On the ninth episode of Travel Tales by Afar, season five, Afar audio engineer Nicolle Galteland discovers why Namibia is “the best place to learn how to drive stick” on a not-so-smooth solo trip where she tries to visit Etosha National Park, the Skeleton Coast and the Sossusvlei desert.
Transcript
I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Travel Tales by Afar. Every week, we hear stories of life-changing travel from poets, scientists, authors, entrepreneurs, and so many more.
This week, we’re going to hear from the woman who makes this podcast sound great every week: our engineer, Nikki Galteland. Nikki is, not surprisingly, a big traveler. She’s ridden the rush-hour trains in Mumbai, hiked through walnut groves in Kyrgyzstan, and learned how to throw an elbow at a Muay Thai gym in Bangkok.
And when she was 23, she got a grant to travel around the world, mostly solo. The grant asks travelers to immerse themselves in unfamiliar cultures and activities in areas of the world— and Nikki really committed to the idea. She rode crowded city buses, crossed countries in packed train cars and slept in the bunk beds of many shared hostel rooms… until that is, she got to Namibia.
One hot October morning, when I was 23 years old, I walked up to the parking lot of a Hertz car rental company in Windhoek, Namibia. I was accompanied by a friend I hadn’t seen until I was about 12, who just so happened to be living in Windhoek.
She was cool as a cucumber, but as my eyes adjusted from the blinding sun to the dark, air-conditioned rental office, I couldn’t stop thinking about if I looked nervous.
Yes, I had a reservation to rent a car—but I was guessing I only had a 50-50 chance of actually driving away with one.
Namibia is a country on the southwest coast of Africa. It has a big stretch of coastline with the Atlantic and a long skinny panhandle on the other side that juts out, reaching toward the middle of the continent.
Just a day before, I had taken an overnight bus across that panhandle, from the world’s largest waterfall, all the way down to Namibia’s capital city. The ride was bumpy and long but I was used to it. I had been taking a lot of buses and trains and shared taxis over the previous eight months because I was doing a solo trip around the world, and I felt like public transit was the right way to make sure I was immersing myself as much as possible in every moment.
But I was starting to burn out. And here, this morning, in Namibia, I was brimming with excitement at the idea of renting my own car.
I know, for many of you, renting a car is the least interesting part of your trip. A mundane chore on the way to adventure.
And it might have felt that way to me too. The rental employees were friendly and the paperwork was all in order. But as I signed at the bottom of the last page, I noticed my hands were shaky.
What I knew—and the rental company hopefully didn’t—was that I was signing the paperwork for a car with a manual transmission. A car that I didn’t know how to drive.
I had done some research before arriving at this point. I knew before I got to Namibia that I desperately wanted to rent this car. Up until this moment, “solo” travel for me had been anything but. It was all shared hostel rooms and crowded trains for me. I needed some time alone with my thoughts, but I also wanted to keep moving. I had read that Namibia was a great place to drive as a tourist, and right away, I was in love with the idea.
I also knew that, at the time—this was back in 2012—it’d be darn hard to find an automatic car in Windhoek. Automatics just weren’t really available. I hear it’s different these days, but back then, if you wanted to rent a car in Namibia, you really had to drive stick.
Now, driving a manual is a skill I’d always wanted to learn. I remember my parents explaining how a manual transmission works during dinner one day in my teens, I’d looked up some diagrams and tutorials online, and my now husband even gave me a lesson in his car shortly before I left the U.S.
But I cut that lesson awfully short because, even with the kindest of teachers, I’m the type of person who hates learning things in public.
When I was five, if my dear parents ever asked me a math-related question, I’d duck down behind some furniture so they couldn’t see me as I counted on my fingers and marked little lines in the carpet to help me calculate.
The first time I tried a Skidoo, I was utterly incapable of stopping smoothly, making turns at speed, really doing anything . . . until I got to take the machine out on the lake alone and everything became easy.
So, the thought of trying to drive this car off the lot, in front of the nice employee who had just taken my credit card had me sweating more than the sun beating down from the clear blue sky.
Luckily I had this friend with me. Let’s call her Samantha. And she was in an entirely different predicament.
See, she could drive stick with confidence . . . but she was part of a program in Namibia which, for insurance reasons, had made it very clear that she was absolutely forbidden from operating a vehicle during her time in the country.
