Saturday, June 14, 2008

African Adventure: Aaron has his new passport and I will get pickpocketed tomorrow! (Jan 19)

Current Location: Windhoek, Namibia.

Highlights: Aaron has a new passport, tomorrow I will try to get pick-pocketed on film, and we will search for bushman cave paintings.

Upcoming: Swarkopmond on the coast, seal colony, flamingoes, and hunting for crystals.

Current GPS Coordinates: LAT: S 22.565.89 LONG: E 17.071.82


Aaron was issued a new passport today. This was not a painless process and the poor chap had to deal with a very rude and unhelpful British woman who was working in the American Embassy. He went in yesterday and was given instructions. Today some of those instructions had changed, specifically the cost of the new passport which was $40 yesterday and $55 today. Fortunately, the head consular official came to Aarons rescue. He gave the woman a talking to and listened to Aarons story. He then said that the passport would be ready for him that afternoon and even gave him some money to buy lunch. What a nice guy.

Tomorrow we leave for the coast and continue with our journey. Before we go, we need to get a permit in town to drive along the Welwitschia road where as the name suggests; the bizarre Welwitschia plant grows. But we also have something else planned for town. This evening a German pilot staying here came in and told us he was almost pick-pocketed in the street by kids selling newspapers. Its almost common knowledge that many of the kids selling newspapers try to pickpocket tourists and even the lonely planet guides warn of this and how they do it. Since this is probably the safest place in Africa to get pick-pocketed, we are going to try and film me getting pick-pocketed. You see the pickpockets are kids that don’t want confrontation and run away easily. So I am going to look as much like a naive tourist as possible and wonder along the main street in the daylight while Aaron sits with his camera in the Landy to try and get it on film. Now I debated whether I should even mention this is a diary entry as so many kids are following the Edventure diary entries and this is not a good example to set. However, I want to use it as a lesson about life, especially life in Africa, and in doing so I hope it will make kids wiser and more careful about the world around them. The other reason I debated about posting this is because I know that Gena will flip-out. Gena, don’t worry.

We have put together three more video clips, one of feeding the cheetah, another of the dunes, and another of us tunneling into the termite mound to see the fungus garden. I hope the web site guys at ASU post them to the site.

No comments: