Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hfcNVA3DeTVRxBah6
So knowing my luck, I tested positive for COVID. Had a Tuesday flight scheduled for Namibia, and got my test Sunday afternoon. The plan was to Uber to the clinic Tuesday morning, pick the result up (they said it’s a 24-48 hour turnaround but sent no emails or texts with the results), and then go straight to the airport. I was totally asymptomatic so didn’t really expect the positive test, but that made for a fun Tuesday morning. I went to the curbside of the clinic and hastily looked for a ~2 week AirBnB that was walkable from the clinic (did not want to Uber again if I was contagious), and would accept a reservation literally an hour in advance. Thankfully I found one but it was a bit rich (around 600 USD for 12 nights which I suppose is a good rate but I can’t afford to retire for 3 more years if I’m paying that much for accomodation). I was able to reschedule my Namibia flights for like ~200 USD and was able to move my Namibia week long camping trip that I had booked for no additional cost, which was awesome. In a really weird way I found the “stress” of figuring all of this out in the last minute to be perversely enjoyable. I think the closest parallel to that feeling was when I was driving back to NY from Acadia National park this summer in the midst of a tropical storm.
I broke the quarantine once, soon after I checked in, just to go to the grocery store and buy 10 days worth of food, but otherwise was locked in my apartment. I also alerted everyone I was in touch with over the past week about my test result, and thankfully only a couple even developed symptoms which were mild at best, and to my knowledge everyone did isolate for a week+ so that was nice. I was (luckily?) totally asymptomatic the entire time, which was not really a surprise given my age/health and the fact that my parents and sister tested positive for the antibodies in the summer and never recalled having any symptoms either. If I had any symptoms, it was the fact that I slept closer to 10+ hours a day for a few days straight after my test result rather than my usual 7-8 hours, but to be honest I think that’s a stretch.
I somehow managed to not really get bored at all during my quarantine, thanks to social media, Netflix, reading books, streaming sports, and reading all the emails my dad sends me (I usually have ~20-30 unread from him while travelling as I slowly work through them). I was even able to exercise for close to an hour a day with no real issues so I don’t think I even had any symptoms related to durability and stamina.
I was talking to a friend from Denver who I met in Cambodia last year and she encouraged me to reflect on everything given the enforced break from my hectic schedule that COVID placed, so I figured I’d write some stuff here on that. I think I would have mentioned some stuff here anyways but figured I’d do a deeper dive. I am generally someone who gets bored easily, and while I do try to bake in days to do nothing while travelling – I’ll typically schedule a “break” day every two weeks to do laundry and laze around – this was really my first ever extended break besides the initial COVID quarantine back in NY. It was definitely nice to kind of do nothing for 10-12 days, but at the same time also have enough to do to keep me mentally stimulated…this COVID isolation was lowkey better than working in the office!
There’s only been a handful of times where I’ve been hit with the realization that “Wow – you’re literally living your dream”, and like a wave of euphoria hits. The first time was actually back at the very start of my retirement, towards the end of Burning Man when I was biking back to my camp from the playa in the evening and racing to beat the sunset so I could get my night lights on. I could honestly write an entire book (probably not a good book! but still a book nonetheless) on Burning Man…I try not to live in the past but that’s really one event that I will constantly reminisce about over and over again, but not in a bad way. I actually got my 2nd ever tattoo (1st one was a Calvin and Hobbes one of them sledding from the very last strip, on my right shoulder) of the Black Rock City design on my chest – left pec area – while in Cape Town which turned out really really well. The tattoo shop was called Cape Electric and they are totally legit. I had basically wanted some sort of Burning Man tattoo in that area pretty much since the moment I left the playa, and got the design inspiration from my friend Brian while hiking in the Rockies over labor day weekend from his pendant/necklace that he has. The tattoo is definitely a nice little reminder of Burning Man and the possibilities/potential in life.
The other few moments where I’ve really had my life sort of sink in were at the Taj Mahal, in Canyonlands National Park, in the Pyramids of Giza, and honestly now while holed in my Cape Town AirBnB. I guess part of the beauty of those realizations is that they are few and far between, but while I’m obviously literally having the time of my life over the past 15ish months these sporadic moments definitely do add the cherry on top and make me realize just how lucky I am. But I do definitely want to take more time to slow down and appreciate in the future, since it’s so easy to take my life for granted.
