Landfall in Namibia

The MV Explorer (the name of my ship) is now leaving the port in Namibia. The past five days have been extremely enjoyable. We arrived last Friday in the port of Walvis Bay which is Namibia’s only port. We are the first Semester at Sea participants to journey into Namibia. Not one person on our entire ship of over one thousand people has ever been to Namibia before. This was definitely not a tourist stop. Many of the locals have never been exposed to so many foreigners before. It was about a mile walk from where the boat was docked to the closest sign of civilization. On Friday I walked around Walvis Bay where there were only a few small shops that mainly sold western style clothes. There was not much difference in these stores from the ones at home , based on few that I saw. It was a very quiet town although during our diplomatic briefing we were told the crime rate went down from critical to high. I felt more safe in Namibia than I did in Salvador. The night life was a lot of fun, although the restaurant service was very slow. At one restaurant called Crazy Mama’s it took 3 hours until my meal was brought out. It was not a bad thing, just a different way of life. All the taxi drivers played American music as well as did the dance clubs. It’s crazy to think how influential American pop culture influences so much of the world.
A few locals asked where we were from and we said America and they all seemed to envy us. It is still hard for me to understand why different cultures think America is so great. Well I mean I know why, I am just not used to being respected so much just because of where I am from. Saturday I went to Swakopmund which is a German town about a half hour away from Walvis Bay. There was a little market there where I managed to haggle for a wooden bowl with a giraffe sticking out of it. The guy wanted 180 NAD but I only wanted to give him 40 NAD. It took me about 25 minutes to talk this guy down. It was very entertaining and no one believed I got if for so cheap of a price. 40 NAD is like 5 US dollars.
I stayed over night in Swakopmund from Monday to Tuesday. The hotel we stayed at was called Deutsches Haus. It was very quaint. Many German tourists come to this town which was interesting to see the mix of Germans and Afrikaans. The German food was delicious. One meal I had Schnitzel and sauerkraut, which was 10 times better than any I have tasted in the U.S. Tuesday was the most fun. I went quad biking in the desert. For two hours I was basically on a roller coaster. We would just ride around the huge sand dunes going up really steep inclines then cutting the edge real fast to go down again. I do not know how I did not fall off. It felt like the 4-wheeler was going to roll on me quite a few times. The pictures are amazing, I wish I had enough internet time to upload them.
We arrive in Cape Town, South Africa on Friday! I have to go do school work now for the first time in over a week. I does not feel like I am in school because my classes actually interest me and I do not really have to do a lot of work, so I am basically on a 3 month vacation around the world. If there is anyone out there who would be interested in doing this please feel free to email me at jmwinters@semesteratsea.net
I want to thank everyone who has been emailing me, I really appreciate it!

Ok and now for the good stuff. The drinks in Namibia are really cheap, about one U.S. dollar. At one of the German restaurants we got 3 liter beers. I could not even lift the thing when it was full, we had to tilt it haha! I also had cider there which is similar to a white wine but a lot smoother. Oh and I had a shanty which is beer and lemonade mixed. All of the bars were packed with semester at sea kids and the bartenders were very overwhelmed to say the least. The first night, last Friday, we went to a bar called The Raft which was a restaurant/bar in the middle of the water. After drinking all we could there, everyone went to Champs, which was a dance club. A lot of people continued to drink there but I just danced the rest of the night. Saturday night we stayed in and watched a movie to recover from the night before. Sunday night we went to Crazy Mama’s, had 2 bottles of wine there and then told the taxi driver to take us somewhere fun. So we ended up at this brothel. Haha it was hilarious, some of the SAS guys would dance with local women and then the women would ask them for money. It was very entertaining. Monday night was the 3 liter beer night at the German restaurant. After that we went to Rafters where I danced all night until we went to another club which had little balconies where we could dance on. From there we walked back to our hotel singing at the top of our lungs in the middle of the street. Don’t worry I am always with a large group of people. Good times in Namibia!