So, even though she was hosting me at her home and had agreed to help me with the cockamamie heist of a car I couldn’t operate, we had decided that it’d be best if we made it seem like I was going to be the one and only driver.
When the attendant finally handed me the keys, I walked up to the driver’s side door. But then they said that they had to double-check the spare tire in the back. As their head disappeared under the hatch of the little silver Nissan Micra, Samantha and I seized our opportunity.
I quickly, and as quietly as I could, tossed the keys to her over the hood of the car. She caught them in one hand and we did a silent fire drill. When the clerk popped back up, Samantha was in the driver’s seat. The attendant gave us a wave, and she drove, smooth like butter, right out to the street.
Now, do I think the young Hertz employee would have cared if we just switched drivers right in front of him? Unlikely.
And do I think we actually tricked him simply by being two white women of similar age, height, weight, and hair color? I mean . . . that’s extremely unlikely.
So, was this kind of heart-pumping caper really necessary? Probably not. But it was so much fun. Giggling and beaming ear to ear, I looked back and watched the rental parking lot disappear behind us. Flush with victory, I settled into my new car.
After driving just a couple minutes, we pulled up to Sam’s home, and I got my first driving lesson. Press the clutch, shift to neutral, start the car (make sure the emergency brake is off), shift to first, press the gas slowly and smoothly while simultaneously releasing the clutch. She made it look about as easy as eating a sandwich—which I suggested would be a good next step. A quick snack after our escapade sounded good, right? But she, with the kindness and patience of a kindergarten teacher, suggested I try a couple times first.
So, I got behind the wheel. Now, my shyness about learning in public is, like, 10 times worse with driving. Getting my learner’s permit in the U.S. was agonizing. I’m lucky to have wonderful parents who are very supportive . . . but driving to the grocery store with my mom or dad in the front seat often felt like torture.
Anyway, after a little training montage—including several tries in which I failed to start the car at all—I started getting it. The next morning, I got one final tutorial. We practiced a little three point turn and found that I could, pretty consistently, go back and forth, starting and stopping between drive and reverse. So it was time for me to fly the nest.
My plan was to drive a big loop around the country and hit three major areas: Etosha National Park in the north, which is a hot spot for iconic wildlife like giraffes and elephants; then the Skeleton Coast, so named for the many shipwrecks and whale bones known to dot its shores; and finally all the way down to the Sossusvlei Desert, where enormous red dunes march across the landscape, burying homes and leaving behind the black trunks of ancient trees scorched by the desert sun.
Setting off on my own, for the first time in ages, I delicately maneuvered my little car through the city. Traffic was light and breezy. The roads were mostly wide and well marked; English is the official language in Namibia, so that part was simple. Driving on the left didn’t even bother me. I was feeling like I could really do this.
And then, as I approached my on-ramp, with the straight, flat, unimpeded highway beckoning, I saw a police barricade.
Immediately my mind started racing. Was my passport easily reachable from the front seat? What about my driver’s license? Were they going to hassle me about the rental car paperwork? And, most importantly, if I stalled the car in front of them, would they somehow decide that I wasn’t fit to drive?
I slowly rolled down the little hill, stopped level with the officer standing in front, and lowered my window. He asked for my paperwork, and I handed everything over as casually as I could, but again my mind fixated on not looking nervous, which is the most surefire way to look nervous.
My shoulders were tense, the hot wind off the road was blowing dusty sand into my open car window, and sweat was dripping down my back. The officer asked me some questions—which, of course, I had to ask him to repeat because my brain was not working. After just a few moments, he waved me on, which was a relief, but the real trial was still ahead.
I needed to smoothly start the car, start driving, and pick up speed enough to merge onto the highway—reaching a height of shifting through gears I had not yet ever practiced. And all with a gaggle of uniformed men watching me.
One tiny false start and a couple quizzical looks later, I was off like a rocket. Honestly, too fast. I vroom vroom vroomed my way up to speed with the frenetic energy of a box of bricks rolling down a hill.
Nevertheless, I was on my way. I looked in my rearview mirror several times to make sure that the police weren’t following me to stop my reckless journey and put me back on a bus where I belonged. But they stayed at their station, and I felt like I was a teen again, driving alone for the first time. It was total freedom. The air was warm as I whipped up the road, window still down. I set my eyes on the horizon and just drove.
