namibia pics posted at http://robinliu.org/africa/namibia.html.

sitting here in johannesburg airport waiting for my flight to hong kong…

after our adventure leaving khaudum np, max and i headed up to the northeast section of namibia to the caprivi strip.  much more ‘african’ with little villages along the way.  we stopped to find someone to deliver a message.  ended up at this small village school.  as soon as we stepped out of the car, about 20 little kids mobbed us (right behind the ‘beware of children’ sign).

from there headed to the border yesterday, drove through botswana to zimbabwe and victoria falls.  saw the falls yesterday afternoon, had dinner at the british colonial victoria falls hotel (that was really, really weird, definitely *not* african).  max dropped me off this morning at the airport and he’s driving back to windhoek through botswana…

these three weeks have gone by fast, as usual, now onto what i’m sure will be an emotionally draining 2 days in hong kong…

made it out of khaudum np with some difficulty and lots of adventure/drama.

now we’re in the caprivi strip, hopefully we’ll make it to victoria falls.

due to a family illness, i will now fly from johannesburg to hong kong, then back to SF.  so my trip will have me circumnavigating the globe, from oak to dc to dakar to johannesburg to hong kong to sf.

… max almost forgot his camera.

… we got such a good deal on the car (this one’s for max’s benefit)

… we saw 10 lions including a mating pair

… watched the mating pair have sex 4 times

… spent 4 hours in the bunker and had an elephant, hyena, and rhino check us out.

next, off to khaudum park in the east.

after checking out some cool rock paintings yesterday, we’re now in etosha np, the most popular game park in namibia.  we’ll be here for 4 days, 2 days at the research camp max was at earlier.  so far we’ve seen lots of zebra, wildebeast, springbok, ostriches.  rumors of lions near the gate last night and lots of signs of elephants…

right now we’re in walvis bay dropping off one of max’s fellow researchers who came with us on the first part of our trip.  both of us can’t wait to leave the city and get back to the desert…

we ended up renting a 4×4 double cab truck, complete with roof tent, cooking gear, a fridge, everything.  the thing’s amazing.  the roof tent is great, just unfold it at night, crawl in and your set.  even better, it’s a nice platform so i can do pull-ups and other random things on it to stay in climbing shape (or at least pretend).  no major mishaps with driving a stick shift.  both max and i have stalled it a few times.  i actually got it stuck in the sand (some guy came running over to help me get it out).  embarrassing part is it was at a gas station.  at least i didn’t stall into the gas station and have people think i hit the pump.

so far we spent our time in sesrium, west of windhoek, home of the largest sand dunes in the world.  probably over 1000 ft high.  climbed up one yesterday and the view was amazing.  it was also the checkpoint of this 100 mile namib desert race, crazy.  the dunes and landscape are just incredible, so beautiful.  sunrise and sunset on the dunes were really amazing.

not many animals down here, saw lots of springbok, a few ostriches, a mountain zebra (really rare), a bat-eared fox, baboons.  but all the big game animals will be seen when we head up north to etosha.

of course i’m suffering from climbing withdrawel, whenever we drive by anything remotely tall, max just looks over at me and knows i’m judging whether or not it’s climbable.

after a marathon day of traveling (37+ hrs), numerous delays, i finally made it to windhoek.  the trip started out with a screaming woman at oakland, strapped to a stretcher, surrounded by police and paramedics screaming that she was tied down against her will.  then to numerous delays in DC, dakar- where we taxied to the runway then had to go back to the terminal because they thought a service door was open.  not the case.  ended up missing my connection to windhoek in johannesburg, but luckily instead of having to spend a night in the airport like i envisioned, they put me on an air namibia flight that put me into windhoek the same day.

some communication problems at the hostel.  i’d just missed max by 5 minutes and he left the address and number of the place he was staying at.  they only told me that he left the number and would be back.  finally ended up staying there last night and max picked me up this morning.

first stop is to head south to see the sand dunes, then up north.  we’ll make a stop at etosha and spend a day at the research camp max was at.  max already volunteered me to do engineering work while i’m there.  maybe i’ll build them a solar oven…

i finally finished posting all my photos from this summer and reorganized all the solar oven project photos.

africa photos (including senegal, casablanca, and the gambia) are at:

http://robinliu.org/africa

project photos are at:

http://robinliu.org/africa/projects.html

a few photos from ithaca:

http://robinliu.org/roadtrips/ithaca.html

i guess this will be my final post since i have now left senegal. after working through the weekend, we succesfully assembled the first prototype of the oven. a few mishaps, some things took much longer than expected, but it was at a state that i tested it on monday before i left. there are a couple other things that still need to be done to the oven, putting on the seal and supports for the reflectors, and also adding more screws or rivets to fasten the aluminum insert to the box. but i’m glad i stuck around the extra two and a half weeks and got to see a working prototype. the senegalese team will continue the work of testing it and making improvements for the next prototype. my major concern is how heavy it is. we definitely failed on that goal of making the oven lighter…

after a marathon travel day that began with ronald taking the airport at 1 am and me finally arriving at adair’s place at 6p, i am in new york. it’s nice being back to a place where i can understand everyone and communicate, but also a bit weird. already senegal and life in seems like a distant memory even though i left there a little more than a day ago. it’s a little scary how quickly it is to adapt to life back in the states.

i will post pictures of the oven when i get home and later post my senegal pictures.

the locusts have descended upon dakar. they’re causing major problems in northern africa, eating all the crops, etc. they must be on a similar cycle as the ones on the east coast, since this hasn’t happened in 15 years. yesterday i saw a few at the university, then driving back to yoff in the taxi, i saw a couple swarms of them flying around. didn’t think too much of it until this morning. they’re swarming everywhere. the sky is just this yellowish cloud of locusts flying around. marian’s balcony is littered with locusts that flew into the wall and can’t move, children are trying to kill them and collect them. the garden in front of CRESP is covered with them, it’s scary just trying to walk from the street to the door. sounds like they’re going to be around for a long time too, they’re trying to kill as many as they can before the juveniles mature. scary site, i think i’ll try to stay indoors as much as i can until i leave…