The flight went well today, and we checked into a hotel here
near the airport – we returned to where we stayed our first night in
Africa. It is a lovely hotel and tonight
they upgraded us to what is nearly a suite! Lovely! They have a great
restaurant, and while Cal ordered a delicious meal, I drank a bottle of water!!
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| Victoria falls From the Sky |
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| Our Hotel in Livingstone |
Tomorrow we fly to Namibia.
Because we left the village of Mwandi earlier than planned, we will have
3 extra days in Namibia.
We requested a wakeup call for 4:30 Friday morning so we
could be to the airport for our 6:40 flight to Windhoek, Namibia. It was hard to leave the hotel in Livingston
because we had such a great room, nearly a suite.
The flight to Namibia was uneventful landing around 8:30. By
the time we cleared customs, passport check and claimed our luggage, bought a
SIM card for the phone, got local currency at the ATM, the vehicle we reserved
was ready for us. We are driving a
diesel 4x4 Isuzu pickup, with a second seat and a cover over the bed. It has 6300 miles on it – looks and smells
brand new. We were told we will need a 4x4 due to where we want to go here in
Namibia.
What we saw from the plane reminds us of Arizona & New
Mexico. Desert, straight gravel roads,
and mountains. The sand dunes are farther west along the coast.
The international airport is 30 minutes outside of Windhoek
so by the time we arrived in the city of Windhoek we went directly to our reserved
apartment, to see if we could possibly check in this early. We were tired from our early morning, plus
Rachel is beginning to feel the lack of food.
After we had a short nap we began driving around down town
Windhoek. Everyone told us that there
was not a lot to see in the downtown and they were for most purposes correct.
We found a nice German Lutheran Church which was located in the center of a
round-about - unusual location for a church.
From there we went to an old German castle, The Heinitzburg, which is now a very
lovely hotel. The hotel has an indoor restaurant, but we chose to have lunch on
a veranda overlooking Windhoek – perfect location.
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| German Lutheran Church |
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| The Heinitzburg Castle/Hotel |
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| The Castle and Garden Veranda Restaurant |
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| Lunch at The Castle |
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| View of Windhoek from the Patio |
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| Leo's Restaurant at the Castle |
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| A Pair of Fighting Salamanders |
When we returned to our apartment Rachel was feeling no
better. The little bit of lunch she did
eat did not agree with her. At the insistence of our daughter, via What’s App,
we decided to find a pharmacy before the weekend. The Pharmacist was extremely
helpful. We hope things begin to improve. I want to enjoy the German food!
We have been to two grocery stores today and they are total
bedlam. People all over the place(crowds).
First (at about 1:30) we were looking for a small ice chest so we can keep water
and drinks cool while we travel. There may also be times when we need to pick
up items for lunch, as we will be in remote areas. The reason we returned to a
second store (6:00) was to look for items for Rachel to drink and possibly eat
– Powerade & crackers, etc. In both
store you could hardly move around, people were everywhere! We heard Christmas music, saw Christmas items
on the shelves and Christmas decorations were being put up.
Another issue while traveling in Namibia, will be keeping
the vehicle full of fuel. Stations can
be few and far in the more remote areas.
A little history on Namibia.
On old maps it was called German South West Africa. The German settled and colonized this part of
Africa.
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