Swakopmund - June 19th

June 19th 2008:

Short: Slept in!!!, Nikolai runs errands while Moyer sleeps, Brits mating, Nikolai goes skydiving, Moyer walks on the beach and just relaxs, Clean Betsy, run more errands, Dinner, and the German soccer match (Germany wins against Portugal!)

Long: After a fairly busy day yesterday, today was fairly relaxed. Nikolai woke up a little early to drop off the pictures taken last night for processing, and also scheduled his skydiving trip for the afternoon. I just continued to sleep. After waking up, an amusing, perhaps typical, dorm room experience occurred.

We are staying in a two room, six bed, dorm currently shared by Niki and I, a Dutchman, and two Brits (A couple). There is one dividing wall that separates three beds from the others. When I woke up, the only people left in the dorm were the British couple. I had to drop off my laundry and left the room without locking the door. When I walked back to the room the door was locked. I figured the British couple must have left the room and locked it; locking me out. Time to improvise!!! The window to the bathroom had been left open and I decided it would be best to climb through. I jumped through the window into the bathroom and then walked to my pants to get my key. As I was picking up my pants from the floor I heard some interesting sounds and an, “Oh shit is someone still in here,” from the other room. Obviously the British couple had locked the door for “other” reasons. I nearly killed myself as raced back to the bathroom and scrambled out the window. I heard the outside door swing open as I quickly walked away from the door…leaving them both very confused. Brits…Get a room! Anyway…to Niki skydiving!

Skydiving: Until now I’ve been completely lazy and Moyer has written the entire blog, but Skydiving wasn’t adrenaline-rushing enough for him (he’s instead planning to go bungee jumping in Zambia – way too scary for me), so I had to go myself. I jumped in a tandem, i.e. locked to somebody who would open the parachute etc., and the entire safety briefing to about 5 minutes (unlike many more hours I’m sure in the US). My instructor was a guy called Mies. Nice guy, although pretty much everything he said was “Aaahhh, F*** it!”. Whatever you would ask (e.g., “are these strings tight enough?”), his answer would be “aaahhh, F*** it!”. He didn’t seem to concerned about anything regarding Skydiving, and once I boarded the plane I understood way. The plane was a piece of s…, and would’ve completely fallen apart if it weren’t for all the duct tape (on the inside and outside), holding the plane together. It seemed a lot safer jumping out of that plane at 10,000 feet that staying in there for the landing. So I was happy to finally jump out of that thing… The first few seconds Mies told me are the “Oh shit” (only other words he said apart from “aaahhh, f*** it!”) moment, where you just think why the hell did I just jump out of this plane? After that, the remaining 30 seconds of free fall were pretty amazing! I maybe wasn’t quite relaxed enough to enjoy the beautiful view, but it was a great feeling. And once the parachute opened, I could finally enjoy the beautiful view of Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, the desert, the dunes, etc. Mies gave me the controls and I flew the parachute for a bit. Landing was smooth, and so was the obligatory Jaegermeister (yes, maybe there was more than one… But as I said, it was all obligatory!) after the jump. All in all it was super fun, and if you haven’t done it I can certainly recommend it (and despite everything they say, the Skydiving Club in Swakopmund is extremely professional, safe and they have never had an accident)!!! Oh, and on a last note: I jumped with a Dutch guy, who’s cousin had recently opened a Go-Kart track outside of Swakopmund. First one in Namibia… Interestingly, the Go-Kart business in Namibia is going really well and he is fully booked. Go-Kart in Namibia – quite the growth market!

While Niki was skydiving I visited a few cafes and walked along the beach, meeting him back at the hostel in the early afternoon. We spent a few hours cleaning the thick covering of dust that had collected over the past few days in the back of the car. We know it will be covered again in a few days, but the car is basically our home for the next two months and it had to be done. After a few errands we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to the bar for the Portugal/Germany match. Nikolai recruited me as a Germany fan and this brought the grand total of Germany fans in the bar to three. I could really care less, but it worked out well as Germany won, leaving Niki in a good mood. It is also worth noting we have met some great people: Hilbert (Dutch), Dirk (German), Damon and Jo (A couple from Australia).