Stuck together for 30 days, you learn some interesting things about people. In the first hour, we found that the CD player didn't work, and five minutes later I realized that Allen was now into rap tunes and cab-karaoke. The scene became power play for the pseudomicrophone, my rendition of "Hotel California," and his babbling rap'o-whatever. After seven hours of this cacophonous bliss, we had outrun the southern rains and were nearing the Namibian border. Cutting east on a dirt track in the Orange River Basin, a full moon guided us to a campsite in the bottom of a dry tributary of the Orange. This was our first night under southern constellations.
Namibia has only been around as an official country since its U.N.-mandated emancipation from South Africa in 1989. But its tumultuous past spans several centuries to a time when Dutch farmers, the Boers, moved north into the Orange River Valley from Cape Town. In 1854, the British Parliament proclaimed it as the Orange Free State. Struggles for the land and its resources would occupy Namibia's political and human agenda for the next 150 years. Around the same time, the Germans had secured a foothold on the west Namibian coast, moving inland and south toward the Orange. The resulting conflict between the Boers and the British came to a head in 1880. The shots that were fired started a 20-year conflict known as the Boer Wars between the Boers (known as Afrikaners) and the British redcoats. England ultimately prevailed and in 1902, the Treaty of Vereeniging sealed the fate of the Afrikaner republic, assigning it to the Union of South Africa and British rule for another eight decades. The unfortunate by-product of this European invasion, as is the case in most of the world, has been the continual displacement of the indigenous population and an absorption of its culture into a semi-Western lifestyle.
We awoke to a golden glow radiating off the canyon walls as the sun rose over the Orange River. Discovering that the regulators on our propane bottles didn't work, we cooked our breakfast over an open fire. It would be 10 days before we would be in a place to get this corrected. Crossing the Orange River Bridge, we negotiated the first of several border checkpoints. Each of these was separated into two sections: Immigration, where you register, pay a few rand (South African currency), and get your passport stamped, and Aduana (customs), where they search your rig. We would find that Namibia and Botswana have fairly simple and regulated borders: only a 40-minute process, and we didn't have to grease anyone's palms. Zimbabwe, which is run by a dictator and has been excommunicating white farmers from their lands, would be sketchy.
North toward the quiver tree forest and the settlement of Keetmanshoop, the landscape leveled off into a broad, arid savanna. At a crossroads of two dirt tracks, entrepreneurial locals had set up a roadside stand and were hand-carving elephants, giraffes, and bowls. A 3-foot carved wooden snake ended up on our dash as our trip mascot. The quiver tree forest is an otherworldly place. Growing from barren rock, the quiver trees' twisted and spiny branches silhouetted against a brilliant African sunset is a must-see.
We caught our first glimpse of an African leopard before reaching the town of Mariental and unceremoniously slammed on the brakes. Several hundred yards away, it was immediately aware of our presence. We had time for a single photo before it quickly disappeared into the bush. From Mariental, we would be on Namibia's system of dirt roads (highways) for several thousand kilometers.