Obviously I do have a lot to be grateful for, from my immune system for keeping me asymptomatic to COVID to (most importantly!) not having any college debt so I could save money for travel from my very first paycheck. While we weren’t “rich” growing up in the sense of summer homes and trust funds, we were certainly more than comfortable enough (India every summer to see family, Europe every other year but done on a budget in the classic Indian way, no financial worries at all growing up) and I was able to grow up with no real obstacles in life. Even just the knowledge base that came from travelling while growing up and from studying abroad in Europe in college made the whole saving for travel thing way easier for me. And while I would have gone ahead with my plans to retire and travel no matter what, it does make things infinitely easier that my parents agreed/went along with my decision and weren’t opposed to it.
One thing I’ve always hated is stability – one of my biggest fears was always just to live a generic life climbing the corporate ladder, settling down and living in a home with a white picket fence. This quote from the noted philosopher Karl Pilkington from An Idiot Abroad really rings true for me, especially with regards to the people I was surrounded by in high school and in college (https://i.imgur.com/jm37vGT.jpg). I think part of the appeal of travel there for me is that I’m always bouncing around, but at my own pace. A part of me wonders if I irrationally dislike Chicago simply because I lived and worked there…if I would have liked the city if I never lived there and instead visited, and if I would dislike any city where I lived for 4 years working a corporate job. The fact that I can now continuously see and do new things is such an incredible high, but it is tempered by the lows of budget travelling and unexpected speedbumps of backpacking – COVID quarantines, overnight rickety train rides, haggling with touts, etc. – and that only makes you appreciate the overall trip even more.
COVID has definitely strengthened my resolve to do what I want to do, since it really shows that you can’t take anything for granted. There’s no point planning to do things “later” because later may never come, whether it’s a freak accident in terms of personal health or global events. In terms of my standout highlights beyond Burning Man, there are a bunch. India as a whole is just a magical place…while I grew up visiting so much where I’d consider Chennai to be a second home after NY, I just fell in love with the entire country during my ~5 months there last year, and could easily spend a few more months travelling around the country without getting bored. It’s one of the few places I could see myself wanting to live in after I run out of money and need to figure life out.
Within India, highlights would be Tamil Nadu (the temples here are beyond wonderful and the food is top notch), Amritsar (best smelling city I have EVER been to…food is out of this world and the streets smell of ghee from all the roadside sweets and cooking), Delhi and Agra (Taj is stunning and Delhi is my all time favorite food city), and of course Ladakh, which is hands down the most beautiful place I have ever been to. This is not to mention the countless other amazing places I saw like Mumbai, Hampi, Rajasthan, the Ellora Caves, and Darjeeling. Speaking of Ladakh – I recently found out that one of the lead guides during my trip there recently passed away due to a heart condition he’s had since childbirth…he was only my age, and I think that further strengthens my resolve to just travel now while I’m young and while I can.
Two real highlights from pre-retirement were when I went to Russia (with my family in 2016 and on my own in 2019) and Kenya (with my sister in 2018 for a safari). That Kenya trip in particular really stuck with me and, while “sub-Saharan Africa” is a ginormously broad area, I think cemented my interest into the region which my South Africa trip now has only furthered.
During retirement, other highlights included Cambodia (I think it still pips Ladakh, Chernobyl and Kenya as my GOAT spot) for the jungle temples, the little nook of eastern China that I saw (Shanghai/Suzhou/Nanjing/Hangzhou) because of how totally unique it was compared to any other place I had ever been to before, Chernobyl, and even the rest of Ukraine, Istanbul, and the South of France for a nice reminder that it was primarily my family trips to Europe and my study abroad in Europe that planted the seed of wanting to long term travel in my head. And of course, COVID gave me the excuse to finally see my own country, and I was pleasantly blown away by how much I enjoyed all of my US road trips to hike around the amazing national parks and see some cool cities out west.
If I had to define what really gets to me, I would say it’s first and foremost anything that drives home the idea of the temporal nature of humanity (Burning Man, abandoned and/or reclaimed ruins, old shit in general), followed by desolate and stark nature (Ladakh, National Parks in the US). I guess maybe a common theme is just the power of nature, especially in terms of harshness – it’s why I guess I was sort of underwhelmed by Acadia while most people I know rank that as one of their favorite parks in the US. I guess it’s sort of the same appeal that drives people to explore the Himalayas and the Sahara…just to see how far the human condition can be stretched. I think even my interest in places like Afghanistan and Syria stem from that same desire, and that there’s something to be had in a situation that isn’t totally sterile – I’m actually periodically in contact with a friend I met in Cairo who is interested in potentially going to Kurdistan (autonomous region in Northern Iraq) in February – sorry Mom! Beyond that, just the vibrancy of human culture and coexistence of the past and present (so a lot of Indian and Asian cities fall under this umbrella, as does Europe), but in terms of personal interest that definitely takes a back seat to the first two criteria I think.
