Windhoek - in pictures, at last

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With apologies for the delay - I blame technology (and it can't answer back) - here are some photos of Windhoek which I had intended to accompany my last blog. Last year I was too cautious - and extremely mindful of the numerous warnings about carrying valuables around town - to use my camera in Windhoek. Now the town feels like my second home and, albeit I continue to be extremely circumspect, I am now prepared to take photos at least in the central areas.

For anyone who's interested, I've set out below - with minor tweaks - the guff I wrote about Windhoek last September. Well, you don't get off without ANY blurb, you know!

Windhoek is quite unlike any other African city - and, if I’d had any doubt about the veracity of this popular opinion, that doubt was obliterated by last year’s brief sojourn in Luanda where Africa lives and breathes, in some ways, all too visibly, audibly and olfactorily in the streets. Windhoek is very clean, very organised, very well-maintained; the people are well-dressed, and poverty seems - in the tourist areas at least - to be at a minimum. Over in Katatura, considered to be Windhoek’s Soweto, I’m sure the situation is different, but that is an area I have yet to explore, bar a dozen blocks or so when I inadvertently missed the turning to the B1 when heading north one day.

Windhoek is reminiscent of South African towns thirty-plus years ago, according to Colin. Architecturally, it is a curious mixture: largely modern, but with some monuments and buildings that date from earlier in the twentieth century, such as Tintenpalast, now the parliament building, in its gorgeous gardens; Alte Feste, the National Museum of Namibia, and Christuskirche, the German Lutheran church, impressively-sited on a traffic island at the top of a hill. Independence Avenue is the main drag through town and, when it passes through the tourist area, it is home to a number of designer, curio and clothes shops, as well as banks and a surprising number of chemists (three in one block, for some reason that is not quite clear to me). Just off the middle of Independence Avenue is Post Street Mall, a pedestrianised street where vendors lay out slightly varying selections of southern African artefacts - priced more reasonably than Windhoek’s curio shops, but not as cheaply as the markets up the road in Okahandja - and an assortment of shopping arcades perch between the Post Street level and the roads two storeys’ below, waiting to confuse the unwary.

In short, the centre of Windhoek is welcoming and easy to walk around; although there were a scary number of signs around the Chameleon Backpackers’ about the inadvisability of carrying ANYTHING into town (“Want to lighten your luggage? Take it into Windhoek”), I have not heard or experienced anything untoward, even on the odd occasion that I have inadvertently been heading home after dark. The people are straightforward in a Germanic/Afrikaans-type fashion - no excess verbiage or over-the-top superficiality, but pleasant and helpful when asked. In VERY short (having realised that the last section has gone on a bit), I feel at home in Windhoek.

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Photos

the Gibeon Meteorites, Post St Mall
These things still blow my mind. They're part of the largest known meteor shower to fall to Earth, covering an area of 360x110km around Brukkaros, c.500 km south of Windhoek. 77 pieces were found, the largest of which weighs 650kg.

the Supreme Court
Yes, I can't escape the law wherever I try and go. I found myself gazing inanely at this building in February, and only belatedly realising what it was!

typical southern African craft market
Whatever happens, you'll be assured "I give you good price. Good [Sunday]/[Monday]/[Tuesday]... price" (delete as appropriate)

giraffes for sale
Although these are regarded as the ultimate in naff I've-been-to-Africa souvenirs, I must confess that, somewhere in some obscure corner, I hanker after one....

Tintenpalast
Namibia's parliament building

the Rider Memorial
Along with a number of other colonial-era monuments that inexplicably remain in Namibia, I find the continued presence of this memorial to the "pacification" (aka massacre) of the Herero and Nama peoples in the early years of the twentieth century nauseous.

an agama on the Rider Memorial
If the Memorial can at least provide a good spot for reptilian sunbathing, I suppose it has a tiny purpose in today's Windhoek.

my new home-from-home
Descriptively called "The Guest House", this charming place is run by a now-friend, Guggi Sudwischer, and I can't recommend it too highly!

turns out these are non-native flowers
...nevertheless, they looked pretty!

Comments

[SUANNE]

I LIKE YOUR PICTURES,ITS NICE