Tag 46-53 (February 24 - March 3)

Before lunch, we set off for Swakopmund. We are a very small group of 4 girls: Mila (who was with me in Neuras and Kanaan), 2 other girls from the Netherlands, and myself. The other three are all from the Netherlands and already know each other from home, which turned out to be not so cool throughout the week...

The driver from Naankuse first took us to Windhoek, and since we missed lunch, we got a couscous salad to go. However, we didn't get any forks, and I can tell you, it's really difficult to eat couscous with your hands 😂

From Windhoek, we continued with a public transfer to Swakopmund. I think we drove for a total of 5 hours, but the ride was quite pleasant, and I slept, read, and listened to music. Just before Swakopmund, our coordinator Stephen picked us up, and we saw a very poisonous scorpion right by the roadside 😱 Stephen took us to a supermarket so we could stock up on snacks and drinks. Then we finally went to the house... and oh my God, it's just a 5-star hotel, of course, with a very cute dog 😍 Actually, it's the private vacation home of the Naankuse family. However, they are rarely there, so they decided to use it as accommodation for the new Coastal Project. The project started in early February, and we were the 4th group.

After a delicious dinner and a brief introduction presentation, we went to bed relatively early.

On Saturday, we had a relaxed morning with a delicious breakfast overlooking the sea (sometimes you can even see dolphins swimming by in the morning 🐬). The best part was the cappuccino 😍 There is a real coffee machine in the house that we were allowed to use whenever we wanted. Then it was time to pack our camping gear because we spent the next two nights at a campsite. On the way, we drove near a shipwreck relatively close to the beach. The area we are in is called the Skeleton Coast because of all the ships stranded on the coast. But before we went to the campsite, we went to a specific beach section where we collected trash. The main idea of the new project is to clean up the nature by the sea and provide a suitable habitat for the animals there. Each group covers as large a section as possible until the entire beach is cleaned up, and then we start over 😅 The majority of the trash is broken glass bottles, and it takes ages to collect them when they are broken into 100 pieces. We had a short sandwich break in between, and after a few hours, we went to the campsite to set up our camp. Of course, it was a bit disappointing to sleep in a tent with a sleeping bag and folding mattress after a night in the luxury house. However, our coordinator cooked us delicious spaghetti bolognese 🍝😍

Unfortunately, the group wasn't so great... the three girls spoke a lot of Dutch, and even when they spoke English, it was very difficult for me to participate in the conversations because they often talked about friends or places in the Netherlands. Moreover, it turned out that Stephen is a bit strange. However, a girl from the previous group had already told us that he has a strange attitude towards women. With this prejudice, we found many of his statements strange. It seemed as if he thought women were dumber, and his explanations were like those for a toddler. Plus, he hardly participated in our conversations and was on his phone, except when he started the topic or knew more about it. I didn't find it so extreme because he was still very nice. But the others did, so they complained a lot about it, which annoyed me even more (you don't have to complain about it all the time, you can try to make the best of it...)

On Sunday, after a small breakfast (apple sliced with yogurt and muesli was my favorite breakfast for the whole week), we went back to the beach to collect more trash. And we made a very interesting find 😱: we found a small wooden box from a crematorium that didn't look too old, with the ashes of a person inside 🫣 We buried it in the sand, and Stephen said that maybe it was the person's favorite fishing spot, which is why they were buried there. But we also made a very cool find: we found a chameleon, which we observed for a while 😍

During the lunch break, we sunbathed on the beach, but unfortunately, the weather on the coast was a bit cooler and windier, so I didn't go swimming in the sea. Back at the campsite in the evening, Stephen cooked couscous with chicken stew for us. It was incredibly delicious 😍 By the way, I didn't have Wi-Fi for the whole weekend, but I have to say that it didn't really bother me. Mila is spending her entire 6 weeks in Africa offline. She put her phone on airplane mode at the airport and won't turn it back on until she's back in the Netherlands. I think that's really cool, but when I think about how I felt the first few weeks here, I don't think I could have done it.