I actually applied for a January internship at an NGO in Dakar, Senegal that is focused on conflict resolution…their Dakar base was for their western Africa operations. It was something that I actually really wanted, but unfortunately basic knowledge in French (all I know is Je Mapelle, Bonjour, and Omlette Du Fromage) was a prerequisite. That said, I was shocked that they were nice enough to actually respond to my application with a rejection letter saying that they “appreciated my enthusiasm”, which I guess is a good thing going forwards if they have openings that don’t require foreign languages or for other NGOs where I am more qualified to intern at while on my retirement tour. It’s something that I think I would want to do post-retirement (ideally with no grad school!), and if I could get some experience in that while living in a cool new place I think that would be awesome…it’s also working on my own terms as opposed to a 9 hour work day 5 days a week that I slogged through in Chicago.
I think this is true for everyone, but I definitely took the social part of travelling pre-COVID for granted, so it’s been really awesome to find a great group of people in Egypt (who I am still in touch with!) and meet some of the most hospitable locals ever in South Africa. All in all, I’m definitely super grateful for what I’ve been able to do and honestly wouldn’t change a thing from 2020. Me finally getting in shape during quarantine in NY, seeing the US, and my fantastic experiences abroad since October all would not have happened if life was “normal”. Also, Leeds got promoted this year! It’s definitely easier said than done to “make the most of it” and it does require a certain amount of privilege, but overall I really don’t have any regrets and 2020 has been better than most other years in my life so I can’t really complain.
Anyways, that was my schpiel there. After my 10 day isolation ended, I got another COVID test (11 days after my initial positive one) and tested negative. I had a couple of days to kill before flying to Windhoek, so that was just hanging out with some of the Yacht friends that I had made before…it turns out of the ~20 people I was in close contact with prior to my COVID test, only 1 developed symptoms and that was just a sore throat and body aches for a few days, and she was in her late 20s. Literally everyone else had no symptoms, and while some of them already had COVID before I think this was a clear case of how it spreads so easily given how many young people don’t show symptoms. One really cool place we went to was called Oceana Boat Club, which is a literal boat club in the most touristy area of Cape Town that somehow has dirt cheap prices.
As much as I enjoyed Cape Town and South Africa, it was great to finally leave and catch another international flight. I initially learned about Namibia from this really cool thing we did at my old job called Picture of the Day (or PoTD). Every day, the “hosts” would send a massive group email (that over time migrated to Slack) with a picture, and then you had to guess the location without any sort of looking up or research (honor code but it’s pretty shitty to cheat in something like this). The most specific guess wins (so Eiffel Tower beats Paris which beats France), and if no one guessed the correct country then the closest guess in terms of distance as the crow flies wins. One other thing here was that suppose the picture was of Rome. Then a guess of Italy would beat a guess of the Vatican since even though the Vatican is across the river and super close, it is not in Italy so Italy wins there. There were also no re-guesses allowed unless you guessed a country/city and then someone guessed a more specific location later, which then lets you get more specific with your guess (but no Googling for province/city/street names, etc!). Humblebrag here but I was consistently in the top 3 of the leaderboard. Anyways, one of the PoTD pictures was the Dead Vlei in Sossusvlei, and from there I kind of just looked into Namibia and kept it in the back of my head.
Once I got to Namibia, I spent a couple of days in the capital city, Windhoek, which is honestly just a forgettable sprawl that felt more like a town than a city. That said, it definitely felt more like “Africa” while the Western Cape and Durban area felt way more Western and “accessible” if you were newer at travelling. I had booked my camping trip through Chameleon Safaris (they are totally awesome and I would 100000% recommend them!), since the prices they had were cheaper than the cost of renting a car, tent, and sleeping bag, driving, and seeing things on my own. After my experience in South Africa where I didn’t meet any non-locals, I was a bit paranoid about not finding people here. That turned out to be an unfounded worry as my hostel was like over 50% booked and all foreigners, with a constant flow of people coming in and out (since Windhoek is a base and there’s nothing really to do there). That said, I am super glad I did the tour and didn’t go in a group (would need at least a group of 3 others for the trip I did to be cheaper than the tour).
