The Swakop river - the horrors that lurk within

May 23, 2012


That green stuff is springbok urine

I have seen a lot of scary things in my life, Like rebbeca black's music video for that hideous excuse of noise she calls Friday, Pendukeni iithana's swapo colored handbag, Dennis Rodman, Kim Kardshian and Ray J's sex tape (That was really scary), a french woman's moustache and my mother with a leather belt in her hand after I broke one of her new plates when I was 9 years old.

But Most of that pales in camparison to the monstrous things I have been seeing recently in the Swakop River while I've been working. The Swakop River is an ephemeral river, which for those that think ephemeral is a Chinese word means that it only flows and has water when it rains. It runs from Central Namibia all the way to the west coast, it reached the Atlantic in 2010 if I am not mistaken. When it rains it is a swamp that reeks of danger and springbok urine, in the dry season it transforms into white quicksand that swallows 4 Wheel drive cars in seconds (note that that last statement is slightly exaggerated). I have seen things in the Swakop river that will make my dreadlocks stand on end, make Spiderman's spidy senses go haywire and perhaps even make your blood clot, trust me I have seen it all. The worst is the insects, those pesky flying excuses of vermin really piss me off, they fly into your mouth, nose, ears and even your brain if you're not hard headed. I'm lucky I'm not a woman because if those things flew into a woman's cleavage then they will turn her busom into a disco. I have nightmares thinking what they would do if they found a way into my trousers *chills run down spine*.

The things I have endured in that river will make a soldier wet his pants. I've been stuck in sand (the car got stuck in soft sand), I've been pricked and poked by swamp reeds, I've had two face to face encounters with a ten meter long anaconda (I'm sure by now you've figured out I'm exagerating again, anaconda's would die of heat over here), I've had to scare of antelopes by myself and wrestled a tree. But the most frightening episode was when my technician started arguing with me (after we had to crawl through a swamp on our hands, poor guy got scared by an antelope). By the time he finished spewing his bile it was dark and I hadn't even started with my log sheet, so he and my driver left me by myself *traitors!*. By the time I had finished writting it was pitch black, very few people know this but I can't see my own hands in the dark, I'm blind as a bat. So I had two options crawl back to the car through the swamp or follow the only thing I could see, which was white sand in the river. So I followed the sand for about 2 km's till I found a clear area, traversed into the river and walked another two kilometers to the car. I was exhausted, angry and scared as shit coz I had seen several flashing eyes as I passed the swamp and I'm sure that one of them belong to a carnivore.

It gets even worse the deeper you go into the mountains because you have to climb up using all your limbs like a monkey. I have never climbed up mountains that kill you physically like the Naukluft mountains, I thought I was going to die from a burst lung or even worse damage a brain cell or two from lack of oxygen. So there is no doubt that going to the mountains requires strength (No wonder the Zulu ritual for passage to manhood is going to the mountain), basically you need to have balls! I took my driver Rex in to get three samples and all I can say is that after a 100 meter climb he had to let one go, the stench almost killed, he definitely should not have had eggs for breakfast.

The scenery is amazing but the physical exertion makes you sweat like an Indian man eating a hot curry! The geology is awesome but constantly having to watch where you drive is annoying. Although I'm sure most of you can think of more frightening things, I can testify that the Swakop River is not for the faint hearted, it's like a horror movie in black and white.