Namibia, in my naive opinion, is actually the best place in the world to learn to drive stick. For one, the highways are mostly straight and flat; there aren’t many cars, and the ones that are there are happy to casually pass or be passed. It’s easy to see far into the distance, and the weather was beautiful. All bright-blue skies, tan dirt and grass, and scratchy looking trees dotting the landscape.
One hazard that kept me on my toes was the idea that wildlife might try to make a run for it across the road. There are signs every so often warning of baboons and warthog crossings—very much like the signs warning of deer on the mountain highways in Washington state, where I grew up.
Horrifyingly, I recently learned that there are about 1.5 million deer collisions in the U.S. each year. I guess I don’t know how many warthogs are struck in Namibia, but I hope it must be far, far fewer. Still, I watched my speed and kept my eyes peeled. Eventually, I did see some warthogs rutting around in the tall grass near the road, and later I even spotted a small troop of baboons! But, with my new found driving prowess, it wasn’t too hard to slow down and even stop at the periodic pullout areas, where I eventually ate lunch at a cement picnic table in the shade of a tree.
After a blissful day of alone time, I pulled up to the home of Adam, a friend of a friend of a friend, just as the sun was setting. I excitedly recounted my day, and we made plans to visit Etosha National Park together in the morning.
We got up bright and early and made the relatively short drive over to the park entrance, where we bought tickets and a vehicle day pass for about $20 total. Many park visitors stay at camps and resorts near or even inside Etosha, and guided tours are absolutely available. But we were here to take advantage of the self-drive safari option. A friendly gate attendant handed us a map, gave us a couple of tips, and welcomed us in.
There are two big rules for doing a self-drive safari in Etosha National Park. One: Don’t hit the animals! Obviously. This was going to be a slow and cautious adventure.
And two: Don’t get out of the car, at all. This one felt a little harder because it would just be so nice to stop and stretch our legs or maybe stand up to get a better photo of some incredible creature that I’d only ever seen in zoos and picture books.
But we were warned that a variety of dangerous beasts could easily get the best of us and that lions, in particular, are pretty hard to see coming. So, with those two rules, we set off unguided, just two dumb twentysomethings, in a car I could pretty much drive.
Immediately we saw some giraffes and pulled over to watch them nibble on a tree. I could hardly believe that we were allowed to drive ourselves in a place with real wild giraffes.
Then, as we rumbled our way down a long barren stretch of road, we saw three enormous elephants coming up from the right. I killed the engine (only partially by accident), and we waited as they crossed the road right in front of us. They were huge, with smooth, bright tusks, and so close that I could see their eyelashes—long and wiry—framing big, tranquil brown eyes.
I’ve always been the person on a trip who wants to point out and talk about every squirrel and bird I see. But something different happens when I’m near a really big, wild animal. The feeling of awe is overwhelming. I loved the feeling that the hunk of metal I was controlling was just a small obstacle in their path, and my social anxieties were even less important. I think I held my breath for a long time as they meandered by.
As we went on, we saw a furry black-backed jackal resting in a sliver of shade, some speckled guinea fowl strolling in a group, and a ton of sweet-looking springbok, which are a delicate, little type of antelope.
When I first noticed a blue wildebeest moving through some small trees off to our right, I quickly hit the brakes, and I promptly killed the engine so we could take a look. Adam and I laughed and the wildebeest didn’t even look over.
As we drove further along, we spotted a herd of zebras up ahead. We slowed and then suddenly they were everywhere, meandering through the bushes on either side of the dirt road and straggling in ones and twos across the path. Mesmerized, I lifted my foot the rest of the way off of the gas pedal and stalled the car, again, for, like, the 10th time that day.
This happened so often that eventually I became smooth and confident. It was like a month’s worth of stopping practice in the course of an afternoon.
I realized that I could now look around and focus on other things. I could talk. I could multitask. I’d remember what to do before I slowed to observe ostriches just yards from my window. To this day, I like to say that zebras actually taught me to drive stick—no disrespect to the several humans who also helped.
We eventually made it to a portion of the Etosha pan where a bunch of animals were gathered to take a drink from the rare bit of water available at the end of this dry season. It wasn’t much to look at landscape-wise—basically a big puddle with bedraggled trees around one side.
