Seared, but maybe not severed?

First off, I have to rave about the restaurant I went to last night: finally, I’ve found one Joburg restaurant that knows how to prepare seared tuna (La Rustica, 103 Houghton Rd – I don’t own shares, promise!). I’ve learnt to gesture very emphatically to waiters my “tsssst, tssst” manouvre, indicating (with my hand taking on the role of the raw tuna fillet) the precise amount of time each side of the tuna should be exposed to heat. You might think I’d have learnt not to order tuna in Joburg, having been burnt time and time again (much like my poor overcooked tuna fillet), but no – I live in desperate hope that this time I will strike gold, this time the chef will understand; each and every time I hear ‘seared tuna’ listed as a special, I succumb to the adulterous promise of its tender, buttery seduction – and each and every time the slutty piece of fish appears to spend more time in the pan than in my mouth.

It’s not as though Cape Town fares much better these days – I’ve come to realise that the preparation of perfectly seared tuna is a dwindling art.

But anyway. What I really wanted to express today is highly related to a recent previous post, in which I wondered to what extent you were a product of the group of friends you associated with, and in which I stated that there are some people (perhaps groups of people is a better way to express it – one on one I’d like to think you might always find some commonality) that you’ll just never be friendly with.

So, the other day my temporarily (I hope) new Google (Facebook) spat out the name of someone I really liked (platonically speaking, dude in question – don’t get a heart attack now) way back in primary school, but have not seen since (save for one brief, chance encounter during the increasingly-distant varsity days). We started chatting (Chewwie, you’re a common friend, incidentally) and discussing blogs, and when he asked what the name of mine was, he gasped (the exact sound of this was conveyed through Internet transmission, trust me) to hear I’m none other than, of course, the author of this here bloggy-blog. It was total confirmation that as you grow older, you’re exposed to new experiences and different people, and your personality (and ideologies) develops in completely unique ways from each other person you knew as a child, which may either eventually converge more towards, or diverge more away from, the altering personality/ideologies of the adult people who were the children you first met. (Just re-read that, it’s pretty convoluted. In a nutshell: as a result of the personality/ideology transformations we’ve all undergone, we might have less in common with, or more in common with, our childhood friends/acquaintances).

What I’m trying to say is: dude in question, I wonder whether the person I’ve become (which hopefully is not my final ‘state’, I hope more transformation lies in my future) – clearly vastly different than the person I was, or at least appeared to be to him, judging from his ‘gasp’ – has more or less in common with you today than the person I was (or appeared to be)? Yes, it’s a largely irrelevant question, since I’ll probably not see you any more frequently than I have done over the past 15-odd years. But still, I’d just like to know.

Does Facebook credibly offer the promise of long-lost friends/acquaintances rekindling the friendships of the past? Or is it really going to be just an alternative way to communicate with your current friends, once the whole ‘friend’ harvesting craze has died down?

Turn your fucking phone off!

What is it with people, who in the middle of a one-on-one business interaction with you – yes, that’s right, when you’re busy talking to them, in fact, halfway through a sentence they’re busy saying – will stop mid-syllable and take a phonecall?

I mean, if it’s that important, they will leave a message and you can call them back in 15 minutes. Unless you’re a doctor, or have excused yourself before the meeting started, by saying “I’m terribly sorry, I humbly beg your forgiveness for my imminent rudeness, but I’m expecting an important call from the President of Nicaragua, and I’m forewarning you that I will have to interrupt our incredibly important meeting for a few minutes to talk to him” then, I regard you with the contempt you deserve.

The dude who came to fix my laptop yesterday committed this sin while I was demanding that he explain to me why he hadn’t replaced my laptop battery when that was one of the two repairs I had requested from the company. He had the gumption to answer the call without even excusing himself for doing so.

But this dude has nothing on the beauty therapist who unbelievably answered a call mid-way through my first-ever pedicure on Saturday. Now, the irony is that my very poor command of the Zulu language strung together a sentence from a few key words of hers “client ukufonela 20 minutes” [okay, make that 3 English words plus one Zulu word which I’ve probably got wrong anyway] that made it clear that the person on the other end of the phone got no more information out of her than if they had not got through to her at all and had left a voicemail for her to respond to, a not-so-life-threatening 20 minutes later when she “ngifonela’d” them back. Eish. Oh well, I guess I saved R20 on her tip – which she definitely would have got otherwise, she did a damn good job of it, even if I have no prior pedicure experience to compare it with.

