Crossing the border between Namibia and South Africa, between the small towns of Nordoever and Violsdrift, is a no-timer. And it is great to meet authorities that greet us instead of asking us for bribes on our first day in a new country. Violsdrift, the first town on the other side of the Orange River, is a little bit dodgy though. Unable to find a good place to camp, we ask a police officer by the border. She directs us down a muddy road to a construction site. There, the manager will give us a safe spot to camp on, she says.

And sure he does – we even get to camp in the site’s temporary kitchen/office. The area around Orange River is full of campsites – as it is a tourist attraction in its own. This one has been shuttered though, and is now used as base when they construct the new customs and immigrations compound at the border. The manager as well as his workers are in full swing today as they are having an evening braai, with quite some beers to it. We roll out our mattresses on the floor of the boss’ working room (with blueprints of the new border on the table). “And here is the kitchen, where you can fry your sausages!” the manager shouts from inside the adjacent room. I guess that in South Africa and Namibia, we should know by now that meat is the only thing one can possible be eating. And that a sausage is an as self-evident part of ones baggage as is water.

We take a turnoff about halfway between Grünau and Nordoever, the border to South Africa. Five kilometers east from the main road, down a longish valley running parallel to the main road, we find a farm. The single story main house seems to be quite new. It has its own wind power for electricity, which, at least on this particular day, seems very suitable with strong winds blowing through the valley.

We knock the front door and Wanda greets us with her and Kobus’ young child in her arms. The young couple invite us to stay in one of their rooms, and we spend the afternoon chatting over a cup of coffee. They’re wonderful people, very warm. We are treated with a great dinner, too. Eating in Namibia is usually – this time no exception – preceded by everyone holding hands around the table whilst one of the house owners says grace.

Kobus and Wanda tell us that Kobus’ father, living a few kilometers further south on the main road, has hosted several cyclists there. Whilst this house was not visible from the road, and we were actually the first ones to visit, Kobus’ father’s house is visible from the main road, so it receives more passers-by. All his guests have sent him a postcard afterwards, and Kobus asks us to do the same to them: “That’s the only return we ask for!” Surely, I sent one in the autumn when I was back in Sweden – hope they received it.

Summary Namibia
Entering Namibia on May 9th, we got to see a lot of things that we hadn’t seen for a very long time – in fact not since Morocco: Phone booths, litter bins, toilet paper, and lay-bys along the roads. Supermarkets in every town.

The roads were always straight and flat. Wide and tarred. The strong wind was often against us – cold, icy and dry – similar to the in the mountains of northern Sweden. At every breath, it stung in the nose and the throat. My lips cracked by the sudden change of climate.

Northern Namibia is the most populated, whilst the southern part is desolate with up to 50 kilometers between the houses. After a while through the south of the country, the landscape gradually change towards resembling how I would imagine the moon’s to be like – gravel, stones and rocks – although with a few green, thorny bushes and a bit of dry, golden grass.

“With the bicycle all that way!? Now that makes a man!” Sony Boy, as we’d get to know him, came home and found himself having to surprise guests camping next to his house. “Wow, let’s make a fire?!!,” he continued. That was how most Namibians welcomed us. Warm, always with a campfire, and always with a smile. They were usually quite impressed by what we had done, too. Once I was even asked to sign a man’s T-shirt!

Farmers with enough space also invited us for a warm bed, clean linen, hot shower and amazing dinners, usually consisting of various game meat. And although “chicken and pork are vegetables for a true Namibian,” we did get served corn porridge a few times, too. Rooibos tea before going to bed. Eating with the farmers was usually preceded by holding each others’ hands around the table, whilst one of the house owners said grace.

Midway between the northern border to Angola and Windhoek, we were invited by Emile to his farm Ombaranga. We where taken out on hunting during three days, and served great meals. Very laid-back and down-to-earth. The essence of Namibian hospitality (070514, 070524).

Namgate Guesthouse, a few kilometers south of Grünau, sponsor us with a nights camping.

The owners of Goibib Mountain Lodge at Goibib river sponsor us with a nights sleep. Hot shower. Kudu steak and springbok pie!

Thirty kilometers south of Keetmanshoop, we turnoff a long dirt road (F596). Only after seven kilometers, there is finally a farm. Owner Jupy van der Merwe and his cousin Franklin give us a room to sleep in for the night. And invite us for some homemade kudu sausages!

Just like last night, we take a random turnoff and follow a dirt road to get away from the main road for the night – and hopefully find some interesting farmer to chat with. But reaching a farm, nobody is there and nobody ever comes during the night either. We camp outside the gate.

