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Published: December 3rd 2006
We drove to Windhoek and stayed at the lovely Pension Steiner, we had rung ahead the day before to check they had a room available. Pension Steiner was great, secure parking, friendly staff, they served lunch in the lovely garden around a pool and it is REALLY close to the centre of the city. We walked around a small part of the city and saw the meteors that dropped in Gibeon 300km south, about 600 million years ago, and saw the Christus Church up on the hill built in art nouveau and gothic styles. The centre of the city is not like London for example, it is not dirty, crowded, busy or closed in, and it was not raining! We did some chores, got stamps, took out some money from the ATM, and bought some souvenirs. We then spent the rest of the afternoon around the pool. We had been told (as we had in Luderitz an Swakopmund) that it was not safe to walk around after dark, and had been advised to only take out with us what we needed - i.e. a credit card, no cameras, I guess they meant that we should not look like tourists! We do
wonder whether this was just a white myth and one that they are perpetuating with little evidence… but we were obviously only passing through the country so didn’t have a whole heap of experience, but we didn’t have any trouble at all from anyone. We spent the next morning walking around the city and I took some photos. We went into a couple of supermarkets to look for green tea bags with mint as I had really enjoyed them in a number of the lodges we had stayed in - but we couldn’t find any. Maybe they are just served up to tourists in lodges! The rest of the day we spent around the pool at the pension, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying the hot weather. Even though we had had to check out at 1000 we were allowed to spend the day there, and had lunch there too. It was a very relaxing thing to do before spending the night on the plane!
If you are going to hire a car and if you want music to listen to, I would suggest that you take some audio tapes with you as there is not a huge choice
of radio stations, and on many occasions you don’t have any radio signal at all.
Our holiday to Namibia was brilliant. It is a great country, with so much to see and do. The scenery is fantastic and it is so quiet and undiscovered in comparison to Kenya for example. The people are friendly, the roads are good and I loved the diversity. I would definitely go back to Namibia (something I do not often say about places) and I can thoroughly recommend it - it is a great place. We have even talked about going back for just a week, we could get the overnight flight to Windhoek, stay there one night. Drive up the tarred road to Okaukeujo in Etosha, stay in the park for 5 nights driving round watching animals. Then drive back to Windhoek, stay there one night and get the night flight out. Other places I would like to visit would be the Caprivi Strip and go down into Botswana to the Okavango Delta - my lovely friend Linda and her husband did this as they were in Namibia about the same time as us - and she said it was AMAZING - even Burnt Mountain! I guess the time of day you visit is all important. And she also visited the Africat Foundation at Okonjima, which was good, and she did some walking safaris (something I had been hoping to do in Namibia, and didn’t get the opportunity to do - so this is something very much still on my ‘list’) in the Okavango Delta and at Daan Viljoen Game Park just west of Windhoek - so I HAVE to go back so that I can do some walking safaris … next time ;-)
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Peter Udell
non-member comment
In your footsteps?
With what you write about your visits to Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Etosha and Windhoek I wholly agree, having been there only a few days after you. If what you write about the Kalahari, Fish Canyon, Luderitz etc is as accurate as it is evocative, I would, one day, very much like to follow - even if less poetically - in your footsteps.