Getting closer to Africa

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We left Cape Town yesterday and have just arrived in Windhoek, Namibia today after a 19 hour bus ride. Oh, pardon me, did I say 19 hours? I meant to say 27. Yes, after the breakdown on the side of the road ("Supa Quick" car repairs was not so supa quick) and the bus company not finishing the necessary paperwork to get us through immigration at 12:30 in the morning, the 19 hour bus ride turned into 27. At first Jordan was not liking the whole scenario but then I explained to him that you have not really experienced Africa until you have been broken down on the side of the road for many hours or have been held up for a very long time, so just enjoy the experience. I do believe we are getting closer to Africa - the Africa I am craving anyways.

We have finally left South Africa. It was really amazing and I am glad that I added it on in hindsight but I am ready to leave. The parts of South Africa I was in was quite westernized and while there were many many things to do, especially with a child, I am ready to be a lot more remote and experience the more removed, authentic Africa. Really I just want to be in a hut somewhere.

Cape Town was ok. I think if I arrived in the city with a different frame of mind I would have really loved it. It would have been good if I was there with someone my age and wanted to go out at night. It also would have been good if I wanted to be in a city or have a tonne of people around me - which I didn't. We arrived into Cape Town after dark without a place to stay and I must stop doing that, it is making my life more difficult than it needs to be. I never time it properly because it gets dark so early here. I left Vancouver at the peak of our daylight savings time with it staying light until 9:30 and it is hard to adjust to it getting dark by 6:30 all of a sudden. So we are driving into Cape Town with no map and no guide book, all we have is a recommendation from Annalise from Hermanus Backpackers to stay at Cape Town Backpackers (one of many). I am just going with the flow as usual and am using my intuition as to where this backpackers will be. I can tell from the description of the view that it must be up the hill so I take the turn off from the waterfront and head closer to Table Mountain. I end up on this busy road that splits in two and we travel the length of it. We didn't find the backpackers so we headed back to look again, then tried something new, and within about 10 minutes we were back on this first road that splits in two driving the length of it again.

I keep driving this road and end up frustrated. It is dark and getting later and I start questioning myself and wondering how I could be so foolish as to think I could arrive in a city and just "follow my nose" to a hotel without any directions whatsoever. I decided to head down to the waterfront where I could get some real directions and, wouldn't you know it, they direct me exactly back to the road I went to from the moment I arrived in Cape Town. I was too busy questioning my intuition to open my eyes and actually see the backpackers in front of me on the 6 or 7 occassions I had driven by it!!!! Funny lesson there - always trust your intuition.

We stayed in Cape Town for 3 nights which was plenty long enough. I guess there was much more we could have done there than we did but I didn't want to see a city. We missed some pretty good stuff from what I hear, but we were tired and ready to kind of move on. We did, however, get to Table Mountain and Camps Bay. As usual I found a mountain and the ocean and that was all I needed to see. Table Mountain was really beautiful and I am glad I saw it. We took a cable car up to the top (just like Grouse) and Jordan and I had fun fooling around up there. It was really foggy, as usual, but I got some really neat abstract photos (and normal ones) that I really liked. After Table Mountain we headed around the other side to Camps Bay which was very beautiful as well. But with that being said and done, there was not much more for us to see and we headed out Tuesday morning to the bus station to go to Windhoek, Namibia.

I had phoned the bus station the day before (see...starting to pre-plan things) to see if I needed to buy a ticket ahead of time but there were 14 tickets left and I decided not to use my credit card so I could avoid all the foreign transaction fees I was acquiring by using it. So on Tuesday morning we packed everything up ready to travel, put our backpacks on (and the 4 other bags we have now acquired since having a vehicle to travel around in) and headed out ready to see our next country. We arrive at the bus station only to find out that a group of 10 guys had arrived early that morning unexpectedly and there are no tickets left. S#*t. We had brought the rental car back already and the last thing we want to do is go back to the backpackers, wait two days until the next bus, pack up and do it all over again. So I ask the woman if there is any way at all she can squeeze us in and she says no. I ask her if there was any way she could check again (use a little ingenuity maybe) and come up with something - any possibility at all. She finally agrees to go and talk to the people on the bus. As it turns out, the stewardess' take up two seats......... ah, I see a way. The bus people shuffled them around and gave us the two seats. I can tell you we paid heavily for that because they seemed to hate us the whole way and were really rude to us whenever we asked them for anything. I actually tried to get a coffee for 14 hours and they kept telling me no. Honestly, it was so bad it was funny. Oh well, it just made more of a memory for us.

So after almost missing the bus, the stewardess' giving us dirty looks and ignoring us the whole time, the 4 hour breakdown on the side of the road, the 3 hour mess up at immigration and the very late arrival into a very hot Namibian sun after 27 hours on the bus, we finally arrived in Windhoek (without a place to stay, of course). As luck would have it, there was a guy with a "Chameleon Backpackers" sign waiting for us when we arrived. Ok, ok, he was actually waiting for the girl who had planned properly and made a reservation so she had somewhere to go when she got off the bus, but it would do just as well. Oh, except that he told us there was no vacancy at the backpackers. S#*t, again. I really had no other option than to go with him so I asked him if he could just give us a ride to Chameleon and we would figure out where we could stay from there. Sure he said.

So we arrive at Chameleon to find out that two dorm beds have become available. It was just like the first day in any country for us, we don't like it. We feel uncomfortable, out of place and want to leave to somewhere much more remote. That is ok because tomorrow we are renting a car and heading out to Sossusvlei where the huge sand dunes are. We are really looking forward to that and just want to get out of Windhoek. In the meantime, we travelled into town to get some groceries and felt extremely out of place. It was hot, we were dirty and tired and the city was difficult. The people weren't very friendly. We had been driven to some mall and had no idea where we were and didn't know how to get back. Not to mention I had no brains left after that bus trip. The backpackers had given us some number of a taxi service they have an agreement with (which turned out to be a rip off) and we waited in the hot sun for over an hour for them to show up to bring us back to the backpackers place. They said they were there earlier but couldn't find us......two blonde people in the middle of Namibia.....how hard were we to find sitting in front of the mall doors. Oh well, we are out of here in the morning, we just have to get the car.

Take care of yourselves.

Love Heide and Jordan xo




PS: As you may be able to tell, I am missing my animals lately. Stacey - make sure you give my kitties a great big hug for me. Dad - give Bailey a big wet kiss from me too and make sure he slobbers all over your face. (did you put his flea medication on him?)

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Photos

I loved this guy
This is the guy from Supa Quick that worked on our bus. He had so much character. The name still kills me!

Backwards buses
Everything was backwards about our bus trip, even the direction. We were actually heading from Cape Town to Windhoek and this sign kind of summed up the whole experience.

My first glance at Namibia
I woke up at 5:30am while everyone was still asleep on the bus and peeked out the curtains at my first sight of a new country. This is what I saw.

Supa Quick
This is where they make all the magic!