July 15

TRAVIS:
If anybody tries to tell you that driving through Namibia is exciting, immediately unbefriend them. Because they’re a liar. I think I drove over 200 kilometers without moving the steering wheel more than a half a degree or so from center, and that was to pass a slow-moving pickup packed with people. 200 kilometers without a curve or a hill. As much as I rag on Kansas and Nebraska, they got nothin’ on Namibia. And, unfortunately, we didn’t do much else today but drive across this God-forsaken country. Before leaving Shakawe and, with it, Botswana, we went into town to find the post office and to visit the bakery that we’d heard about, where we picked up some delicious rolls and fat cakes. If nobody’s told you before, fat cakes are basically just fried balls of dough that, like everything else that is fried, taste pretty darn good. Then, once again, we crossed a border and entered the final country of our trip, Namibia. And then began the above-mentioned tedium, interrupted only by a grocery stop and a puff adder. The puff adder was definitely the highlight of my day, as I’ve been searching furiously for cool snakes since we got here and hadn’t seen any snakes at all until today. Dad didn’t see the snake until he passed right over it (without hitting it – it went smack between the wheels), so of course we stopped and backed up to see what it was. It turned out to be beautiful puff adder about 4 feet long that had apparently been hit before and was pretty seriously injured. We thought he was done for, but as we watched, the snake slowly inched its way across the other side of the road moving painfully, like a caterpillar instead of in the usual zig-zag motion. We hoped it might make it (well, all of us but mom hoped it would make it), but as we were watching a car blasted up from behind us and passed us, hitting the snake as it went. The snake writhed around and headed for the edge of the road, where it coiled up and, we think, probably died. It was a sad day for me, and I hated to see that beautiful snake die. Of course, the villagers (along with mom) probably appreciated the death of the poisonous thing. Anyway, we ended the day by arriving at the gate to Etosha national park about 30 minutes after dark, and, since the park closes at dark, we spent another night camping in the bush a little way off of the main road near the park. Maybe tomorrow Namibia will redeem itself.
Travis