Day 2 Namibia--Cape Cross

On Sunday morning we woke up and enjoyed an off-script day of vacation.  We try not to shop on Sunday but didn’t have any groceries and so headed out for breakfast.  We’ve noticed that before 8 a.m. and after 5 p.m. Swakopmund is closed up, even more so than a small U.S. city – there is literally nothing open during that time except for gas station convenience stores, and those are down to skeleton crews.  At about 8:30am, we found a fun Bavarian bakery and restaurant in the old German part of Swakopmund.

 

After declining the protective services of the local self-appointed city parking guard (who is going to hurt our car?  There were only five cars on the entire road), we walked in and were seated on the second story.

I ordered an omelet, Briant the eggs benedict, Savvy some eggs and bacon, and Thomas and Rhea some croissant ham and cheese sandwiches with bacon.  BACON!  We all enjoyed the food immensely and watched out the second-story window behind us as Swakopmund slowly woke up.  It has been almost a year since we’ve eaten out at a public restaurant!  And Swakopmund was full of restaurants for “Westerners.”  We grabbed donuts, danishes (DANISHES!), and some croissants for the road for all the gluten eaters, and headed out in search of the LDS branch in Swakopmund.A couple months ago we began researching Swakopmund and the rest of Namibia in preparation for our trip, and came across an LDS short video chronicling the very recent rise of the Swakopmund branch.  The video told the story of the branch president, who had moved from Windhoek to remote Swakopmund and had a dream which he took for direction, and has been instrumental since then in building up the LDS branch here:

Naturally we wanted to worship with these Saints.  We didn’t have appropriate church attire, but didn’t worry about it.  After a couple of false starts, we found the branch, meeting in the ground floor of a small office complex.  We walked in and sat on the back row of a very small branch – about fifteen people were in the room.  As we settled in to Sacrament meeting, I suddenly felt arms around my neck from behind as the branch president’s beautiful Afrikaans daughter with Downs Syndrome came up and gave me a big hug!  It was a touching moment and one that encapsulated all that we felt from this branch.  Once a month the LDS wards and branches have a testimony meeting where members can get up and share their testimony of the gospel with one another.  What a treat to hear the gospel shared and taught in our own language!  It was technically General Conference weekend, however with Africa being 7-8 hours ahead of Utah, we usually have church as usual and then the next weekend, they broadcast General Conference at church.  After a lull in the bearing of testimonies, Bri got up and introduced our family, and bore his testimony about the importance of contribution.  He noted that even though we live in Luanda, a city of seven million people with multiple LDS branches, two of the most important people in our spiritual lives there gained their testimonies in Namibia – Hilario and Elder Siquafenge (who is now serving as a missionary in Brazil), who were both studying in Windhoek when they joined the church; by coincidence, the branch president in Swakopmund was instrumental in Hilario’s conversion before the president moved to Swakopmund.  After a few more testimonies, the president closed the meeting; as soon as sacrament ended, we were mobbed by the fifteen members, all of whom shook our hands and gave us hugs, including the president’s daughter (over and over!).  We talked with the branch president regarding his conversion and our shared acquaintances and took some pictures with his beautiful family.  We said our goodbyes and were grateful for our short time with the wonderful Swakopmund branch – truly we belong to a worldwide church family. 

 After church, we ventured north of the city about an hour to Cape Cross.  In the age of exploration, the Portuguese made landfall there and raised a cross for Christianity and the Portuguese king.  It is also one of the largest seal colonies in the world, home to about 600,000 seals at any given time.  We enjoyed driving the long, open, empty road there and after paying the ridiculously low entrance fee, we drove to the seal colony.
What we found was spectacular – tens of thousands of seals in all directions, lounging on the rocks and sand and swimming in the beach.

  The smell was like the worst smelly seashell x 10 and took a bit to get used to, but the views and the close interaction with nature were spectacular.  
Here the kids are dramatically showing their disgust in the smell.

  Bri and I talked about it afterwards and couldn’t believe the proximity we were allowed – we would never be able to get this close to seals in the States.  We literally were walking around and over and through seals, as close as we will likely ever be to this type of wildlife.  We laughed as we listened to the sounds of the seals—sometimes they sounded like they were burping or passing gas, other times they sounded like lambs or Count Dracula doing an evil laugh.  We spent about a half hour trying to take in this amazing sight and felt entirely overwhelmed by the experience.

We loved all of the different yoga poses and stretches they did.

After taking some pictures of replica crosses and monuments, we headed back towards Swakopmund. 

 On our drive out, we had seen a beach access to one of the wrecked ships that make the Skeleton Coast famous, and stopped there on our way back. 

As the sun set behind us and with the fisherman on one side, the kids frolicked in the surf and Bri and I walked the beach collecting shells and enjoying the moment.  I couldn't believe the beauty and had a hard time putting the camera down!

After getting wetter than we anticipated but having fun, we headed back and Bri cooked dinner for us while I read a few chapters from Anne of Green Gables.  Another wonderful day in Swakopmund on the Skeleton Coast!