Uri Nawa

Swakopmund, 4th of April 2024 – Germany is omnipresent in Namibia. In Swakopmund we read the street names: Leutwein Straße, Lüderitzer Straße, Am Zoll, Rhode Allee… As a result of The Scramble for Africa, Germany was a.o. ‘awarded’ German South West Africa, being nowadays Namibia. That was in 1884. From then on until WWI, the Germans colonised the country. It was an unsavoury history, ending in the genocide of the Nama and the Herrero. We are astonished when we see a monument in Swakopmund for the fallen German soldiers. Although the monument shows some red paint stains, it is still there… when we cautiously talk about it to the locals, they diplomatically reply: ‘we have to move on’. Marinedenkmal, erected in 1908, after the killing of 80% of the Herrero and 50% of the Nama (FDC) Built in 1912 (FDC) Biergarten, alienating experience (FDC)

Swakopmund, 4th of April - Back in Swakopmund we prepare for our fat bike tour in the desert. A bike shop with a coffee bar. The owner shows us the bikes, German Silverbacks. No grease on the chain, the sand has done its work. In a group of about ten we start, Belgians, Germans and a lost Dutch guy. Gibson, with the physique of an Ethiopian distance runner, takes the lead and discretely inspects the agility of the riders. After a couple of minutes pedalling through Swakopmund, we shoot into the desert. Uphill, downhill, crossing the dry Swakop river. My heart beats fast, the fonkelwijn does its job. Gibson has no compass but seems to know where he is going. I am happy when we see the Atlantic from time to time. The sun gets a bit nasty, and all of a sudden Jérôme joins us out of nowhere. Did Gibson call him? Both let us do some easy slopes and then lead us to a ridge from where we can do a 45 degree downhill. Jeroen throws himself into the deep and reaches the bottom without harm, I e...

Swakopmund, 4th of April - On the Silversand the mood is good, Billy explains Walvis Bay and its fauna. Sea lions follow the boat somersaulting in the slipstream. We head for the seal colony of Pelican Point Peninsula. We hear them howling, barking and singing. Hundreds of them, all on the tip of the peninsula. A female fur seal will live 20 years, having 16 babies. It’s heart-breaking to see how the weakest babies are eaten by the seagulls. Survival of the fittest on the coast of Africa. Billy and the crew now turn around and start catering us. The sea lion, who still accompanies us on deck, tries to escape but the space between the bars of the railing is too narrow, so he decides to jump over it. With success. More than a circus act. We eat Namibian oysters and other fine food and wash it down with excellent South-African ‘fonkelwijn’. We start a conversation with a young Zambian who happens to be in the area for his job at Engen, a petroleum refiner. He has a great knowledge of Afr...

Swakopmund, 4th of April - Last night we had dinner in ‘The Tug’, an out of service oil-fired tugboat built in Glasgow in 1959. The boat was pulled on land and is the central part of a restaurant. Cool atmosphere with hake, sole, kingklip and monkfish on the menu. Noisy place but with a view on the misty Atlantic this was a minor problem. Today we go to Walvisbay for a catamaran tour. We are early, and a man named George says he will keep an eye on our car. George does not charge much and also sells palm nuts as key hangers on which he carves your name. We thank him and move on. On the quay, we wait with the yellow group for the Silversand. George spots us and comes over to talk to us. Not about palm nuts but about Lukaku. At the end of the conversation, he talks business: ‘No key hanger?’ Jeroen starts questioning him about the nuts, and he explains everything. We decide to buy a few, also for our families at home. George asks us to spell our names and writes them down on a slip of p...

To Swakopmund, 3rd of April 2024 -  We watch Le Mirage disappear in our rearview mirror and head North to Swakopmund. We drive on the white road between the Naukluft mountains and the Namib-Naukluft desert. We pass Solitaire, a desert stopover with a small airfield. Along the road, old scrap cars in all shapes and sizes, stripped of all valuable components and full of bullet holes. We cross the Tropic of Capricorn between the Gaub and Kuiseb pass. A road sign, a line in the sand, 'been there done that'. Our Isuzu handles the washboard white roads with some skidding and sliding and safely takes us to Walvisbay. We are back in the world as we know it. More cars, more people, industry and high activity in this natural bay. All occupiers saw an interest in Walvis Bay, it was discovered by the Portuguese, taken by the Dutch, given to the Brits and in 1910 it came into the hands of the South-Africans. They kept it until four years after the Namibian independence of 1990. We continue ...