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