Windhoek
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
37
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Windhoek,
Namibia
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Namibia is known for its great red dunes and the "European like" coastline. We had planned on taking an organized trip into the Namib mainly because without your own 4*4 and without public transport it is very difficult to make it into and out of the desert.
We arrived at 530am. By 10:00am we were paying too much for a dorm room and talking to the backpackers trip center. The best deal or at least the least expensive was a two night trip. Driver six hours the first day and set up camp. Sleep the wake to enjoy a day on the dunes. Breakfast, lunch dinner and sleep in tents again. Bring your own sleeping bag. Wake the next morning and drive the six hours back. All for only 310 USD. We couldn't justify the price. Bryce Canyon in Utah is an incredible, other worldly landscape that leaves a life long impression on you. But I wouldn't necessarily pay someone 300USD to drive me there, loan me a dome tent, point out the major formations, and drive me back. Maybe if I had the money to spare and the opportunity to make it back, or if we were returning home after Africa. But a long walk wouldn't get us there, so we decided to save it for the next time.
We spent a day and a half enjoying the modern comforts of Windhoek, instead. I could see why a few people that we had met who were coming from South Africa were looking for the "real African experience". The backpacker hotels offered easy tours, safe bars and a satellite television. The towns and the transport were easy if you had the money.
Windhoek appeared like a modern western city. That put some off, but we bashed in it. The infrastructure was solid and the streets were clean. We meandered through the first large supermarkets that we had seen for a while, picking up plums, cheese, salami, yogurt and juice. We strolled through a shopping district and Erin purchased a new skirt. I got a liter of fresh cold, pasteurized whole milk and a box of Nesquick. We went to the library and we ate picnics in a public park. where nobody molested us. Many others were doing the same. What a change from some of the places that we had been where we felt almost guilty for walking in the street with bags of food, much less eating a picnic in public. We bought ice cream cones and booked a bus ticket to Cape Town, again online. One couple that we met was unhappy with Windhoek saying," Look around, this could be Brisbane." We appreciated it.
Boarding the bus the next afternoon we saw a group of Germans who had ridden with us from Livingstone. Two of them were wearing identical shirts reading, "5 countries, 21 days, 644 beers, and 2,000km". When one of them saw us he said, "Oh I hope that this bus is nicer than the last one, my seat didn't go back the entire way and the AC was so cold." We nodded and smiled thinking that they should add "the easy way" after the list on their shirts.
Again, we were happy to pay the premium for a comfortable, mechanically sound, orderly bus line. We checked our bags and sat in the upper level. One more overnight bus ride and we would be in Cape Town, the end of our long walk in Africa. That evening on the upper level of the Intercape express driving through southern Namibia we saw one of the most wonderful sunsets of our trip. The air around us was golden; the clouds were rich pinks and blues. In every direction were displays to speak to the soul and touch the heart.
