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Published: December 19th 2008
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Willkommen in Namibia!
Namibia was previously a German colony (Deutsch Südwest Afrika) and the German influence is everywhere -- architecture, food, language... In several cities, German is even the preferred language to English and it was fun talking to fourth-generation Namibians whose mother tongue is German. It was so crazy to be in the middle of cafe with Bienenstich or a Kneipe with a Weissbier talking German to the waiter and realize that we're in the middle of Africa!
But that wasn't all that Namibia had to offer. It has some of the most remarkable landscapes we've seen and we saw beautiful wildlife. It also has a special remoteness that creates a true sense of the vastness of Africa.
We arrived in Windhoek after an uncomfortable 22-hour bus ride from Cape Town. As you may have sensed, I'm not wild about bus rides and the deeper we get into Africa, the more challenging they have become. More about that in later blogs...
Windhoek isn't the most fascinating of cities and we didn't spend a huge amount of time exploring it. Our main interest was getting on the road to see Sossusvlei, which is where the famous sand
Windhoek
Christuskirche dunes are located. So we rented our little, two-wheel-drive car (without air conditioning) and set off for the desert.
On the way, we spent the night in Maltahöhe, which was the closest town to the dunes that offered affordable accommodation. It was a cute and dusty town that was established in the 1800s by a German farmer. It was a nice respite from the long, hot drive from Windhoek.
The next morning we had an adventure of sorts. As expected, not all "highways" in Africa are up to the same standards that we're used to. However, I didn't think that the majority of highways in Namibia would be dirt or gravel roads. A lesson to future travelers - a highway colored yellow on the map means that it isn't paved!
In hope of seeing a beautiful sunrise, we set off at 4 am. At first it was intimidating to drive on gravel, but then I started to get the hang of it - or so I thought. Driving on gravel is a bit like snow and you shouldn't make any fast turns, or the like. But when a rabbit ran in front of the car, I instinctively
Driving in Namibia
From tarred to gravel.... swirved. Leave it to say that we spun out (a true Indie-500 moment!) and landed on the side of the road in a pile of dust. Thank heavens, both of us were fine. The car was too. AND - the rabbit hopped away without a scratch!
Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of luck with the sunrise. When we arrived in Sossusvlei it started to rain. We were disappointed, but it was beautiful nonetheless. We were amazed at the colors of the sand and the vastness of the dunes.
From here we started off on the next 300 km to Swakopmund - again on gravel roads. At this point I had handed over the wheel to Florian (who I think was relieved). The only civilization the entire way was the "village" of Solitaire, which consisted of a gas station, a lodge and a country store. Appropriately named, don't you think?
That afternoon, we arrived in Swakopmund, which is the most "German" of the cities in Namibia. It is situated on the seaside and it is absolutely charming. Check out the old buildings - it looks a lot like a small town in Bavaria!
After a couple
Maltahöhe
Recovering from the hot drive of days eating Bratwurst and Brez'n, we headed inland again and saw some ancient rock paintings, saw some geological wonders and did a wine tasting at the only winery in Namibia. And the wine wasn't bad!
Our final stop in Namibia was Etosha. Etosha is a "self-drive" safaris (like Addo in the South Africa blog). We spent the day searching out Rhinos, Lions, Zebras, Ostriches... It was incredible to be so close to such majestic creatures.
It was hard to say "Auf Wiedersehen" to Namibia. But it helped to know that we had another big adventure ahead in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. More to come soon!
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Vince
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Fantastic photos. What a trip! Make sure Florian has enough money left to pay me for the stamps! Vince