Windhoek

We drove into Windhoek when it was still dark out. Actually it was really pretty. We rounded this large hill and there we lights spread out across the horizon. Lights! And everywhere! I knew I would like the city. It is a pretty city, and so much larger than maseru. That’s not saying too much, but there were more shops, actual museums and art galleries, 2 malls, well-paved roads and sidewalks, and streets with names like fidel castro and Robert mugabe. There was a nice, small but grassy park on the corner of independence ave. and fidel castro st. where I spent an hour or so just relaxing one day.
So kyla and I arrived at the cardboard box at maybe around 6 am, only to discover that reception didn’t open until 7. at 7, we found out that we couldn’t check in until 10 am because that’s when everyone who was leaving that day had to be out of their rooms. It turned out that we didn’t get to go to our rooms until mid-afternoon, which was a little rough after sitting on a bus for almost 24 hours. In the time in between, we went to a mall near us that had a grocery store and bought some food, and checked out some stores. I was determined to find an outlet plug for my ipod. This proved tricky, but after 2 days of searching I finally succeeded. We also went down post street mall, which has a bunch of crafts that vendors lay out daily to sell. I’ve started to feel that most places in Africa have all the same crafts, or very similar ones, but there actually was some unique stuff in Windhoek. Everyone I’d talked with had told me to buy things in swazi, because that’s where all the crafts were. True, they are cheapest there as far as I can tell, but I think there was cooler and better quality stuff in the shops in Windhoek.
After we finally got to our rooms, we went to sleep to the soothing sound of the man sharing our room snoring. The next day, which would be Tuesday, we decided to go check out the history museum. I was excited just by the fact that I was in an area of the world that had such museums. And, while we were there, a school group came in for a tour. That was really nice to see. The museum had info on Namibian animals, and Europeans settlers, and an area that looked kind of new on the native tribes of Namibia, so we spent a couple hours going through all of that. Then we walked down the street to an art gallery which was not impressive at all. By then we were hungry, and we were going to go to joe’s beerhouse for lunch, as we had been told that was the place to go to try game food in Namibia, but it is open only for dinner, so we had Indian instead. After that I walked a couple miles to the other, larger mall in Windhoek in search of my elusive ipod charger. No dice, but I did find FUDGE!@!! Okay, yes, I was excited about this find. It had been a while, and I went through a massive chunk of chocolate fudge in less than a day. Sooooooooooooo worth it. And then, on the way back I noticed an electronics shop. And they had my ipod charger. It was a good day. And to top it off, I found a pretty cool craft market. I’d found a lot of craft shops with more expensive items, but this was an area with some nice but more modestly priced goods. I still didn’t but anything, but it was fun to look. I did really like the ostrich egg lamps I found, but I guess they wouldn’t be much use without electricity L.
I spent Wednesday mostly resting, relaxing, and reading. And between Monday night and Tuesday, we’d had to change rooms. Turned out that we were sharing a room with a guy from Chicago who’d just finished uni and was in Namibia to visit his brother who was a peace corps volunteer in rundu, in northern Namibia. So it was nice to talk with him for a while. Actually, I spent Wednesday evening talking with him over a jug (yes jug, because I am that quality) of wine about what his brother was doing, Chicago, etc. Perhaps not the smartest idea considering my safari was to start the next day, but oh well.