Wildlife on my very first night!

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I woke up at 2am yesterday morning Capetown time...which will be 1am Windhoek time. Jetttt Laggggg.

So for my first night in South Africa, I was chilling out in my room, my overhead reading light (a disk light on the wall, what you might normally find on a ceiling) is on and I'm reading, watching soccer, doing my thing when I just happen to look back at the wall behind my bed, to discover that in the past hour, not one, not two, but I would estimate something on the order of 10k ants have swarmed the light. It looked like 2 or three anthills of tiny ants swarming over the thing. It was crazy. So I went to the front desk and asked for some bug spray which they promptly gave me, and I sprayed those ants with gusto. They basically blew up or melted on impact sending thousands of ants, in clumps all over the floor, the bed, the night stand. I then went on to spray the walls and windows. I have surely shorted my life by several years.

I left every light in the room on and went to take a shower and when I got back...NO ants.
At 2am, still no ants. I have killed an entire colony of ants.

The flight to Windhoek was super easy, and waiting for the shuttle for 20minutes (africa time), took about an hour and a half where a native women, super tan and reminding me of the Namibian version of Crocodile Dundee, kept me entertained with her stories of growing up in Namibia, her ideas on what would help fix africa, and of course, her opinions of US politics. Finally a few more joined us on the shuttle and we were off.

The landscape around Windhoek is super dry and arid, not quite desert, but not plains either. Its a beautiful sunny day with zero humidity. The mountains are craggy and dusty surrounding us on all sides. Namibia itself has only been a independant nation since 1990 or so, having been both a British Protectorate and a South Africa annex during various parts of the last 100 years. It has high rates of aids, and unfortuately a very wide gap between the poor and the rich. Today however, it's not noticable, as the city looks very well off indeed.

Later yesterday evening I met with the safari group I will be with for the next week, and we all went to Joe's Beerhouse, which was very african style upscale bar restaurant. Under the warmth of heatlamps and outdoor fires we ate meat. and more meat. My springbok was super good, and the rest of the gang partook in everything from zebra to crocodile, oryx, and some other 'bok' type animals. I think I've now eaten enough meat for the next month. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the menu is going to change all that much for the rest of the trip.

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Comments

[Ulrich]

it will get better
Whilst I have no idea which parts of fantastic Namibia you will visit, the wildlife will definately improve. Enjoy. Uli