But it was also the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. All in view, all at once, there was a huge family of elephants, including babies, playing in the water and splattering themselves with mud. Giraffes, springbok, wildebeest, gemsbok with horns like rapiers, and greater kudu horns like enormous curly fries, tons of cool birds, and even a lone rhinoceros.
All of these animals hanging out together felt like a scene from The Lion King and truly something I didn’t know really happened in the wild.
And I was just driving up to it as casually as pulling up to a bar back home—you know, the boring watering holes where I almost never marveled at wild beasts.
Before we left the park, we noticed a cluster of guided safari cars. Curious, we stopped (successfully this time) and were rewarded with a view of a lone lion napping under a tree. Seeing him flopped on his side in the rocky terrain, I had two thoughts: One, ouch, that doesn’t look like a very comfortable place to rest; and two, we would have never spotted him without help. Another point in favor of staying safely inside the car.
At the end of the day, I didn’t want to leave, but you can’t drive yourself in the park after sundown, so we had to scoot.
I dropped Adam off at home, and the next morning I stocked up on food and water, said goodbye, and settled into the car. It was time for solo road trip part two: the spooky Skeleton Coast!
The west coast of Namibia where the land meets the Atlantic ocean is desolate. The desert sand is dry and dry and dry, and then all of a sudden it’s the beach, and there’s the vast Atlantic stretching to the horizon.
I was looking for solitude and here I found it. The dark gray sky felt like it was pushing down on the gray landscape and dark, choppy water.
I entered Skeleton Coast National Park at the Ugab River Gate, aka the gates of hell. The large, swinging gate here was shaped like the skulls and crossbones of a Jolly Roger, and they were flanked by enormous, bleach-white whale ribs. It wasn’t exactly hell but it was forbidding.
The whole landscape seemed drained of life and color, and as I parked the car near the road, all I could hear was my own breath. Then, as soon as I opened the door, the wind roared in my face and sent my hair flying.
I grabbed a sweater from the back seat and started walking on the smooth, wet sand. Soon, I came across the remains of a shipwreck jutting into the air and contemplated what a terrible predicament it would have been to wash ashore here, where it feels like there’s nothing hospitable for a hundred miles. My mind then darted to my car, a barely visible silver speck in the distance, and what a disaster it’d be if anything happened to it while I was here all alone. Better to not stray too far.
The only sign of life I remember seeing was some fresh tracks in the sand—big paw prints—which I later learned were likely from a brown hyena walking the shore alone just like I was. I imagine their presence really matched the vibe.
After staring out at the ocean with the wind ripping at my clothes for quite a long time, I decided I was ready to see something living again.
And boy did I. Just an hour down the road was the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, and after the utter solitude of the Skeleton Coast, the sound and smell of this fur seal colony was shocking. It was wall-to-wall life. The seals were jostling and barking, and the babies were bleating like little blubbery goats. It looked like a fur seal Times Square.
I took in the cacophony and entertained myself by taking pictures until the sun started to set and I started to shiver.
I ate in the restaurant at the Cape Cross Lodge and then slept in my car because, well, that’s something they were set up for, and it seemed like a good way to save a little money. I remember that the hotel provided me with a pillow and clean white blanket, which I suspect isn’t always part of the car camping deal, but I was grateful and feeling pretty darn good about this latest chapter in my solo travel life. I fell asleep to the sounds of seals and the sea.
I woke up to the salty sea air at dawn and stumbled out of my car to tidy up and hit the road. I had just 48 hours left in Namibia before I was due back in Windhoek to return my car and catch a bus to Cape Town, South Africa.
My next stop was Sossusvlei, the iconic dessert in southern Namibia where enormous red dunes stretch up to the deep blue sky. The images of this place were perfect screensaver fodder and felt like a kind of landscape celebrity in my mind. I was going to see those wild-looking, blackened trees in this colorful place with my own two eyes.
As I made my way, the road started getting rough. Luckily I was pretty good at dodging potholes and didn’t mind the bounce of the rocky terrain. But in certain places, the road was rutted, and the car would sort of pull one direction or another as it tried to follow the tracks laid before it. After a while, it felt like I was always fighting a rightward pull even when the road seemed smooth. And boy oh boy was it getting bumpy out here.