On Monday morning, we packed up the whole camp again and went to the landfill site where Naankuse collaborates to dispose of our collected trash. It's also weighed there, and we had collected 157 kilograms of trash 💪🏼

On the way back to the house, we stopped at a really nice café for lunch. They had very fancy coffee creations and delicious sandwiches. Back at the house, we packed up all our camping gear and had the rest of the day off to relax. We spent some time on the beach in front of the house, sunbathing, and in the evening, we watched a romantic movie and then a documentary about a family of murderers. The latter was not a good idea because in the middle of the night, Mila woke me up (I'm sharing a room with her again) because she heard strange noises. Our rooms are not directly in the house but in an annex in front of it, and it sounded as if something or someone was in the house 😱 It was pretty creepy, and we didn't dare to go into the house, but since we didn't see anything and the noise stopped after a while, we locked our room and went back to sleep 😅

On Tuesday, after a relaxed breakfast (again with delicious coffee 🤤), we went shopping in Swakopmund. Stephen was really nice and asked us what we would like to buy and then tried to take us to the right stores. The city is actually very beautiful, but in some parts, it looks like a movie set. There are also German houses, signs, and street names from time to time...

At noon, we spent another hour collecting some trash on the beach in front of our house, so we reached a total weight of 182.5 kilograms. This puts us in 3rd place out of the four groups so far. Back at the house, we were able to make our own pizza, which Stephen then baked over the fire in the house (!). After dinner, we finished watching our documentary about the family of murderers.

On Wednesday, we had to leave early again because we went kayaking. It was so cool 😍 We had to drive for a while, and on the way, we saw flamingos and pelicans. Then we arrived at a kind of sandbank where there were many seals. We kayaked between all the seals for over an hour. They have a lot of young seals right now, and they are so interested in the paddles that they always bite them when you put them in the water. Unfortunately, there were also a lot of dead seals on the beach, and we saw jackals eating them 😱 After kayaking, we even got sandwiches, pastries, coffee, and tea 🤤

Back at the house, we had a quick lunch because the other three girls had booked skydiving. So Stephen and I drove the three girls to the airstrip but then went back to the city. I had seen something in one of the stores that I wanted to buy, so it was very convenient that we went back. We came back to the airstrip just in time to see the three girls falling from the sky 😂 I didn't join the skydiving because during my trip, I can book many extra activities, so I wanted to save my money.

On Thursday morning, we went quad biking. We drove for a total of 2.5 hours 😱 At first, I was a bit scared, especially when we were on the dune and had to ride down again 🫣 but in the end, it was really fun, and it felt like a rollercoaster ride at times. However, I felt like my thumb was dying because I had to hold down the accelerator the whole time... Unfortunately, we didn't drive that fast (always around 40 km/h) because one of the girls had some problems with steering 😵‍💫

Afterwards, we went back to the house, and I finally used the free time to finish the rest of my visa applications for the trip. It was quite a chore, but I'm very glad I finally finished it. We were actually supposed to have a sundowner on one of the dunes, but then everyone was busy with other things, and in the end, it was too late. So I grabbed a can of Hunters Dry, walked to the beach, and sat down there, looking for seashells. Finally, in the evening, we had a braai, and the typical braai sandwiches were incredibly delicious. I think they were the best I've ever had here 🤤 And then it was time to pack my backpack again.

On Friday, we had to get up very early because we were heading back to the farm. When we said goodbye to the leaders there, the mother hugged me and said, "Stay the lady you are..." I thought that was really sweet of her, and I think she said that because she noticed that I was sometimes a bit excluded from the other girls. The transfer back was fine, and in Windhoek, we waited for more than 2 hours for the transfer back to the farm. However, we waited in a Naankuse hotel and were able to order something for lunch, which definitely tasted better than some of the food on the farm 🫢

In the end, Stephen turned out to be more sympathetic than we thought at the beginning, and even though I was alone more often, I found the week very enjoyable 😍 Being by the sea and of course the amazing house, you can still enjoy them alone after all...