On the weekend front, as busy as I was social butterflying it up with people I haven’t seen in a while, I still managed to spend an inordinate amount of time pining for the Gilb. I thankfully did manage to impress two former colleagues with a butternut soup that I might have initially overmarketed to them, in a ploy to ensure they accepted my dinner invitation. The last time I made this soup was about two years ago, and I even had to call up the friend who gave me the recipe originally to remind myself of it (it did live up to its expectations, though. I’m pretty confident they were bowled over by the sheer… butternuttiness of it all).

And, I made a strange foray out to ESP at 2:45am on Sunday morning, which was a surreal bad flashback to my rave days. The people were as ecstasied-up as they were back then, except… they now had some wrinkles/slightly receded hair and didn’t quite fit into tight shiny raver pants that looked so damn good on them 3 years ago. It was an oddly depressing experience, because I had to acknowledge that I’ve grown older and that this scene is well and truly behind me, and that probably no amount of drugs could make me convincingly slip back into those overwhelmingly good times and forget, even just for a few hours, that times have changed and distinctly adult pressures now weigh on me – the greatest concerns in our lives as twenty-somethings far outweigh the panic around deadlines for varsity assignments, don’t they?

This depressing thought reminds me of another one that struck me about ten years ago at a dinner party my Dad was having with twenty-odd guests. There we all were, sitting around the table, when it dawned on me that most of these adults, well beyond their thirties at that stage, still had tons of kak shit going on in their lives. Yet, no-one really cared, or worse yet, they turned a blind eye to avoid the awkwardness: as a child, people show concern for your well-being, but as an adult, you’re expected to have it all together. Sure, your closest friends will be there for you, but by and large, people will ignore your problems. I could look at each of them one by one and because of my knowledge of their personal problems (thanks to my very gossipy father) I knew that their smiles were calculated strategic expressions rather than a true reflection of their emotional states. A’s wife, seated next to him, was cheating on him with B, sitting across the table from him – and A knew it, too; C’s family was in severe financial difficulty; D’s husband was in the terminal stages of cancer; E, at the age of 37, was in love with a gay man who would never be hers; and so on and so forth. I guess you could argue that these sufferings need to be put in context of the far greater sufferings of so many people in the world, but then W.H. Auden’s words in his poem, Musee des Beaux Arts, hold so true:

"In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure"

Enough of this dreariness, I’m just rather moody right now. More positive thoughts later this week, I promise.

Kennel

In my three-and-a-half years of work experience, I’ve never really been in the dog box before.

My, how times have changed.

It’s rather… refreshing. No, that’s not quite the word. I’m in the poo. I want out, it’s smelly down here. Hand, anyone?


On two – make that three – random asides:

1. Has anyone else seen the ad for Nationwide Airlines? You see a plane full of domestic workers (as passengers, all in the stereotypical maid garb) all getting the regular air hostess treatment. The camera zooms out, where you see the plane flying through the sky, as they are wont to do. Parting caption: “Nationwide. Voted best domestic airline.” Hoots and cackles!

2. The Vodabastards didn’t fix my fucking phone, which means I had to find a Voda“care” (ironic name, isn’t it?) outlet phone number. Accidentally typed www.vodocom.co.za in the address bar, and thought “what the hell? Have they changed their branding overnight?” It’s a complete, thorough cellphone website – you’d be forgiven for being duped. Personally, if they were the cause for a large loss of Vodacom’s business, I’d consider it a wonderful thing. Hellkom has a new best friend! (Haven’t yet checked, but I’d imagine there are MTM.co.za and celld.co.za websites floating about too)

3. It’s amazing how one can fill one’s weekend diary so completely when one’s boyfriend goes away for a boys weekend (with my boys, nogal) – it’s almost like you have a … life again. Dinner on Friday, 2 Saturday morning engagements, 2 afternoon engagements, 1 evening engagement, 2 Sunday engagements. That’s a whole lot more socializing than I get done in a month with the other half at my side (or is that “in my bed”?) Hhhmmmm…

One step forward, two steps back

The weekend started off with my being a real grumpy-grump to Gilb, admittedly through no additional fault of his own beyond my prolonged silent rage about the whole kissing thing (both my lack of ability and the discovery that his best-kissing ex is listed as such on his Facebook profile).

