A Little Bit Of Germany In Africa

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Day 34 - Windhoek (Namibia) - 1/9/09

Arrived in Windhoek in the early afternoon; making my way outside the terminal to the airport shuttle bus. Like most other buses I've tried to use since I've been here in Africa it wasn’t leaving until it was full. The airport shuttle cost $150NB against the taxi which would cost $280NB, a local lady came out of the airport building; she started rooting around in her handbag looking for a business card for a taxi; I just sat there and watched here waiting for the shuttle bus to fill up. She couldn’t find this business card and didn’t look overly happy. She become doubly unhappy when she heard the price of the taxi so she started trying to negotiate with the taxi driver; she turned round to me and asked me if I wanted to share the taxi. I told the lady that I'd rather get the shuttle bus that was until the lady got the taxi driver down to $200NB, so the price would be $100NB each. Done deal!

Arrived at the backpackers with the knowledge that all I wanted to do was to organise my onwards travel and accommodation and also organise somewhere to stay, here in Windhoek for tomorrow night. After making many phone calls I couldn’t find any hostels with a room here in Windhoek for tomorrow night. As a result of this I decided that I would go to Swakopmund tomorrow; I wondered downtown to find an internet cafe so I could book my Intercape ticket. On my way downtown I asked a lady for directions, she told me to follow her and she would take me there, on the way down she then lectured me on not following and trusting everybody I meet along my journey, I told her that as travellers your forced to make snap judgements on people and who you trust and don’t. We talked whilst we walked and it turned out that she had done a lot of travelling herself; I actually didn’t understand why she had given me such a hard time about following her. I asked her where the best place to get a SIM card was, she told me that she would take me to get one. She took me to a phone shop close to the internet cafe, where I purchased a SIM card. She took down my number and gave me hers and told me that when I was swinging back though Windhoek she would give me a guided tour. The rest of the evening was spent actually booking the coach tickets and accommodation in Swakopmund. On the way back to my hostel I spotted a hairdressers and thought that I might as well get my hair cut as it did need to be cut. I shouldn’t have bothered as the women doing it didn’t have a fucking clue what I had asked for and the results ... lets not go there!!!

When I got back to the hostel, I got talking to a guy from Birmingham, who's out here setting up his own business. He had been here in Namibia for a couple of months already. Personally, I think that's really brave. We both took a stroll down to Joe's Beer House; not so much for the beer but for the food! Been looking forward to tucking into a bit of game meat for ages! I ordered a zebra stake and we got talking with a South African from Cape Town, who was in Namibia for business; hence the reason he was dining alone. During the course of dinner we even managed to start an argument we weren’t actually involved in, basically it was between this guy from Cape Town and a girl from Durban and what was it about ... who had the best World Cup stadium. We slipped out soon after.

Day 35 - Swakopmund - 2/9/09

“I'm waiting for a coach in the middle of a car park in Windhoek in the dark. How safe am I?” was the thought process running though my head as the taxi driver dropped me off. “It’s probably as safe as waiting for a National Express coach at a bus stop in Golders Green” was the way I would describe it. The car park was deserted and all of a sudden I was wondering why I was putting myself into this position. It wasn’t too long until the Intercape bus arrived and I took my seat next to a window. The journey was long and passed by staring out of the window at the scenery rushing pass. All the bushes seemed to be a bright dirty yellow colour until about a hour out of Swakopmund where the scenery changed; gone were the bushes and replaced by sand and nothingness. The sand and nothingness seemed to last forever until all of a sudden; Swakopmund, a town that looks like it has just been dumped into the middle of the desert.

I got out of the bus and tried to get my bearings; not easy when you bear in mind that Swakopmund has only just recently renamed all of its streets, this itself is made more harder by the only map I have only has the old names on it! It's a weird place; like somebody has airlifted a German town out of Germany and just dropped it in the middle of the Namibian desert. I wondered down the main street, looking at all the German buildings, the street names and even the German supermarket. I didn’t do too many things; a bit of shopping, checked my emails and just wondered about. I found a couple of Namibian Oktoberfest glasses, which would make an awesome present for a friend, Nick who spent a lot of time in Germany. The guy in the shop even managed to find a box for them; they are going to be nice and easy to carry aren’t they?!?!
The rest of the afternoon/ evening was spent talking and drinking with other people in the hostel. There's some real interesting characters here; there's this one guy called Daniel, a German who has cycled from Germany with the intention of ending up in Cape Town. He spent the evening telling us his tales like how he had been travelling and the locals had been chucking stones and spears at him and how in Ethiopia, Ethiopian had been firing AK47's at him!! All of a sudden what I was doing was considerably tame!!

Day 36 - Swakopmund - 3/9/09

Late waking up today, which was nice, took my laundry to reception to be washed; that was the first job that needed to be done. The plan was to be a tourist, having acquired a map I wondered around looking at all the sites in Swakopmund. It was so good to be wondering around with a map; it's the first time since I was in Zanzibar that I have been able to get a map. After checking my emails and sorting out my transport to Jo'burg.

I walked down to the War Memorial and to the State House. The state house was a grand affair in pastel colours and of course of German design. After being bothered by lots of hawkers down by the State House I stumbled upon the museum. It was actually really interesting, more interesting then many of the national museums that I have been to in my time. It was all about the ecology of the area, the animals and people of Namibia, the big Uranium mine; how it affects the people and the environment. The exhibit that I spent the most time looking at was the history of Swakopmund and Namibia; how the Germans conquered it and the legacy they left on Namibia today. I spent 2 hours there before I made my way to the seafront and lunch. For lunch I had grilled calamari and for desert had ice cream washed down with Windhoek Beer. Looked at some crystals in the Kristall Galerie before admiring some more German buildings like Altes Amtsgericht, Hotienzollernhaus and a few others. Don’t actually know what any of these buildings are; all I know is that they are German. I spent the few remaining hours in the cinema, I saw the Hangover, which is a very very funny film. Ended the night back in the hostel drinking vodka with anybody who would chat to me.

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Photos

German Sign 1
In The National Museum

German Sign 2
In The National Museum