Waving at Angola
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2007
1
211
401
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Rundu,
Namibia
Friday, January 11, 2008
We decided we are going to push all through to the border with Angola: a city called Rundu. There are a couple of hotels there. We drive kilometres in the middle of nowhere. This time the dead animal at the side of the road is a dog. We have not seen many dogs yet in (South-) Africa. We are driving on spare petrol for a long time. It makes me nervous. Grootfontein, fuel and lunch. Dr T is looking for a German (!) lunch place, spoken high of in our book, which is ... no longer there, but you knew that. It is replace by a little African place, with 3 dishes on the menu. We take the same: Russian with fries. A Russian is some kind of Frankfurter sausage. With a beer and a coffee, the bill is 4 Euro.
A bit further, we cross 'a' border. Namibia cut off this part of the country because of foot and mouth decease. People here cannot export anything, not abroad, not into the rest of the country. And it really feels like we crossed a border. The people here are even poorer. The huts are smaller. We wonder what they live off!
We arrive in Rundu and drive to the 'best bet in town' lodge, the Ngandu Safari Lodge and we are not impressed. We drive around some more. A man is filling up his car with containers of water from the river. And he is the lucky one. On every street you see women carrying those on their heads.
The Tambuti lodge comes out nicely in our Lonely Planet too but is a dump. The restaurant does not exist anymore. We find a nice hotel, which is closed for the holidays, till the 21st of January: long holidays. Another opens after the weekend, but we are before the weekend.
So, we drive back to the 1st lodge. No, we cannot have a hut with view on the river. She showed us one earlier but that one is gone. This old, fat, white lady is NOT a 4 year old and I do not like to be bullshitted. The rooms she showed us earlier had no view, we would have taken it, otherwise. Ah, yes, but the rooms with the view are repainted. She shouts at a painter outside and talks in South African with him, which she does not know I can understand. And indeed, the 4 free huts with the views are painter today and he does not recommend sleeping in them. We take one without euh, anything and declare victory.
Unfortunately, we cannot cross the border to Angola for a day: my passport is no longer valid for more than 6 months, so I cannot re-enter Namibia afterwards.
We go for a meal in the hotel. Here, maximum a forth of the wines on the list are available. Why they do not adjust their list, then? Nobody knows, do not use any logic. We have another 2 year old serving us and us asking for the wine list is too complicating. After a lot of running back and forth, someone else is assisting here. She has no idea how to open a bottle. Let someone taste and fill the glasses. I order fettuccini with chicken and she asks whether I want fries with that. No, i do not want any fries with pasta. Baked potatoes then? No, nothing, she gets very confused. Hubby has steak. It takes them more than an hour to prepare this. At another table, a guy, who is not used to 4 (or 2) years old is getting VERY stressed and angry.
When the food finally arrives, it is nice. My sweet Hubby leaves her a tip, as if there was any service.