Because there was a discount rate, I decided to add a few days in Etosha National Park to my trip – there was already a group going on a set trip of Etosha + the camping trip I had booked, so it was easy to just adjust my tour booking to this. This turned out to be a fantastic choice – while Etosha obviously doesn’t compare to my Kenya trip, it was still wonderful. Kenya was just such an unreasonably high standard for a safari – we saw the Great Migration Wildabeest river crossing, a croc kill a Wildabeest at the end of the crossing, drove alongside the charging Wildabeests and Zebras in the Mara, a live chase and kill where a Cheetah hunted a deer-like creature followed by the Cheetah and her cubs eating, these same baby Cheetahs playing with each other, baby Lions playing with each other, a Lioness stealing a half eaten Springbok from Jackals and then eating it, male elephants “fighting” with their tusks, giraffes fighting by twisting their necks around each other, a pride of 20+ lions, ostriches performing their mating dance, vultures over the corpse of a buffalo, Kiliminjaro towering over our reserve near Amboseli…it was literally ridiculous how lucky we got that week in terms of all the once in a lifetime things we saw. The company I used for that was the Porini Gamewatchers budget Adventure Safari (“only” 2.5k USD but I cannot stress how much it was absolutely worth it) .The only things I didn’t see in Kenya were a leopard, a rhino, and a big game kill (like a group of lions taking down a buffalo or something like that). But yea, Kenya pics are here if you wanna see: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YC16p9LxBKPc1dZK6
The big game kill was probably asking for too much (that’s probably quite literally as once in a lifetime as the Cheetah chase and kill we saw), but I did see numerous rhinos in Etosha and we tracked a leopard for a few hours which was so so cool. Because this was just a park trip and not a reserve, we couldn’t drive off the road, but despite that we saw so much cool shit. Even with the spectre of Kenya haunting my safari expectations, this was a great couple of days. We saw numerous black and white rhinos which was so cool because they’re probably my favorite animal (ever since I fell in love with Rhyhorn and Rhydon in the OG Pokemon games), a herd of elephants at a watering hole, a group of Lions, hyenas during the day, and of course the leopard. We spent a few hours tracking it (which is typical, did the same for the cheetah kill in Kenya), and while it unfortunately did not chase and kill any animals, it did wind up ambling closer to us so I was able to get a really good view and snap some great shots.
Etosha itself was so different from the Amboseli and Mara ecosystems in Kenya…it’s so barren and rocky, which makes sense since it’s a part of the Kalahari Desert. One of the best parts of Etosha was actually this massive salt plain in the northern quarter of the park which is totally inhospitable for any animals. You can stare out in the distance and just see the flat white ground with literally nothing else, and the clear blue sky just seemed that much bigger in this vast plain of nothingness. It was just such a surreal experience to wander around there and take in the whole surrounding. Was definitely one of the coolest otherworldly landscapes I’ve ever been in, and certainly not something I’d expect to see in a safari park.
In a weird coincidence, the two other girls in my group for this safari + camping trip were British siblings from England who were ethnically Indian…in my Kenyan safari, my sister and I wound up being with two brothers from England who were Indian. I guess there’s a connection between having a great safari experience and running into two British Indian siblings. But they were both super cool and have been added to my loooooong list of people that I have to hit up when I eventually make it to England once the vaccine becomes more widespread. And that’s another thing with COVID and life – I wouldn’t have met them or even gone on the Etosha extension if I never got COVID, so in the end I still wouldn’t change any of my circumstances.
I’ve definitely gotten super lucky in that I have had back to back to back trips – Egypt, South Africa, and now Namibia – where I have made good friends, since getting along with people well is complete luck. Like in the ~4-5 months I spent in India last year, I only really made close-ish friends from hostels in Delhi and Darjeeling. It’s sort of weird, but I almost prefer these 2-3 week stints of making good friends over a ton of crammed shared experiences and then bouncing, while loosely keeping in touch and meeting up every now and then down the road, to having the same group of people while being settled down. I guess it sort of goes to my previous point of craving a lack of stability/constant change.
After the safari, we drove over to the really cool resort town of Swakopmund. On the way there, we stopped by these few tribal villages, which left a bad taste in my mouth because of how it felt like a human zoo – let’s watch these primitive people do their exotic dances and show us their exotic customs so we can take photos! I really really don’t like things like that, but I did feel bad since they rely on tourism for money and COVID has dried that well up and caved and got this Nambian necklace from one of the tribes. The drive to Swakopmund was incredible – just total desolation and starkness everywhere. It reminded me of what I think the Outback in Australia would look like, or even of parts of the southwest back in the US. In Swakopmund, I probably had the third best seafood meal of my life (after the shack crab near Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, India, and the lobster I had in Bar Harbor, Maine) at a restaurant called The Tug. The original plan was to go sandboarding in Swakopmund before heading off but unfortunately that was cancelled because that fell on Christmas Day (I was in Hampi last Christmas! Time really does fly…). That did give me an excuse to sleep in since every other day on this trip involved a super early morning.
