The Great East Wind

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  Windhoek, Namibia
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Remember the wind that tried hard to keep us from arriving in Swakpomund?  We were looking forward to that wind helping us up the 5000ft in to the capitol of Namibia, Windhoek.  We got about 5km out of Swakpomund and pow, we were struggling with a 35km gust that felt as hot as an oven.  The Great East wind!  This is apparently a weather phenomena that occurs once or twice a year and we're lucky enough to experience it.  Normally the wind comes off the ocean and blows onto the hot desert, what we struggled against to get to the coast.  But, because the Windhoek area is high (5600ft), when winter is starting (now) it has a cold snap which then overtakes the prevailing winds and charges with great force towards the ocean.  So, here we are 10km out of Swakpomund struggling again with the wind.  We decided that we would not be detoured by the wind again and to press on.  It did calm down to a whopping 20km headwind and we fought our way 70km out of town with the plan of getting up early the next morning and getting a start before the wind kicks in again

01-Cheetah

.  No such luck, the wind woke us up at midnight howling so hard it was difficult to keep the tent down, with us in it.  When we did get up, 6am it was blowing close to 40km, the sort of wind where you have a hard time walking in a straight line much less biking.  We biked for an hour in that wind, making it about 5km then decided this was too frustrating to be good for us and thumbed a lift 90km out of Windhoek.  So, we're still able to say we biked into Windhoek :)
We met some nice people in the NE corner of Namibia about a month ago and they said, when you're in Windhoek, give us a call.  We did and they invited us to stay with them.  How generous!  We have use of their Mother-in-law suite, food, laundry and computer, it has been quite generous of them to host us.  The husband is also quite knowledgeable of the biking in the area and sent us on a great day trip around the outskirts of the city.  It's nice to have a day of biking without our stuff.  In route, we stopped at a cheetah rescue farm in time for afternoon feeding.  Graceful animals, it's easy to see they are related to house cats.
This afternoon we're getting on a bus to Springbok South Africa and starting our line from there, enjoying the west and south coasts of South Africa.  Far more interesting then the scrub (and wind) of the straight line from Windhoek to Cape Town.

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02-Cheetah

03-Outside of Windhoek

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