Back Safely

Sunday, 7:00am

Made it back to Windhoek safely yesterday afternoon.  Will try to post a few of the most memorable moments and pictures before heading to the airport for the journey home.
   Newspaper headlines last Tuesday as we headed north were "City issues weather warning" and "Floods expected in the north".  Fortunately, though, we just missed the worse rains and had unseasonably cool weather.  The only weather related consequence was that two of the short cut roads we were going to take to get from Opuwo to the east side of the Etosha Park were washed out.  So we had to drive up to the Angolan border and around through Owamboland instead adding about two hours of driving.
    This was the first time I was able to sit and enjoy the scenery as we had a driver/guide, Uanee Karuuombe, at the wheel.  We have selected Uanee, who started the Ombaue Tours company, to be the tour guide for organizing extended tours for the conference.  He was born in a Himba village just outside Opuwo and has been guiding for over 12 years.

 For example, I would have never stopped by the side of the road (this is the B1, the main freeway through Namibia!) to buy mushrooms from this mushroom guy.  We bought 4 and had the cooks at our Opuwo lodge cook them up for dinner.  Yummmmmmmm....

   In and around Opuwo, Uanee with his 160+ cousins and family members, knew just about everyone we came across.  We'd often stop by the road and talk with folks, like this Himba lady outside Opuwo.

So now some of the highlights of the trip (next post).