Getting to Namibia – I don’t like hyperactive 14-year-olds

So, I’m writing this retrospectively, about 3 or 4 weeks so, and I’m sure I’ll miss some points, but anyways, here goes…
Kyla and I left Lesotho Saturday, June 21st to spend the night in Bloemfontein because our bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 Sunday morning. Kyla’s birthday was actually on Sunday, so we had a bit of a party in our hotel room Saturday night in celebration. For us, that basically means decent food (cheese, truffles, sushi, mmmmmmmmmm) while sitting in bed watching quality television. This included a show called “pimp my ride” whose purpose seemed to be to take trashy cars and make them as gaudy as possible, and “the amazing race” whose contestants included teams titled “beauty queens” and “male models”. So yes, calling the shows quality is a stretch. It’s nice to see that other countries are getting the best of America. I also love that I can now claim that, thanks to peace corps and my time in Lesotho, I have now seen an episode of both “survivor” and “the amazing race”. These are the things that make this job worthwhile. Anyways, after a nice sleep on a large bed whose springs I couldn’t feel, Kyla and I woke up and walked to the bus station.
The bus actually left on time. My bus to cape town earlier this year was 3 hours late. The trip to Windhoek was to be made in 2 parts – bloem to upington, and then upington to Windhoek. The first part was pretty uneventful, as I recall. When we got to upington, we had time to grab a bite to eat, and then boarded a new bus, a double-decker, for the second half of the journey. We were sitting in the second row from the front of the bus, on the second level. In front of us and to the left were two Americans, a woman and her 16-year-old nephew. It was fun talking with them. The boy was actually an aspiring photographer who was hoping to one day work for national geographic. He had come to Africa with a lot of equipment and apparently had gotten some good photos. He gave us his website, but I don’t think it’ll be ready for a while. He was actually extending his stay in the hopes of getting to Zimbabwe if things cooled down. Good luck.
There was also a south African guy sitting in front of us. I think he was maybe a couple years older than me, and he had worked in Namibia but currently had a farm in south Africa. We were invited to visit if we wanted. This happens a lot, as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten a few invites to visit people’s farms. Kyla and I actually hitch-hiked from Lesotho to bloem (don’t worry mom – it’s safe) and were invited to stay at the woman’s house next time we visited.
And then there was the boy sitting next to me. He was 14 years old and really nice, but had an inability to sit down and be quiet. I talked with him for a little while and then pulled out my book as a subtle hint that I wanted some quiet. This didn’t work. He just kept talking and occasionally asked “am I bothering you?” which was almost more exasperating because the answer was so obvious. So I put on my ipod. This is part of the reason I love my ipod. It can block people out, especially bo-ntate who are hitting on me in taxis, though it’s not 100% effective, as you will find out in a few blogs. Anyways, cranking the music up blocked him out, and kyla eventually handed him a book of puzzles to occupy him and shut him up.
Eventually we reached the south African border. We all had to get out, get passports stamped, and get back on the bus in the middle of a kinda chilly night. This should have been all we had to do, but someone (guess who – yep, the 14 year old) was carrying produce across the border which isn’t allowed (I think there’d been some disease issues) so we all had to get out, get our luggage, and have it scanned. This was another hour and a half of standing in the cold. The girl behind me made a joke about the border patrol thinking I was an American terrorist. She was nice, though, so we got talking, and that helped pass the time. When we finally got back on the bus the 14 year old actually started complaining about the way the immigration officers had treated him. Seriously, everyone was upset at the delay, and not very happy with him, and he was complaining about his vegetables being examined. Sigh.
About 10 km down the road we stopped again to go through Namibian immigration. Then, we were on our way. The bus driver was apparently determined to make it to Windhoek on time, despite the delay, and I guess he must have been driving quickly because we did make it there when we were supposed to. Kyla and I got our luggage, hopped the free shuttle to the cardboard box (yes, that is the actual name of the backpackers – like it?) and drove off into the sunrise.