I will remember Candy for the rest of my life. Not for what he looks like or what his occupation is, but for the we way he opened his heart and home to us along our journey through Namibia. We first met Candy across the road from his homestead under a large tree shadowing the village bottle shop. We introduced ourselves, chatted for a bit and then Candy pointed us in the direction of his homestead. We drove our little Yaris across the street and into the fenced in area which to my surprise housed five small mud huts. The huts used few branches to frame the outside of the mud packed walls. The mud had began crumbling in some areas creating holes in the walls large enough for a hyena to sneak through. Candy is 22 and attending 10th grade this year (we we’re introduced to him by his teacher Kerri, with whom we happened to be Couchsurfing the night before). His younger sister also attends a local school approximately 3km away from their land. Candy’s brother and grandmother are both unemployed so the only way they make money is when Candy’s Aunt sells milk from her cows and shares the proceeds. Candy was born and raised on this homestead and now lives there occupying one hut, while his sister, his brother, and his grandmother occupy the other three. The fifth hut has been empty since his uncle passed. There is a small, low grass-thatched hut situated between two of the mud huts where a fire was still smoldering.

Candy began to paint us the picture of his village life immediately. We first joined him to go and collect fresh water from the clinic 5km away. There were two fresh water spouts in his village for its entire population, neither one being extremely close to his homestead. Usually, he would walk there with two large empty containers, fill them up, and carry them back… 5km away!

Once we filled the water and returned it back to the homestead we set out on foot where Candy showed us around his village. He took us to one of the infamous cooka shops where the villagers produce a grainy, tart, traditional alcoholic beverage. Candy mentioned it’s a very popular place to hang out during the day for for the high percentage of people not working (it gives them something to do during the day). Candy then showed us the small convenience store that villagers visit whenever they have money, which is sporadic and infrequent. Until then, they try to survive with the little they have.

That night for dinner, Candy taught us how to make mahango porridge over the fire which he prepares and eats every day, three times a day. Usually, he will include a soup mix or a local relish from the bush to dip the porridge in. We all sat around the fire and enjoyed the small meal with him. Afterwards, we sat idly around the fire (still somewhat hungry) on disintegrating cinder blocks and old paint cans chatting about village life and answering Candy’s constant questions about the US. Chris began showing him pictures of the US, our families, etc and he was in complete awe. I could not tell if he was more impressed with the photos or the iPhone we used to show him.

The next morning, we all indulged in more porridge and said our goodbyes. Candy thanked us several times for sharing his meal with him and allowing him to share with us his village lifestyle. He was so proud to share his customs, his homestead and the village life. Upon driving away from his homestead, I remember looking back and being humbled by the experience. Those who say the village life is so simple overlooks several key factors. Their agendas may not be filled with breakfast meetings, running errands, soccer practice, and vacations, but they are focused on the hard work of day to day living. He appreciates the laid back lifestyle of showing his guests around, chatting with his friends, living off the land, and attending to the chores of his homestead. It surprised me with how long it took us to do basic stuff such as retrieving clean water. I’ve never in my life appreciated the things we take for granted (running water, electricity, and plentiful foods) so much. THANK YOU CANDY FOR THE AMAZING EXPERIENCE!

One of our favorite nonprofits in the world is a San Francisco based or organization called Couchsurfing. They exist to connect travelers with locals in over 230 countries and territories around the world. The Couchsurfing community is made up of over 1 million members who come from 62,000 different cities and speak 1,270 unique languages. Since their founding in 2004, 1.25 million successful CouchSurfing stays have been recorded and 1.5 million new friendships have been formed.

I joined Couchsurfing over a year ago, but was never an active member. I had almost forgot about it until we starting thinking about how we could meet local people as we travel the globe. I remembered Couchsurfing and knew it would be the perfect for our situation. However, since we believed so much in the organization (and because we didn’t have any references yet) we decided to start hosting people at our apartment in San Francisco a few months before we left for our trip. In total we hosted about 15 people from all over the globe and have made quite a few great friends (even some that we’ll stay with while we’re traveling).

Couchsurfing with Ben and Kerri in Rundu, Namibia

So far on our trip, we’ve Couchsurfed with Jonathan in Cape Town, Ben and Kerri in Namibia and Baraka in Dar Es Salaam. They were all FANTASTIC hosts and each had a unique local persepective of the country we were visiting. They all went above and beyond the call of duty to show us around their city and make sure we felt comfortable in their homes.

As we continue our journey, we plan to Couchsurf as much as possible. While not all of the homes we’ve stayed at were as convenient as a downtown hotel, the expierences and friendships far outweighed any commute we had to a city centre. If anyone reading this isn’t already a member of Couchsurfing yet, I highly recommend you join the community and feel free to add me and Amy as a friend.

(Not sure why this was never published, but it was from back in South Africa)

People tend to think that if they decide to go camping as they travel, that they have to lug all of the equipment with them from the get go. On the contrary, I’ve realized that it’s much easier to buy your equipment at your destination of choice (pending you’re flying into a city). Asking locals for cheap places to find these items (whether they be dollar stores, used sporting goods stores, etc.) opened up a whole new (and much cheaper) purchasing experience for us. Below are the essentials that we’ve included on our camping list:

• Tent (used at a sporting goods store)
• Sleeping bags
• Ground pads
• Mosquito candle
• Silverware
• Plates, cups, bowls
• Small stove + 10kg gas tank
• Pots
• Soap
• Sponge
• Cooking utensils
• Aluminum foil
• Toilet paper
• Lighter
• Select food items

The best part is, when we are done camping, we can sell the items back to a used sporting goods store or we can barter them off for rides, goods, food, etc.

We have now been traveling through Southern Africa for almost a month and there are few animals we have not seen: a leopard, a cheetah, an African bufalo, and a hippo. We were in Botswana and heard that we MUST take a guided mokoro (small boat carved out of a tree trunk) trip through the Okovango Delta so we lined up a three day expedition in which we take a small boat, find a place to camp and take “bush walks” (safari’s on foot) during the day. It sounded like a great experience, so we signed our lives away, paid for our trip in full, and the next morning we loaded onto a large safari truck which would shuttle us from Maun, Botswana into an outlet of the delta. Upon arrival, we met our guides, aka polers, who have lived as bushmen their entire lives. We were settled into our small boat in no time. The small boats hold two people, the poler (standing in the back), and a few small bags between the two people. The boat has only one or two inches of clearance above the water, which leaves little room for error. The poler had strategically placed us and our belongings in the boat for weight distribution, me being in the front narrow end.

The poler pushed off and we were floating down the water in no time. The sun had just begun warming the earth. The sky was nice and clear. The water so calm that there was a perfect reflection of us, our boat, and the sky above. I laid back soaking up the sun enjoying the relaxing ride to camp. Our poler pointed out several small colorful frogs perched on the weeds, and explained how his village prepares waterlilly root for mealtime during the dry season. He also stopped the mokoro in front of some hippos who were snorting loudly about 110 meters away. As he explained where they live in the water and how dangerous they were, we strained our eyes to get a better look at their heads popping in and out of the water. Chris asked to get closer, but our Poler refused because getting closer than 100 meters can be extremely dangerous. I was glad we were not going to move in for a closer look because statistics show that hippos claim more human lives than any other animal in Africa (except for mosquitos).

After several minutes, we were slithering through tall watergrass and clear waterholes on our way to camp. We were enjoying the scenery and warding off bugs when suddenly there was a gigantic splash 6 meters in front of me. I looked up startled, only to see that the splash was made by a huge hippo that was charging straight towards us. The hippo was so quiet under water that the poler didn’t see him until we were almost on top of him. It was charging us full speed, me being his closest prey. Time slowed down that instant. I stared for a milisecond in complete horror as I watched the hippo’s mouth open, it’s teeth showing the pain they could induce. The water droplets rolling off the hippos face… Chris turned to the poler asking what we should do. The driver froze doing and saying nothing. I remember repeating Chris’s question along with a slew of other words. I stopped breathing as my heart pounded in my throat. I looked at the hippo gaining ground, then back to the poler, then again at the hippo. Hoping Chris was with me on my idea, I stuck one leg in the water ready to jump out and run. I remember my life flashing before my eyes as I said aloud: “I’m going to die today.” At that point, the hippo was upon us. I was completely helpless. I could do nothing more than pray. It was the shortest and hardest praying I’d ever done in my life. As I opened my eyes a second later, the poler had begun pushing us a way from the hippo and was yelling at it. The beasty animal took one more leap at us  and with one meter left between her and I, the hippo suddenly veered off up into the grass. Had she taken one more leap towards us, we would have been gone. Done. Finished off.

Photo taken from Blue Heron Pictures (leblanc0444 on flickr)

We continued backing away from the wild hippo as I sat there shaking in the tiny little boat which could have been destroyed with one snap of her teeth. I was far beyond crying. I was horrified, fearful, and shocked.  Trying to make sense of everything that had just happened, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. What are the odds that this would happen to me? How unlucky was I? No… how was I so lucky? That could have ended horribly but we all survived. There was not a scratch on us. There was only an up close viewing of a hippo that will be seared into my memory forever.

**For those interested, the rest of the trip was great! During our bush walks we saw giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, impala, baboons, and elephants. In fact, the elephants not only ran us out of camp on the last day but they blocked our hiking route back to the mokoro so we had to take off our shoes, roll up our pants, and trudge through the mucky hippo and crocodile infested water to get to the small boats. It was an experience of a lifetime…

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Donations of all amounts are greatly appreciated! You are what makes it possible for us to maintain this website and share our amazing adventure. Should you donate at least one of the following amounts, you can expect to receive:

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We had driven over a thousand miles in our 2-wheel drive Toyota Yaris for three reasons: Sossusvlei, the Skeleton Coast, and Etosha. Our first destination was Sossusvlei and upon leaving Cape Town, I had the excitement and anticipation of the sand dunes pumping through my veins. The drive is not exactly convenient or easy from Cape Town to Sesriem (the town just outside of Sossusvlei), and towards the end of the drive I was begining to question whether the dodgy dirt roads and dents in the car would be worth the satisfaction of feeling the orange sand between my toes. It had been several days by the time we reached Sosssusvlei and by the time we had made it to Sesriem, we were all most excited about the cheap rental car having made it with no issues. There was not enough time to check out Sossusvlei that day so we stayed at a campsite 40km away.

The next morning, we were up and in the car by 5am to get in the line (aka the queue) for enterence into Sossusvlei. We waited for the gates to open until 6am and when they finally did, we went to turn on the car realizing to our horror that the car was dead. Nooooooo! Car after car passed by us as we sat there trying to wave someone down. What were we thinking… no one was going to stop and help us. They had waken up just as early as we had to try to make it to see the sunrise over the dunes. Luckily, Chris had come up with an alternative. He sat in the car as the three of us got behind the car and began pushing towards the gate. Slowly, we built up speed and just when we thought that it wouldn’t work, Chris stepped on the gas, and popped the clutch out with enough speed to start the car!!! YES! Having only lost 20 minutes, we hurridly purchased our permit inside the gate and was on our drive through Sossusvlei. Sixty kilometers later, the road had ended and we decided to park and walk towards the largest dunes 5km ahead. The sun was rising as we began our climb onto the largest dune. The African sun hit the dunes perfectly creating a god-like orange hue on the sand. The shadows exaggerated the perfectly edged lines of the dunes creating unique shadows to each mound of sand. The hike upward drew on as the sun baked the earth. Not yet all the way up, we stopped to strip down to our bottom most appropriate layer. It was then that I recognized that the sun burns so hot during the days that it scorched the sand. The sunny side of the dunes showed a black hue on the surface from the heat of the sun’s rays. ‘Did I bring enough water with me?’ I thought as I wiped sweat off my forehead. This hike had better be worth it.

Reaching the top turned out to be more than worth it. It was breath taking! More so, it was one of the most amazing things that I’ve ever seen in my life. The orange hued sand contrasted dramatically against the bright tourquoise blue sky. There were few green shrubs that managed to survive the heat of the sun below. In certain areas where water would collect at the base of the dunes were white sand floors. From above the white sand pools looked like a winter’s lake frosted over with snow. The sand dunes extended in all directions for as long as we could see. It was brilliant, beautiful, breathtaking, energizing, and peaceful. Enjoying the scene, the four of us took off our shoes, put our toes in the sand and enjoyed this once in lifetime view.