Beer Halls, Funky Labs, Bakeries and Waterholes

Hello once more. Or should I say Guten Tag? For our travels had now taken us to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (Africa's youngest country) and probably the most German city in Africa, though it actually feels more like a colony of South Africa. Most noticeably, Windhoek is very "first world" in the centre, with banks, takeaways, shopping centres, supermarkets, buses, and everything else, all looking clean and modern. The roads are also excellent, and the vehicles are largely in a decent state of repair. Botswana had been similar, but the contrast with Malawi, Tanzania or Kenya was very pronounced.

At any rate, our stop on that first night was in Windhoek where, joy of joys, we would be staying in a hostel (the wonderfully named Cardboard Box), meaning dorms and beds! I was, by this point, getting fairly sick already of the tents (especially the whole hassle of pitching and striking camp almost every day). Windhoek also meant the opportunity to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner, and go on drinking in bars afterwards. After an hour or two at the hostel (used by the boys mostly for playing pool or drinking beer, and by the girls apparently for straightening their hair...), and the fun of breaking into the back of the truck (the bolt on the door had slipped on due to the steep slope we were parked on!), we headed off to Joe's Beer Hall, a much classier establishment than the name might suggest, for dinner.

Now, Joe's is one of those wonderful places, found in many large African cities, which offers a good variety of game meat on the menu. I had a truly divine Kudu steak, while Belinda, sat to my right, had Zebra, and various of the others dined on other antelope, or on ostrich or crocodile. With the beer and wine flowing, this made for a very agreeable environment (despite the dents it was putting in our individual budgets), and a fair few of our number were still in the mood for a party. Hence, we headed on to the Funky Lab, a gloriously-titled drinking den, in a motley cavalcade of taxis.

At the Funky Lab, Matt amused himself by claiming that Paul was a famous pop-star in Europe, and that he was his manager, in order to blag the "VIP Room" of the bar for us. This served the additional purpose of giving us somewhere slightly more private where we could celebrate when midnight chimed and Valdy's birthday began. Eventually we were moved back out to the main bar, where I had one of my occasional sulks that the music was mostly R'n'B (which I enjoy dancing to almost as much as I enjoy trips to the dentist), and amused myself by watching some of the other antics (Helen attempting pole-dancing by the bar, Brandon swaying gently whilst looking confused, Belinda boogeying away furiously on the dance-floor, etc etc). I joined the second exodus back to the Box aroud 1am, while various of the die-hard party crew (mostly those who actually liked the basic) moved on to another bar, Chez Ntemba. I might have been tempted to go along, but was determined to make at least reasonable use of having a nice soft bed to sleep in.

Given the state some people were in the next morning, I felt I'd probably made the right decision to bail out when I did. After fairly relentless progress south and west since Dar, we were now headed back northwards, up across Namibia towards Etosha National Park. Namibia being mostly desert, this wasn't the most visually stimulating of trips, but that didn't really bother that many people, as most of us were either snoozing or engaged in the usual games of Scrabble, Chess, Uno, etc. We made a couple of stops in the few little towns along the way, one of which was used to grab cakes for Valdy's birthday. We also encountered the rather bizarre sight of a "Baeckerei mit internet" (Bakery with internet, for those unfamiliar with German, which wasn't a combination I'd ever considered particularly likely).

Unfortunately, all these little distractions meant that we were running quite late as we entered Etosha. Our problem was that the campsites in the Park close their gates just after sunset, and people are liable for hefty fines, on top of probable loss of their camp slot, if they arrive late. Paul had been hoping to get us into the campsite closest to the southern gate, but this was fully booked up, so we had to race across the Park to the Halali site, attempting to cover around 80kms in under an hour. That we did this is testament to the determination of Valdy, who pushed White Nile about as fast as he possibly could, and got us to the camp with barely minutes to spare.

After pitching camp yet again, the dinner crew (Jo, Jen and Belinda this time) got to work on the night's food, while the rest of us headed up to the water-hole. One of the attractions of Etosha is that the water-holes tend to bring a lot of the animals in the park into places where they can easily be seen, and each of the 3 campsites has its own floodlit water-hole. Hence, we arrived at ours to find an elephant having a very lengthy drink. During the course of the night, we would also see hyenas, jackals, kudu and, best of all, black rhinos. This more than made it worth sitting out, braving the cold. It also made me really appreciate the little tripod I had bought from Jessop's before leaving, as without it I wouldn't have got anything but blurs on the night pictures. Hence, I was a pretty happy bunny when I snuggled down under my blankets to sleep that night.

And the wonders of our second day in Etosha will have to wait, as I have other backpackers circling around, wanting to use the computer. Until next, my friends, goodbye!

Pat