Anyhow, on Friday night I cornered him for a sufficiently long time to get extensive kissing practice in, and he claims he’s seeing (feeling, tasting?) significant improvement in my technique. I gave him the whole third degree about it, to make sure he wasn’t just telling me what I wanted to hear, and after my Nazi-like inquisition, I came to believe he was being truthful. So there, miss bitch ex! Haha! How far along have you come since your last lip-locking adventures with my boyfriend???

But all the good work of Friday night may have been undone on Saturday: my boyfriend would have every right to tell me I’m too forceful in the sex department. See, on Friday night (during my irate part of the evening) we were at his friends’ house drinking and talking shit as usual, where Gilb had pitched up rather triumphantly wielding a six-pack of Amstel he’d found hidden in the recesses of his parents’ fridge. Naturally, all of us advised him against its consumption, but the Gilb would have none of it. “It tastes a little… smoky and … mushroomy” F said. “Whatever. You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to drink it, so that I’ll leave it here and you can drink it instead!” [guzzle, guzzle, guzzle]

As a result, Gilb awoke with a massive headache on Saturday and we had to forego my favourite sex session, the morning variety. I insisted he take every Myprodol and Aspirin we could find, but his headache persisted throughout the day (of course, this didn’t stop him from drinking a fair amount during the rugby), through dinner (Yamato, Illovo – decent Japanese food at twice the price you’ll find it anywhere else) and beyond. But see, there must’ve been some oysters secretly stashed in my udon noodle dish, because I was having none of his excuses. I was so “in the mood” that even that pathetic late night E soft-porn show was arousing me.

I told him to go to bed, planning to sate my own appetite in the lounge (sorry, Peas!) but then did an about-turn and decided I’d take my sex from him, not without his consent (I’m not a rapist, I promise!) but rather by convincing him he actually wanted some: “You know liefie, I think sex will help relieve your headache. It always helps me when I have one, and I’m sure I read that it would do the same for guys in the FHM a while ago.” Poor guy, his head was throbbing so badly he didn’t think to retort with “but you don’t ever buy the FHM…” I sealed the deal by promising that I’d do all the work, he could just lie there. So he did, and I took my guilty pleasure from him, me writhing in ecstasy while he winced in pain. Look, I did stop once or twice during his most pained expressions to ask if it was helping or if he wanted me to stop, but the dear that he is, he let me continue (it’s not like he didn’t get any enjoyment out of it, if you know what I mean).

When we woke up on Sunday morning, he reported that his headache had disappeared entirely, which I victoriously announced as the result of my assistance the night before, but I’m not entirely sure he bought it.

I do feel remorseful for my behaviour though, like I used him – if the situation were reversed, how would I be feeling about it, I wonder? Seems like there’s plenty more work to be done in the ‘gentle intimacy’ department. Sigh. Sex just aint the way it used to be in the old days, innit?

Gilb’s guide on how to kiss, perfectly

Okay, before I launch into the science of graunch stuff (eeeewwww! Haven’t said that word in ages), some other shitty smooching news: on a random whim yesterday, I thought to check out Gilb’s Facebook profile to see how his has grown – I humbly have to apologise to Mark Zuckerberg, seems this thing hasn’t died a quick and faddish yet, in fact there’s been a bit of a revival over the past two weeks.

Anyhow, so there I am scrolling through the Gilb’s profile, when wham! It hits me like a stray spinning sack of potatoes – one of Gilb’s buddies is an ex-girlfriend (no concerns there – in fact, another ex is there too) and… and… and… His description of how they met is “We hooked up for a bit in 2001 and she was the one who taught me how to kiss properly.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taking a moment to breathe. It’s the age-old ‘ignorance is bliss’ scenario – Ant, stop bloody snooping! Of course, I confronted him about it, he just laughed and swears that he’s since “perfected what she taught [him]” and that he doesn’t kiss the same way she used to kiss him (I really shouldn’t tell you that in a moment of utter stupidity – and thank the dear Lord he’s 160km away from that flying sack of potatoes – he suggested that “maybe [I] should get some kissing lessons from her”)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I’m determined to take this bitch out. Not with the potatoes, not with slander, not with a well-placed whoopee cushion. I’m going to take her out with my tongue (but not forcefully – in a hugely turning-on gentle probing manner) and French kiss her into a long-forgotten memory (how to word that properly? There’ll be no kissing of her at all, just out-kissing her! En garde!)

