May 10 , 2012 - Walvis Bay, Namibia

May 10 , 2012 - Walvis Bay, Namibia

Walvis Bay is up the coast from Luderitz, maybe 500 plus miles. It is a very large commercial port of about 70 thousand people. The economy is diamonds, fishing, and uranium mining, with some tourism. In both Luderitz and here you notice how clean the streets are, not a lot of trash. Unemployment is high here around 35-45 percent. We were told that only 5 percent of the worker pay income tax and a lot of people work off the books. Our guide who came from Germany with his family about 30 years ago originally owned a iron business for about twenty years. He told us he finally closed it a couple of years ago and started a tour business. He said that with the 18 paid holidays, four weeks medical leave and three week vacation time it was no longer worth being in business with employees. Does that sound familiar. He also operates a small guest house which is on the same property as him home in addition to his tour guide business.

Our tour today was to Namib-Naukluft Park in the Nambi Desert. Myrna was feeling sick and did not go, so Don, Evelyn and I boarded our all-terrain vehicle with another couple. Our guide was, Ziggy, the expat from Germany 30-years ago. It was a five hour tour mostly over dusty and bumpy dirt roads. Very little rain and the landscape is brown, but the rock formations were very interesting. We stopped to see the Welwitschia Plant which is unique to Namibia. It can live to 2000 thousand years. The ones we saw were 200 to 300 years old. The plant only propagates in wet weather and the newer (younger) plant we saw started in the 1930s. We stopped for sparking wine and oysters (no oysters for us) and then stopped at some very large sand dunes, 500 feet tall. A few people climbed to the top. Overall I enjoyed the afternoon. We felt like we had been dropped on a desert moon although we were never more that 20 miles at most from the ocean. The Namib Desert is right up to the water line. There is no change in retain. Needless to say there is little landscaping and all fresh water is precious.

So far we have found everyone we have meet to be friendly and mostly of European heritage. It's easy for us to forget that many areas of Africa were settled with Europeans with few locals in the area at the time of colonization. There seem to be three distinct groups of population in both South Africa and Namibia, Blacks, Colored (those of mixed heritage) and Whites. There is no legal segregation but hear there is self segregation through neighborhoods.

We returned to the ship to find an invitation to visit the bridge tomorrow.

Myrna has recovered and we all had a snack in the buffet. We are eating dinner in the buffet tonight.

The next four days we will be at sea.




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Hal