“With the bicycle all that way!? Now that makes a man, uh? I’m a lone farmer, and prospector. Wow, let’s make a fire?!!” By half past nine, Sony Boy as we’d get to know him, came home and welcomed his two surprise guests.

We had, like usual, taken the first turnoff we could find when it started to get dark. Some four kilometers from the main road, it came to a dead end by the railroad tracks. There was a shack of corrugated iron sheets, shaped like a small hangar, but nobody around. So we pitched our tents on the sandy ground, made dinner and went to sleep. When Ben, or ‘Sony Boy’ as he called himself, came home, we were already fast asleep and not that willing to face the cold outside. It was actually the cold that kept us from socializing.

“Sorry, too tired,” I answered (Lina didn’t wake up). “OK, so what do you drink in the morning – coffee or tea?” Ben continued, still excited in his voice of having visitors! “Coffee, please,” I replied. Despite the icy cold outside, I had unzipped a small opening through my tent so we could at least see each others’ faces before going back to sleep.

The next morning, we spend an hour or so with Ben before continuing south. He is 49 years old. He sold his cell phone to buy petrol. Found a meteorite once that gave him 14,000 Namibian dollars – about 1,500 euro. Half of it bought him a metal detector to use in his prospecting – but the batteries are finished now. He invited us for delicious coffee from beans that his brother gave him, and I make us malted grain sorghum (mabele) porridge.

After stocking up with food and buying some warm socks (it’s getting really cold in the tent now) in Mariental, it’s already pitch dark as we cycle out of town, looking for a place to camp. We take the very first turnoff we can find, and although we can’t see where it leads, we figure to wild camp if we can’t find a house. As long as we are far away from the main road, and make sure nobody see us as we turn off, it should be safe enough. Luckily, after only three kilometers, we see a farm ahead. We meet Hannes and Rehanne, and their twin daughters. They welcome us to sleep inside, and share their dinner.

Their generator has failed recently, but they light up the house with candles, and the shower is heated by a wood fire. Rehanne’s aunt was murdered in September last year by ‘a black man’. She lived in a farm just an hours drive northeast from here. In the surge of this, their daughters don’t dare to walk alone in the dark anymore. Not even take a shower. Rehanne has to join them.

The spin of what remains of colonialism and the apartheid era is difficult for us to understand, and as those in power keep neglecting it, it is also a huge threat to stability in countries like Namibia and South Africa. I asked Hannes if there is any civilization along the road which we will travel tomorrow. “No, there is nothing on that road. Only black people/farmers,” he replies. We have to always remember how we are all humans, and how these wonderful people that hosted us tonight also say things they don’t mean in the sense that we as Europeans interpret them. They’ve been born into a divided society, where things are to be either black or white. Saying what Hannes said doesn’t mean that he regards black people as uncivilized, but only reflects a knowledge that 99% of black farmers are poor in this country, which means that they don’t have big farms – which in turn was what he thought I asked about.

We are grateful for a warm bed. They serve us minced kudu meat for dinner, and a cup of rooibos tea before going to bed. Mealie pap (corn porridge) for breakfast.

We look at each other, both carefully examining the other. The eyes of the leopard shine from within the dry, knee-high grass, and unmask the else well camouflaged coat of its body. He looks at me as if on guard, his back crouched and his hips tensely risen. We’re only the width of the tarred road apart. I and Lina have cycled five kilometers from where we slept the night; time is just past dawn.

Lina has halted behind me, where a line of cars and minibuses are parked along the roadside and their passengers follow the drama at a safe distance. A minibus had hit the leopard not long ago and it is – although badly injured – aggressive and provoked and, as we will soon be made aware of, still able to attack.

As I came cycling, I had believed that the line of cars was the remains a traffic accident. When I didn’t see any damaged vehicles, I stopped by the end of the line. Noticing the leopard, I became motionless. I leaned my bicycle against a minivan parked just in front of me. But its passengers soon decided to carry on – maybe after realizing the danger of the erratic leopard. I wasn’t late to make the same decision. I turned around and cycled back to where Lina and most of the cars had stopped, to follow the scene from a safe distance.

Although the police soon arrives, and do their best to direct the traffic past the accident, it is at times very unorganized. People walk back and forth as they like, sometimes dangerously close to the leopard in trying to take good pictures to send to friends and relatives.

Since we arrived, the leopard has walked out on the road and occasionally attacked the cars and trucks that pass by. At least two of them get a puncture from the animals sharp claws. Only after two hours, a veterinary arrives. After having shot the leopard with an anesthetic dart, putting it to sleep, Dr. Ulf Tubbesing is able to ascertain that one of his lungs are punctured. The leopard will not survive. With help from the police, he carries the body into the back of his buckie (a pickup with a covered back). Before they drive away, we get to stroke the leopard’s beautiful, velvety skin – a sharp contrast to the aggressiveness we had witnessed just an hour earlier. Awe-inspiring.