And what better way to accomplish this pleasant task than by learning the rules from the supposed maestro himself?

Here’s the Gilb’s take on the perfect kiss – there are only 3 rules, really:

1. Don’t go in for the kill too quickly – just because you’ve been given the universal “let’s French kiss” signal (i.e. parted lips and a soft dart of the tongue on your upper lip – c’mon, weren’t you reading my last lesson properly???) doesn’t mean you have to start Frenching immediately. Tease playfully for a bit, kissing with both closed and slightly-parted lips, sometimes casually stroking their lips with your tongue. When it’s really time, you’ll know – don’t just mechanically respond to the first universal signal you receive. Read the body language! [Ant’s action-list: Right, I’ll deal. Wait for a bit – BUT, not the same amount of time every time. I need some kind of varying time regime to apply. How about – first time, wait 6 minutes, second time, 4 minutes, third time, 2 minutes, and then revolve back again? That aught to throw him for at least the first four times! Brilliant!]

2. Not every intimate kiss has to degenerate into Frenching – sometimes, a closed-lip kiss is really intimate, no tongue required. Don’t fall into a pattern of always being intimate in the same way. Variety is the spice of life! [Ant’s action-list: speaking of variety, how about more Australian kisses, then? Suits me just fine! But back to the topic at hand… right, this calls for another semi-randomising procedure. How about, every nth kissing time (where n is a prime number) I initiate I do it the French way? Up until a certain count, of course, because at that point prime n’s become increasingly few and far between…]

3. French kissing is not a “I move then you move” process – the tongues should not be ‘sparring’ like swords. Learn to read your partner’s intentions – let them run with a soft probing sequence, and yield. There’s no I-probe-once-now-you-poke-back rule, because this is… you guessed it, TOO MECHANICAL! Sometimes, you want to be in control of the probing and your partner should sense this and let you roll with it, and sometimes you feel like yielding and letting the partner take over. It’s all about quid pro quo. [Ant’s action-list: look for subtle signs – probably a slightly more forceful probe indicates “I’m in charge, missy” while a lingering tongue on your lip is an invitation for you to “come on over”. But, don’t always worry too much about reading his signs – you’ve got to put your own ones out too, that’s only fair.]

Alright, I have to admit it to you, in case I unleash a wake of unhappy kissing couples in the world, I must ‘fess up: three’s a nice number, which is why there are three rules. In actual fact, the Gilb only listed the first two, I thought the third was important – in my most pleasant kissing experiences, the dude has been able to command and surrender appropriately (and Gilb’s included in this category). But, I don’t want you to take this advice from a self-confessed kak kisser, so freely ignore #3 while the first two should lead you to ecstatic kissing heights. Now pucker up!

How do you spite an anorexic, a vegetarian and a Jew?

Well, if your name’s Timmy, you do it by disobeying (not accidentally, either) your wise and entirely reasonable friend’s instructions to cook the bacon separately from the peas and mushrooms, so that 3 out of 7 guests can compile their modular pasta sauces (the ano didn’t want the sauce base – which was cream – either, you understand. Turns out neither did the Jew) and not participate in the glorious combination of all of the above ingredients. Post-rugby bliss, I was ordering guests around like a demon, to get the food ready by a decent hour. Timmy starts by following my instruct… erm, I mean request, then deliberately disobeys me by adding the bacon to the mushrooms and peas “to let their flavours infuse.” Gilb’s conscience wouldn’t allow him to quash his gasp at Timmy’s insolence, and since I’m rather well-tuned to such whimpers from Gilb (and of course frantic “ssshhhh!”es from Timmy) I found out, turned beetroot red in anger, but then burst out laughing too.

Thankfully, the three guests in question were in the room next door, so we had enough time to scoop out precisely three sevenths of the pea-mushroom duo and heavily overdose it with garlic to cover any delectable smoky bacon taste (although there was no point, none of the three would know what glorious new taste sensation they were experiencing anyway). We even garnered praises for the pasta sauce from all three (okay, not the sulky ano, who had vastly altered the sauce by substituting smoked salmon for the bacon and tomato sauce for the cream).

