. You're welcome. We also learned why Arequipa is known as the White City. 1) The stones that they use to build the city are made of ash from the 3 volcanoes that surround the city. 2) The snow that covers the volcanoes around the city. 3) When the Spanish arrived, they were the only ones living in the Arequipa city center=The White City. 

We arrived in Chivay, at about 1 and is the smallest town we have seen so far. We walked the area that had tourists and as we ventured out a little farther, Kiah started to get stared at by the locals. The Mormons that walked by us, fit in more than Kiah did. We then went to get a piece of chocolate cake and head back to our cold, leaky, internet-less hostel. We played cards, read and ate dinner. Kiah contemplated painting her nails and she hasn't done that since she was 12 and I thought about reorganizing my suitcase. We are now back in the hostel wasting time before going to bed because we aren't sure we could sleep through the night if we go to bed at 9:45. 

Hopefully, tomorrow will be more eventful. 

Puno

We arrived in Puno at about 4:30 after our overnight bus trip from Cusco. The sun was already coming up over the lake. It was really pretty. However, we did not sleep much and the travel agency wouldn't be open until 6:30. So we hung out at the bus station, eating in their little restaurant area and then at 6:15 we were off. Over breakfast, I told Kiah that I could really go for a couch right now. Just something to sit down on and fall asleep on. But didn't know when that would happen.

We arrived at the travel agency and they were still closed. Kiah saw this lady peak her head out of this iron door and wave to us. She had us bring our stuff inside explaining that she worked at the travel agency that we had booked our boat trip through. We went up 2 flights of stairs (and I don't know how I walked up more stairs but I did) and we were brought to her living room. She told us to relax and she would open the travel agency soon. Kiah pulled out her book and I soon drifted off to sleep in an arm chair. We were there for about 2 hours because the person that had closed the travel agency the night before had taken the keys and she couldn't open it until he got there. I slept on and off for the majority of the 2 hours. It was as if God heard me cry out that I needed more sleep and something comfortable. It was some of the best sleep I've gotten on this trip.

At about 8:30 the van came to pick us up to go out on our tour. Our travel agent friend let us keep our stuff there (which we didn't know what we would do if we couldn't leave our stuff there) and we hopped in the van. We got to a boat that took us out on Lake Titicaca. However, the correct way to say it is Lake Titihuaka. Lake Titihuaka was the Quechua way say it. It translates to gray puma. Looking at a map of the lake upside down, you can see the puma eating a rabbit. It all makes sense now. The lake shares it's border with Bolivia and has floating islands and that is what we wanted to see. 

Our boat tour took us out to Uros which is the largest floating island community. The islands are built with the root and dirt of what look like reeds. The roots are chopped into small pieces, about a square foot around and secured into the ground with a long stick used as an anchor. They then put reeds upon reeds crisscrossing in every direction to build the islands. Each island lasts about 20 years and it takes about one full year to fully successfully build one. Stepping out on the island was weird. Your first few steps sink into the floor as if you are stepping onto a pillow. Maybe not pillow but it was fluffy. It was kind of trippy. After they described the island and how it's made, the ladies on the island break you up into groups and invite you into their homes so you can look at it. They have solar panels to bring electricity into their homes so they watch tv and listen to the radio. They were able to mix their cultural way of life with the modern entertainment that we probably take for granted everyday. They do kind of pressure you to buy stuff since that is their way of life (and as you are listening to the island explanation, you can watch them making stuff right in front of you) but it was worth seeing.

We were only in Puno from 4:30a.m. to about 3:00p.m. We slept, did the boat ride and ate at a little place that our travel agent friend told us about. She got a taxi for us and we finally found out that her name was Maruha (so Kiah says) or Baruha (as I say because we still aren't sure. Whichever it is, it's common in Peru.)  She was like the Peruvian grandmother that we always needed but never knew we wanted. We bid her adieu and were on our way to the bus to take us on a 5.5 hour bus ride to Arequipa-the White City. 

We arrived at the bus terminal at about 8:30p.m. and got a taxi. I heard a local tell this Chinese woman to get a taxi within the bus terminal and that it was unsafe to get a taxi outside the bus terminal. Once we got our luggage, we went to the taxi area and got our own taxi within the terminal. As we were leaving, the taxi driver noticed the Chinese woman out on the street walking out of the bus terminal and got her attention to ask if she was going to the city center. Through the language barriers, she got into our taxi and we became her translater. The taxi driver reiterated, MULTIPLE TIMES what the local had told this Chinese woman earlier. However, since he only spoke Spanish and she only spoke English, Kiah and I then had to translate this important message again, MULTIPLE TIMES. We soon learned that she lived in West Virginia with her husband who was getting his Ph.D. in something doctorate like. The taxi driver soon dropped us off and Kiah told her to be safe and she said that she was now worried about traveling around the country by herself. Kiah just told her to not to be scared and careful of her surroundings. 

The hostel that we arrived at was super nice for a hostel. We checked in and basically had the room to ourselves except for our roommates luggage. We were so excited to take showers and sleep in a bed since we had spent the previous night on a bus and hadn't showered since before Machu Picchu. We were super gross and just excited to go back to normal. Again, the room that we stayed in was upstairs and as I let out a little moan we managed to make it up the stairs with our luggage. We took a quick walk around the plaza looking for food and quickly realized that everything was super overpriced and went to a chicken place a block way that was much more reasonable. We ate, went back and showered, and enjoyed the modern convenience of the interwebs before we went to sleep.