Day 18 … goodbye desert and hello capital city

 October 6, 2024

[Guest blogger … Ian!]

Up early again to see the sunrise on our last morning in Sossusvlei before heading off to Namibia's capital Windhoek. We had breakfast outside on the patio before paying the bill, loading the car and hitting the road just after 8am.

Ian had the wheel for the first hour to Solitaire and it was a pretty torrid drive. Not for the now familiar gravel road but the accompanying vehicles. When the wind blows from either side the dust from a vehicle in front of you clears the road almost instantly. But on a still day the dust plume just hangs on the road, and the vehicle behind is driving in it. Even with a 150-200m gap between vehicles there were times when visibility was down to 20m, and then a car would appear coming at you from the other direction. Throw in patches of soft sand and sliding gravel and it was a real blast.

Solitaire has a roadhouse. Lots of vehicles stop there. It is best known for ... the collection of car wrecks out the front. Enough said.

Jacqui took over for a bit and took us past the Rooi Dak Padstal, notable for the busty beer wench, a colourful windmill, and a Soviet era rocket crashed in the front yard, with cosmonauts riding the tractors. Again ... enough said.

Another driver change before we hit Spreetshoogte Pass, connecting the Namib Desert with the Khomas Highlands via the Great Escarpment. The steepest pass in Namibia with gradients from 1:4.5 to 1:6 it climbs 1,000m in 4km of road!! Trucks, caravans and trailers are forbidden. You could see snippets of the climb from down below, and with a prayer for no oncoming vehicles we ascended. A little hairy, mostly fine, and amazing views from the top.

After that it was a 2 hour run into Windhoek with a couple of driver swaps, a stop at the Tropic of Capricorn, stops for baboon crossings, goat herders, wildflowers and a stone in the windscreen that left a big chip and a spreading cracked. C'est la vie.

Windhoek proved elusive until it finally appeared over a mountain crest just 7km from the CBD. Population about 0.5 million the city sits in a long north-south valley. So quickly to our accommodation (mid-low budget but very nice) and a lunch toastie by the pool as we planned our afternoon exploring the city.

What was intended as 2.5 hrs turned into 3.5 because we found so much to see in this compact city. Old train station, Avis Dam - complete with flamingos, Christuskirche (church), Zoo Park - bustling Central Park, the City mall, Namibian Parliament and its lovely gardens, Independence Museum with drinks on the Balcony of Love on the 4th floor. To finish, a random 'which way?' drive around the city which took us past a casino, a cathedral, the Hilton and straight through a top model fashion shoot in a side street (oops). Last stop Funky Town Mall, the 'place for funky people', where we (fitted right in) wandered through a few supermarkets and marvelled at the hair studio packed out doing braids at 5.45 pm on a Sunday.

One thing we marvelled at as we drove around were the street named. Sam Nujoma Drive makes sense as he is the father of modern Namibia. But Robert Mugabe Avenue, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Florence Nightingale, etc. Our hotel is on Pasteur Drive, and the surrounding neighbourhood features  Beethovenstrasse (street), Mozartstrasse, Wagnerstrasse and the exquisite Straussstrasse!

 

An easy night tonight. Do the blog, sunset from our balcony, dinner by the pool. Another wonderful day!