Luderitz is a windy place, it blows our dresses high...

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When we suffered a varied and constantly escalating selection of car problems on our road trip through East Africa, there were always other people around to help. Usually a very large number of other people, giving advice of variable quality. We were towed (twice) by helpful strangers in Botswana, and push started on an almost daily basis through Malawi. When we opened the car bonnet on a Tanzanian highstreet, no fewer than 8 random men took it upon themselves to peer inside and offer their opinions. It was conflicting advice delivered for the most part in Swahili, but at least there were people around. The problem with roadtripping through Namibia, the second least populous country on earth, is the lack of other people. Of course this is also a large part of what makes the country beautiful and unique. It just means that if you break down or have a problem, there’s a reasonable chance it will be somewhere without phone signal, several hundred kilometres from the nearest mechanic, on a road nobody else will drive along for hours.

Luckily we covered the 200km from Fish River Canyon to Keetmanshoop without further mishap. We bought a new tyre to replace the shredded one, for the eyewatering price of 2500 Namibian shillings (around £150). Decent 4x4 tyres aren’t cheap, so if you’re driving in Namibia, make sure this is something your car insurance will cover. We also had the spare tyre checked and re-patched, as they felt the job done by our guy at Roadhouse was a bit amateur. The tyre shop reassured us the spare didn’t need replacing, and ought to last fine now it was properly repaired. We decided to test this theory by keeping the new tyre as spare and driving on the repaired one, as I didn’t want to repeat the experience of needing the spare and finding it flat.

Our next destination was Luderitz. On the way there, we drove through our first proper sandstorm. Sand started trailing from the tops of the dunes like smoke, as if they were smouldering. Then whole dunes seemed to be trying to migrate from one side of the road to the other. In places there were men working on the road, using heavy machinery to try and shove the encroaching drifts back from the edge. I did not envy them this job. They were fighting a loosing battle. Visibility was poor. A little like driving through fog, if fog slapped you in the face when you opened the car door. It was here that I spotted the most redundant roadsign in Africa. Sticking out of a dune, surrounded by desert on all sides, almost obscured by the swirling of the sandstorm, was a small triangle with a red border. I strained my eyes to read it as we passed. It said - “SAND”. This was like putting a sign in a lake that says - “WATER”.

The wind showed no sign of letting up when we arrived at our destination. The Lonely Planet describes Luderitz as being like a Bavarian village, an incredibly generous description which makes me question whether the writer has ever actually been to Germany. Or, in fact, Luderitz. There certainly is colonial architecture, but these buildings are scattered throughout a very industrial town, centred on its harbour and mining industry. The overall effect is quite bizarre.

We'd booked a spot on "Shark Island", a rocky little outcrop now converted into a campsite and connected to the mainland via causeway. It's a stunning location, with pitches strategically placed on varying levels between the rock formations, allowing views of the waves below. It's also unfortunately the windiest place in Luderitz. This was the kind of wind where you can rock on your heels and find the balance point that lets the air hold your weight.

The campsite was deserted, obviously, because our fellow campers are not idiots. We however had already paid in advance online, so thought we might as well take a look. Ever the optimist, Sam tried parking up in a few different pitches to see whether anywhere felt "sheltered", but failed to find a location where it didn't take all of my bodily strength to force open the car door. Worried our rooftop tent would become airbourne and we'd wake up underwater, we abandoned camping and booked into the only backpackers hostel in Luderitz. I later learned that Shark Island was a former colonial era prison camp, where huge numbers of people died.

We had come to Luderitz to see the Kolmanskop ghost town, which was our plan for the following morning. To entertain outselves until then, we decided to explore the outskirts of town. First we pulled over next to salt pans dotted with distant pink flamingos, where we managed about 10 seconds outside the car, being sandblasted, unable to even take a photo. We then went further out to Agate Beach, where the sand is apparently glittery with mica and mixed with colourful stones. I cannot confirm if these things are true, as I didn’t even make it across the carpark.

The wind was 58kmp at this point, so we decided to give up and go to the pub. As we we're leaving, another Hilux with a rooftop tent pulled over next to the beach. We waited around to amuse ourselves by watching some other hapless tourists get pelted with sand, as it was the only form of entertainment available to us. They didn’t last long.

The next day, after our trip to Kolmanskop, the weather was more amenable and we drove out to Big Bay. Here we saw salt pans and flamingos and wild beaches and all the things we had been promised. So I’m not saying Luderitz is not nice. What I am saying is, Luderitz is windy.

We went out for the evening to a basement bar the Lonely Planet describes as a "locals place", though it turns out that by locals they meant Germans and Afrikaaners. There were comedy sized beers, plentiful Jaeger shots, and the kind live music that puts me more in mind of snowboarding trips to Austria than a roadtrip through the Southern African desert. Still, it was a fun and friendly place to spend an evening. In the ladies toilets, someone had scrawled a poem which beautifully sums up my Luderitz experience.

Luderitz is a windy place
It blows our dresses high
But god was good
To sent the sand
To blind the young man’s eye

The bar was called Barrels, and is apparently famous for it's "pork knuckle". I'm not sure what part of a pig the knuckle is, perhaps best not to think about it too much. We weren't brave enough to find out. The old German guy on the next table was though, and I swear if I'd been even one beer drunker I would have asked to take a selfie with his food. I know I have a tendency to exaggerate for comic effect, but I'm pretty certain this thing actually was the size of his head. It was about three times the size of his wife's pork knuckle, which in itself was a chunk of meat that would make you cancel your plans for the rest of the evening if it arrived at your table. I couldn't stop staring at it. As we were filling up with diesel the next day, I spotted the same family pull over at the next pump. I ran over to their car and tapped frantically on the window.

"I'm really sorry, but I have to know... DID YOU FINISH THE PORK KNUCKLE?"

No. Only around a third of it, he confessed, shaking his head sadly. Apparently it was the biggest one he's ever seen in his life. And this looked like a man who has seen a lot of pork.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

No kidding
The sign didn't lie. Great shot