Before heading off to the camping portion of the trip, we had a 4th person join us – he was a Russian who was born in Kazakhstan and who now lives in Europe. Since I’ve been abroad post COVID, he is the 2nd person I have met who was born in Kazakhstan (the first being a German guy in my Chernobyl tour)…and I have only met 3 other Americans, all in Egypt. To me that’s just such a mind blowing thing, that I’ve met almost as many Kazakhs as Americans.
The first stop of the trip was the absolute highlight of my time in Namibia, and it’s not even close. We spent all day driving and then set up camp in this giant sandy plain that was encircled by mountains and towering sand dunes…it was honestly so similar to Black Rock City and I loved it. The next morning, we got up at 4am to do a sunrise hike up a dune called Dune 45. This was really the only night/early morning where it was not cloudy, and I actually got to see the Milky Way from our campsite before we left which was mind blowingly awesome. I had already seen the Milky Way before in Kenya but this was definitely up there with Kenya as the best night sky I have ever seen. It really puts you in your place, and doubly so for me since I am in the process of watching season 5 of The Expanse and reading the Three Body Problem trilogy (which an acquaintance recommended to me and is quite good), and they’re both fantastic works of Sci-Fi partially set in near space.
Climbing up sand dunes is shockingly difficult. I honestly found walking up a 100 meter sand dune to be far, far more difficult than going up (for example) the 800 meters up Table Mountain. I think I can safely say that these 100-150 meter sand dune hikes we did in Namibia are probably the single hardest hikes I’ve done outside of a brief stretch on the 1st day of my Nepal Poon Hill trek (but that was back when I was out of shape), and maybe stretches of going up the Grand Canyon. The problem is that every step you take, your foot sinks, so it’s just significantly more energy required to take every single step as you have to lift it up more and fight the sink. It is slightly easier if you walk just behind someone and step into their footsteps, as that minimizes the amount of sinking that your foot does.
Anyways, I have always envisioned towering and endless sand dunes to be a Sahara/Arabian phenomenon. But sweet baby Jesus it was such an amazing site. I walked a little past the rest of the group and the other early morning hikers to just bask in the silence and in the view. It was definitely a take your breath away 30 minutes that I spent there, much to the chagrin of the rest of my group who waited for me by the breakfast our (amazing!) guide/driver/cook Gideon set up. I also queued up my two go-to songs for times like these, M83’s Intro and Jai Wolf’s Indian Summer. On a related note, I wound up listening to Petit Biscuit’s Sunset Lover like 50+ times during this trip as well.
After the sunrise hike, we drove over to the Dead Vlei area. This is just a massive, barren, salt flat with 500+ year old tead trees that are encircled by 150-350 meter tall sand dunes. It’s like straight out of a Wes Anderson film set, with the bright stark contrasting colors. Our guide said that this place is typically overrun with tourists (so this is yet another place I would dislike if it wasn’t for COVID I think), but it was basically empty when we went. Even moreso than the surreal landscapes here, the best part was just sprinting down the 200 meter sand dune to get to the actual flat area with the trees. Running down massive sand dunes is so much fun it’s crazy. It’s fun to just slide and fall since it doesn’t hurt at all, and sprinting down at that speed is exhilarating.
After that long morning/afternoon, we got back to the campsite and had lunch. By then, it was 1pm and hot as balls, but luckily the campsite had a swimming pool where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening until dinner. While in the pool, a 6 year old Zambian girl named Shannon latched herself onto me and I spent ~4-5 hours entertaining her. To be honest, I have so much newfound respect for parents and teachers because Jesus Christ it was exhausting. Obviously it was also really fun, but it’s crazy how little kids are basically permanently coked up.
After the Sossusvlei area, we drove to a radically different area called Aus. This actually reminded me a little of Pinnacles National Park in California with all the random strewn about massive boulders and rocks over a vast hilly area. This was definitely a surprisingly enjoyable area – the sunset hike we did here was simply spectacular, as we were ~150 meters up and overlooking a massive vast dry plain with small mountains in the distance. It was just such a cool site and view, and even walking around the campgrounds and hiking area here was cool with the giant boulders everywhere.
The next day, we drove to the abandoned German diamond mining town of Kolmanskop…Namibia used to be a German colony before getting umbrella’d under the Republic of South Africa after WW1, and it only became an independent country in 1990. This was very Chernobyl-esque in the sense of totally abandoned buildings, and it was really really cool to see the desert sands just overrunning these former mansions and apartments that the Germans had built out here. Just really cool abandoned vibes here and we spent a few hours wandering around and exploring the different sanded in houses. It was especially fun to crawl and shimmy through the window and door cracks that the sand had created. Wasn’t quite as cool as Chernobyl since the sands have wiped away everything so it’s more like building shells here rather than fully intact abandoned place. After Kolmanskop, we drove over to Diaz Point, which is the point where the Europeans (in this case, the Portugese explorer Bartholomew Diaz) first reached Namibia. Really the main highlights here were seeing a ton of giant dead jellyfish on the shore (they were probably as wide as my chest), a flock of flamingo, and of course, probably the windiest place I have ever been to, which was the point itself. I had to bundle up in my raincoat/windbreaker, but it was so much fun just standing there for like 10 minutes and getting assaulted by the wind.
We headed back to Aus, and the next day we left for the final campsite, which was near the Quiver Tree Forest. On the way there, we stopped by the Fish River Canyon, which really gave me throwback vibes to Utah and Arizona. Unfortunately we were not allowed to hike into the canyon, as they no longer allow single day hikes, only multi day ones. It was still a pretty cool few hours here. The Quiver Tree forest was basically like a Namibian Joshua Tree, with funky Dr.Seuss like trees in a rocky desert landscape. It was definitely a cool place, but much like J-Tree for me, it was definitely the least impressive part of the trip given everything that I had seen before that (like how J-Tree underwhelmed compared to the Grand Canyon/Monument Valley/Zion/Bryce Canyon). It was still a cool area and we got a pretty nifty sunset here as well.
Another thing about the Quiver Tree Forest campsite was that there was a small conservation area for rescued Cheetah cubs there. The guy who ran it gets cheetah cubs that were abandoned in the wild after their parents got killed by farmers (farmers are allowed to kill cheetahs if they attack their sheep/chicken/etc.). Obviously what he was doing was a cool and great thing, and it was nice to get within a few feet of these young adult cheetahs, but I didn’t take any pics because to me it’s almost like cheating in the same way going to the zoo is cheating. Like it’s objectively a good thing but I guess I was too elitist to take pictures. But yea, I did spend a few hours petting like 2 or 3 different dogs there while observing the cheetahs so that was fun.
Our final day was just driving back to Windhoek. Honestly, the endless hours we spent driving from site to site was actually quite fun for me. The landscapes here are crazy diverse, from rugged mountains to canyons towering sand dunes to endless flat scrub to massive salt flats, and this kept the drives from getting boring. And everything here was just so brutal and stark…Nambia only has <3m people and is a huge country, it’s the 2nd least dense country in the world after Mongolia.
Especially with regards to the desert scrub, it reminded me a ton of Utah/Arizona/parts of California. This is also true because all these little gas station/convenience store stops in Namibia were littered with vintage old cars, which really reminded me of old school Americana. In many ways, this Namibian road trip was like a better version of what I did in America (minus Etosha because that is clearly African with the animals, but even there the endless salt flat was amazing). Even though I would say that Yosemite was singularly more impressive than any of the locations here in Namibia, as a whole, I’d rank it above my US road trips. And to be honest, even though there were sites like Chernobyl, Giza, and Istanbul that for me individually outstrip anything in Namibia, I think Namibia has been my favorite place I’ve been to, as a whole, since the world originally shut down due to COVID back in March/April 2020. I honestly can’t recommend this country enough.
So after getting back to Windhoek, I got my COVID test and then will be flying to Livingstone, Zambia via Cape Town to spend a week there. A week for Victoria Falls is probably overkill but I should have enough to do to keep me busy. Because I’m so cool, I went to bed at 9pm for New Year’s Eve…my two British friends had flown back to the UK earlier on the 31st and there was a 9pm curfew in Namibia due to COVID, plus I was exhausted from all the early mornings during the 10 day trip so it was good to sleep in.
Big picture, my ideal plan after Vic Falls would be to go to Mozambique for a few weeks before bouncing from Southern Africa, but we’ll see what happens.