But ja, this was a rare highlight in an otherwise decidedly shitty week, in which I experienced the following:

1. Snooping around till I found out something I wish I hadn’t known and which will cause me an endless amount of stress in resolving its impacts on my life (moral: ignorance truly is bliss. Then you can blame it on someone else)

2. Gilb’s gran suddenly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and dying a few minutes before he got a chance to see her after months of not having done so (moral: treasure your grandparents while you have them, never neglect to pay regular visits, no matter how annoying their diatribe about the weather/their back ache/your working too hard/your not saving enough may be)

3. The very capable president of my ‘young fascists’ society unexpectedly resigning due to not being able to cope with the stress of a hectic job plus recent marriage plus running a not-for-profit youth organization (moral: sometimes your grandparents are right, you may be working too hard and not taking time to smell the roses. Do so while your senses are young enough not to have dulled! Does your sense of smell even deteriorate with age? I’m not sure)

4. After delightfully indulging in the surprisingly generous wine selection at Peas’ friend’s Indian chest exhibition, which included the likes of Meerlust’s Rubicon and Hartenberg’s Cabernet Sauvignon (and that’s not to mention the fabulous selection of chests, too), one measly tainted samoosa saw me spewing the night away (12pm, 3am and 6am) and spending the whole of Friday bed-ridden, when there was lots of work waiting for me in the office. I did get to play up the pain on the rest of the weekend, to eke more sympathy out of the Gilb, which is always a good thing (and results in a full-body massage and pedicure voucher gift, sweet dear sucker that he is). (moral: just when you’re complaining you’re too fat, something comes along and wipes out a few days’ appetite, and hopefully a few kilograms with it. You get what you ask for, after all).

One monumentally good piece of news did arise: congrats to Cherub on news of her engagement, I’m looking forward to a wonderful wedding celebration! (and you have my full permission to change the venue to somewhere outside of SA, we’ll gladly come on over!)

Oh, and on the kissing issue: on the single day of my not feeling atrocious and mustering the desire to kiss and… (all those other details you don’t want too much info on but I seem to have no problem sharing), the Gilb reported some significant improvement, but I can’t tell whether he’s just saying that to reassure me or out of genuine conviction. For your enlightenment and/or future kissing pleasure and/or future kissing confusion and/or future kissing complexes, my next post will contain Gilb’s commandments for the perfect kiss.

Tongue techniques

You may remember my recent report that the Gilb finds my French kissing less than adequate. Far from miraculously resolving their untoward forcefulness, my mouth/lips/tongue have steered very clear of any oral engagement (no, Rev, before you ask, I said ‘oral’ meaning my mouth on his mouth) for fear of further insult. Of course, though he would never admit it, the Gilb must be secretly relieved.

Anyhow, the only way I can think to fix this problem is to resort to wonderful Wikipedia for help on this tongue-wagging (but not tongue gagging) topic.

So I’ll share the secrets to great French kissing with you, in case you’re in the same absurd situation that I am, being involved with someone for four-and-a-half years who only reveals to you a week ago his lack of oral satisfaction. And if you’re one of the lucky ones who kisses with the best of them (but are you sure? I thought this of myself until last week, after all!) then this guide may help you in educating your lippy partners less skilled than yourselves. I gave myself the perhaps over-confident benefit of the doubt and skipped beyond the beginner’s Kissing for Teens guide and moved straight onto the activities of the croissant-eaters:

How to French Kiss

1. Moisten your lips – you know, not dry, not wet, just… the m-word (urgh!)

2. Angle your head – get the head-tilting thing right, no nose-on-nose combat

3. Close your eyes – open-eyed approach, followed by shut-eye lip contact

4. Start with a gentle and closed-mouth soft kiss – “do not lunge in with your lips agape like you’re going to eat them”. [Oops. I think sometimes I might go off the rails as early as this step}]

5. Go Dutch on the decision to go French – “Open your lips slowly and just a little during the kiss so that one of your lips is sandwiched between theirs and one of theirs is between yours. As you are locking and re-locking lips, brush your tongue against your partner's lips ever so slightly. This should make it clear that you want to French kiss” [But if your tongue is half-way down his throat that should also make it pretty clear, right?]

6. Explore with your tongue – “If you and your partner seem to be enjoying the open-mouth kiss, slowly try to open your mouth a little bit more and gently push your tongue a little farther into their mouth. The tongue is very sensitive, and the mere act of touching your partner's tongue with your own will be very pleasant and stimulating for each of you [Run! Head for the hills! Her tongue’s coming!]. Do not stick your tongue too far into the mouth, as this can be a big turn-off. Instead, just gently and playfully touch tongues.” [Oh come now, how long is a piece of string? How far is too far? Give me centimetres, damn it! Past the outer incisors? Before the soft palate?]