Then the thought crept into my head: I might have a flat tire. But it was the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t seen a gas station or town or even another car for ages. And I’d never changed a tire before. So, I drove a little more, nice and slow, and tried really staring into my mirrors to assess if there was evidence of a flat. I didn’t see anything.
But the thought wouldn’t go away, so I eventually stopped. I checked for deadly animals in the landscape: Nothing but bare rock and sand as far as I could see, and so I got out of the car.
The sun was immediately scorching, and sure enough, my tire was flat. Not only was it flat, it was shredded to bits. The tire was just a stringy, rubber fringe, so chopped up I’m surprised it was still on the rim at all. Apparently I’d been driving on this flat for quite a while.
I knew I had a spare and a jack, so I got those out and stared at them as sweat beaded on my face. Like driving, I “technically” knew how to do this. I’d seen people change tires before. I guess I’d googled it once. But suddenly all that knowledge felt flimsy and inaccessible.
I flushed with embarrassment even though there wasn’t another soul around for miles.
Like, do you ever think about how annoying it would be to die in a way that seems really dumb? Like peeing on a live wire or eating something clearly marked “poison”? I suddenly felt like I was flirting with a Darwin award for driving into the desert without a basic life skill.
Wishing I had reception to call for help but knowing I was in this alone, I got to work. And then, just as I was pulling the destroyed tire free, an SUV appeared in the distance. I eagerly waved them down, and several nice people, other tourists, got out and allowed me to explain my predicament. They helped me finish up under the hot desert sun, and I thanked them profusely.
They left and I got back in the car, not dead, and freshly aware that, even out here, I’m almost never really alone.
Then I pulled out my map and sighed. I was still a long way from the fantastical Soussusvlei desert . . . and I needed to get this tire replaced. The spare was puny and clearly not fit for driving long distances or at high speeds.
The closest tire shop was behind me in a town called Walvis Bay. But I’d be arriving after business hours, which meant I couldn’t get help until the next morning. And that meant, even if the shop mechanics worked fast, I wouldn’t be to Soussesvlei until nightfall, which meant I didn’t have time. I wasn’t going to see those red dunes and scorched trees on this trip. With a heavy heart, I limped my way into town, found a quiet spot, and spent another night in the car.
I was disappointed but also somehow content. I marveled at how nice it was to pull up to a new town after dark and have a space to myself where I could just eat a granola bar and watch the stars. The machine that felt so intimidating to me a few days ago now felt like home.
The next morning, I got the tire fixed, got a good burger and fries and, with a little sadness, started the drive back to Windhoek.
It was only a four-hour drive back to the Hertz lot where I’d started six short days ago. But this time, I wasn’t worried about warthogs or flat tires or police barricades. OK, I was a little worried about flat tires. But I felt calm. Confident. I could shift like a pro; see a majestic animal and stop without stalling the car. And while I don’t necessarily recommend learning to drive stick on a solo road trip, Namibia is a pretty perfect place to do it.
Something about this little project made the whole trip more fun and more meaningful. Being up against the wall made me feel vulnerable and brave and, surprisingly, even more connected to the people I encountered than I had felt in many crowded hostels and train cars before.
I had a sense of agency and competency that stayed with me into Cape Town, where 24 hours later, I was renting another stick shift. And this time, I drove it off the lot without a backward glance.
That was Nikki Galteland. In addition to her work for Afar, Nikki is a reporter and audio producer for Things That Go Boom, a podcast about national security and international relations. She also produces narrative podcasts for Lemonada Media, and she co-produces a sci-fi Western fiction podcast called Looters, where five talented actors improvise a long-form story using a role-playing game that’s very similar to Dungeons and Dragons.
So she stays busy! When she’s not immersed in the podcast work, she still travels—and though she hasn’t driven a manual transmission since she left South Africa, she feels pretty confident she could still do it. You can follow Nikki’s work on her website, nicollegalteland.com, and stay up to date with her podcast at looterspodcast.com and on Instagram @looterspodcast. We’ll link to it all in the show notes.
Next week, we’ll be back with a story from Deesha Dyer, the former social secretary in the Obama administration—and founder of the nonprofit BeGirl.World Global Scholars.
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This has been Travel Tales, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composed and produced by Strike Audio.
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