Before we finally leave the site, Ellis Botha from Radio Kosmos of Windhoek catches us for a quick interview, live via his cell phone. We seek shelter from the strong wind inside his shiny, black van, and get to answer a few simple questions of when, where and how.

By the end of the day, we camp at Koruna Farm, some 90 kilometers from Kalkrand. The owners aren’t there, but the workers – residing in a house outside the actual owner’s compound with house and garden – gives us permission to pitch our tents on the ground beside.

Footnote: In media, there is an article which was published in daily newspaper Republikein on March 20, 2008. It has more on our encounter with the leopard.

A beautiful white house, lonely situated on an as beautiful, green hillside, catches our eyes. There wont be light much longer, so it is time to find shelter for the night. We cycle down the sandy road, which already gives us a hint of friendly owners as the gates are all unlocked. We cross the railway tracks and shortly after reach the first barn house. The son of the family comes walking from behind the house and greets us. When his father and mother arrive, they never hesitate to let us camp in their garden when we ask. Later, after first inviting us for both afternoon tea and dinner, they give us a guest room to sleep in so we don’t have to pitch our tents.

The man is Afrikaner and the woman is of British origin. The house is of beautiful old German style. The man tells us that it’s built of mud, with walls that are almost a meter thick. Whether inspired by the indigenous peoples’ mud huts or by German traditions, I couldn’t say. But it protects from the cold of the winter and the heat of the summer, whilst being made of a material that could well have been found in the valley below.

We are anyway thankful for the warmth inside, as the nights are getting colder for each day that we travel south. Hot shower, clean linen. A delicious, homemade chicken soup with bread. Rooibos tea.

We return to Windhoek with Emile & Co., and continue our cycling south the next day. Huge thanks to Emile and his family for the days at Ombaranga Game. It was truly magic!

Emile takes us with back to the farm in Ombaranga for the weekend. His parents Chris and Pearl, and their friends Ben and Barbie with son Renando, also join us to hunt and braai (barbecue). A great three-day feast awaits!

Every evening is the same way. We sit outside by the huge campfire and warm up in the chilly evenings. If not the moon, then instead bright shining stars above. A bush fire glows like patches of burning coal on a hillside in the far distance. Candlelights in empty wine bottles line the hallways in the big house. More candlelights, with their warm, flickering flares, crown the bedside tables in each bedroom. The water for the shower is heated in a wood-fired cistern outside.

On the braai is only meat. Nothing else. “When a true Namibian eats vegetables, he eats chicken or pork!” Emile tells us. For starter biltong (dried game meat). Then another starter – springbok fillet, quickly braaied – red and tender. Then the main course – sheep ribs, slowly grilled for a long time – crispy. More Tafel (beer), chips and biltong, brandy with Coke.

The hunting during the days is interesting for me and Lina, who have barely seen a gun before. A gemsbok (oryx) is shot wounded. Emile does his best to trace it by its blood spill, but it has soon stopped bleeding and there is no way to find it. Later, another antelope – an eland bull – is also wounded. Again, the traces of blood are small and few, and soon disappear. Nothing to do. We find the gemsbok the following day, lying dead in the bushes, already half eaten by a group of vultures.

From the back of the pickup, where most of us stand, Chris shoots a big kudu bull. It’s a perfect hit – the antelope runs into the bush. We find it not far away, in a small glade. The farm workers Eric and Bruno cut the throat so to draw its blood. They also cut off the testicles, which will else add a bad taste to the meat. Everyone help out to lug the heavy body back through the bush to the pickup, and then carry it up onto the platform. Emile later shoots another kudu bull. Renando shoots seven birds.

Yet another delicious dinner: Kudu skewers with onions and apricots. ‘Puff adder’ – the large intestine of a kudu stuffed with a mix of its liver, heart and kidney as well as potatoes. The small intestine on its own, ribs of pork and homemade sausages of kudu and springbok meat. South African sherry. Namibian Tafel beer.

We stay with Emile and his family in a suburb of Windhoek.

Halfway between Okahandja and Windhoek is one of the capitals main plants for water purification, nicknamed ‘Booster two’. The watchman and his family meet us, and let us camp inside the old plant (that is no longer in use in favor of a newer one next to it).

We leave Otjiwarongo just before eight in the morning and reach Outeniqua at 5:30 p.m., after a full day of cycling. We camp at a lay-by along the road.