7. Go slow – take time to explore your partner’s mouth. [I take that as an instruction to initiate his gag reflex].

8. Mix it up – “Kisses are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same. Once you finally feel comfortable French kissing someone, it is tempting to try to do the same thing every time. Add variety. Sometimes kiss deeper [aha!], for example, and other times pay more attention to the lips than the tongue” [Gilb’s speciality].

9. Read body language – “Everybody kisses a little differently, and each person enjoys different things in a kiss - there is no "right" way to kiss. What separates good kissers from bad is an ability to read a partner's body language and be responsive to their partner [i.e. is his dick hard?]. Of course if your partner pulls away or seems uncomfortable at any time, understand that you have to slow it down. Listen for cues that tell how much your partner is enjoying a particular kissing maneuver [Uh-oh, this sounds far too much like ballroom dancing and the battle for who leads and who follows. Which might shed light on why Gilb and I might battle in the smooching department]. If you hear a sigh or moan, or they begin kissing you back with increased intensity, realize that they are responding with fervor” [see Gilb, I only do it because I’m enjoying it so much].

10. Develop your style – “Good French kissing, like good kissing of any kind, requires practice. You will get better as you do it more [really now?]. In addition, the more practice you have with one person, the more comfortable you will feel kissing them and developing a style that suits both of you.” [No comment]. Feeling more enlightened now? But wait! There’s some handy tips to throw in, too:

Breathe!

Freshen your breath

Beware the teeth

Adapt to new kissing partners’ styles

Vary the length of the kiss

Use your hands

Talk about it [yes Gilb, that one is especially for you]

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to practising my technique out on the back of my hand – I’ve got to get this thing right quick to surprise Gilb pleasantly this weekend!

Tales from our 4-day Namibia town-hop

So, I neglected to tell you all until the last minute that the Gilb and I were heading to Namibia for the long weekend. Oops. Until Standard Bank split from the Voyager airmiles awards programme, I was a default customer who never used her miles (it’s suckers like me that makes these rewards programmes so profitable for the companies, I know). I then learnt that, because of the two companies’ split, all my accumulated miles would be lost if I didn’t use them pronto. So, I reasoned that flying to Cape Town would be a waste seeing as I go there often enough for work purposes. Where’s nearby for a short getaway, a new experience of a place I have not been before, and easy from a logistical perspective (i.e. no visa required, no antimalarials necessary, easy contact with accommodation providers via Internet etc)? Namibia, of course. My Voyager credits were enough to buy one return ticket (at R3,000, excluding airport taxes), which immediately made the proposition highly attractive.

I’m not going to give you a minute-by-minute account of the weekend, but will pull out the highlights:

Observations

- The country really is a 10th province of SA. All the SA banks except Absa are present, you get all the chain retail stores (PEP, Foschini, Woolworths, Pick ‘n’ Pay) and even restaurant franchises (Steers, KFC, Ocean Basket, Primi Piatti). It’s a bit upsetting to see: where are their own formal businesses? Other than some restaurants and hotels, and the mythical Namibian Breweries (see next point), every business seemed to be South African in origin

- In my mind, Namibian Breweries would probably be the shining star Namibian company that the local folk would be really proud of, but why, then, could nobody actually point out its location to us on a map? Gilb and I had reached the conclusion that it was all a sham, that the beer was actually a cheap Chinese import with a false label, when, right at the end of our trip, waiting at the airport for our flight home, we thought to buy a bottle of Windhoek lager and check for the address! We then managed to find this ‘road’ on the Windhoek map. Ah, well, next time

- My memory is vague, but I do remember my father telling me when I was young that the ‘bad South Africans’ had ‘stolen’ a port. Walvis Bay was only returned to Namibia in 1994, making the country’s history as a truly independent nation as recent as ours

- The travel guide I bought was a Globetrotter one, which irritated me so much that I looked to see who had written it, and will lay a complaint with the company. In fact, most travel guides are written by locals, not exciting adventurers who travel to the earth’s furthest reaches (I discovered this fact last year when I thought that I’d like to be a travel journalist in my next life and checked the guides’ websites for job application forms). Of course, this makes total sense from an economic viewpoint, but there are problems it brings too. For instance, the Mozambique Globetrotter which we used last year did not irritate me at all – it listed a range of accommodations and restaurants from budget to upmarket, and seemed to present a fair view of what was available. However the Namibian guide struck me as particularly nepotistic (or just damn lazily put together) – only the most established (and expensive, whilst not necessarily being the best) restaurants and hotels were listed, so when I made bookings from Joburg, I actually did not use the ‘guide’ to help me find accommodation. I was astounded by how much else was available, still being quality whilst being reasonably priced. Only the oldest (and frequently German in orgin) hotels and restaurants were listed. I defended this by saying that they’re probably writing with a specific audience in mind (i.e. middle-aged German tourists, which seems to be the major contigent of foreign arrivals) but Gilb pointed out that this shouldn’t be the case – a good travel guide should be effective for any traveller

Ant & Gilb experiences

- Upon arrival in Windhoek, we went to our backpackers lodge to check in. (I’ll recommend Chameleon Backpackers to any traveller, the beds are really comfy, the breakfast is simple but pretty decent and the manager and staff are really friendly and knowledgeable about the city). I’d asked for a double room with en-suite bathroom, and when we get there, the manager loudly announces in front of all the guests “Oh, this is the honeymoon couple!” I frantically assure him that this is not the case, to which he loudly responds, “oh, so you just wanted the, um, er, honeymoon facilities!” By which I assumed he meant the double bed, in which case he’s right. But the en-suite bathroom was a major bonus too, I might add. Anyhow, he gives us the keys to the “Love Nest” which is a wooden structure right above an occupied 6-bed dorm. Gilb gave it 5 minutes when we were in our room that night, then started bouncing on the bed to make our downstairs neighbours think we were shagging – I pointed out to him to keep it up a bit longer lest they think he had no stamina.

- We went to Dune 7, the most accessible large (50m tall) dune outside Walvis Bay. We got there really early and beat the American couple climbing to the top (“Come on, honey! We’re halfway up!” Not. He said this to her when they were a fifth of the way there, and they had not progressed much more by the time that we had descended), so being childish, we took our glee in “devirginising” the entire crest of the dune for the day. It was ours! Muahaha! (see pics at the bottom of the post).

- We went dune quadbiking, which was a guilty pleasure, because I’m sure it’s a sport that gets ecologists hot under the collar. Guilt aside, it was damn fun. Never having been on a quad bike before, it took me a while (about 30 minutes of our 45 minute ride, I’ll admit) to get truly comfortable with the steering, and to figure out how to avoid getting stuck in the loose sand on uphills (yes, I was ‘grounded’ five times, much to the poor guide’s frustration). Not having a total handle on the steering, on the long steep downhills where you gather a fair amount of speed, I battled to stick behind Gilb and the guide, fearing that I’d flip the bike if I turned the steering too much, which left me frequently veering off in other directions. Gilb only took photos of me when I was stuck in the sand, by the by, so no-one would believe that I eventually mastered some skill in the dune quadbiking arena, and from what I’ve written, you probably won’t believe me either!

- On our return drive from Swakopmund to Windhoek, I insisted we take the scenic route back (383km gravel road, in our Toyota Yaris rental car), which Gilb kindly obliged. The road’s not terribly bumpy, but there are some very steep sections on which buses and caravans are not permitted because they’ll get stuck. Apart from the loud thuds of occasional rocks hitting the underside of our rental (and two hitting the side of the car – oops!) there were no driving-related incidents, but almost a serious wildlife-related one. All of a sudden, 4 zebra start charging from behind a bush towards our car – we must’ve startled them as we came past. If Gilb hadn’t been quick enough to avert them, they’d have collided at high speed into the side of the car. They ended up running in front of us at about 60 km/h, and when they eventually veered off the road to get back into the game farm from which they’d come, they just hurtled straight into the farm’s fence (5 horizontal wires attached at different heights on far-apart poles), tripping/tumbling/falling over – they seemed to get up alright, but it’s hard to imagine they didn’t hurt themselves badly doing it. Just a few moments later, the incident repeated itself with startled sprinkbok, and 3 of them cleared the fence easily, but the last two clipped the top wire of the fence and took serious tumbles. Ouch!

Ok, enough words. Have some pictures: typical street in Swakopmund; Dune 7; leaping Springbok; view from a pass between Windhoek and Swakopmund