By the sea in Namibia

It was time to leave the desert behind us, for now at least, and head towards the coast. After our early morning balloon ride (see my previous entry) we checked out of Kulala Desert Lodge and hit the road north.

Solitaire

We stopped for petrol, refreshments and a toilet break at the evocatively-named Solitaire, which although being marked on every map is little more than a roadside café and low-key lodge.

We found this a good place to take photos as a change from all that scenery, fantastic though it was. There were some beat-up old cars, children happy to pose for us, and a blackboard on the wall providing a news bulletin service. The only problem was that the news of Marlon Brando's death was over a week out of date!

The road to Walvis Bay

From Solitaire it was a long largely empty drive first north and then west to Walvis Bay. It was a relatively good stretch of gravel road and unnoticed by either of us our speed was increasing. Suddenly Chris spotted a larger-than-most stone in his path and swerved to avoid it – the one thing you should never do, but a natural reaction in the circumstances. Next thing we knew the car was spinning wildly and all we could see was flying gravel. Luckily (but not unusually in Namibia) there were no other cars around for us to hit, and equally luckily all four wheels stayed on the road. We’d be warned that on average one tourist car a day is flipped on its side, and for a while there I was sure we were going to be that day’s statistic!

After that the journey proceeded without incident. We passed through Walvis Bay without stopping, as time was getting on, and joined one of the country’s rare tarmac roads north along the coast.

Swakopmund

As we approached Swakopmund there were dunes beside the road and suddenly also many more people. Signs advertised dune buggy rides and dune-boarding. Driving into the town was a bit of a culture shock after several days in the Kalahari and Namib Deserts, made more surreal by the Germanic style of architecture here. The town was founded in 1892 as the main port for what was then German South West Africa and German influences can be seen in many street names, a German daily newspaper, while the German language is still spoken by some residents.

Our accommodation for the next two nights was at Sam's Giardino in a quiet street on the outskirts of town. This struck us as a little touch of the Swiss Alps in the middle of the African desert! It is built in the style of a Swiss chalet and was run (and still is, it seems) by Sam, a colourful Swiss ex-pat.

We settled into our comfortable room and relaxed for a while in the secluded garden where we met the ‘real’ manager of the hotel, Dr. Einstein. A Bernese Mountain Dog, with his own small chalet in the garden, it was pretty clear that he was the real boss around here!

The one downside of this otherwise comfortable and friendly hotel was that it was a little further out of the town centre than we had expected – not too far to walk perhaps, but we didn't fancy doing that at night so were obliged to take the car when we went out to dinner, meaning that Chris, as driver, couldn’t really enjoy a drink. But on our return to the hotel after our meal we were able to buy a Schnapps from Sam and we drank this in the cosy bar area while he proudly showed us his photo album. Like that of any proud father it was full of baby photos - of Dr. Einstein!

Walvis Bay

The following day we had hoped to take a sightseeing flight over the Skeleton Coast, but by the time we arrived yesterday the next day’s tours were booked up, so we needed a change of plan. Walvis Bay had looked interesting as we passed through yesterday, so we decided to backtrack and check it out.

Walvis Bay means Bay of Whales in Afrikaans. It is the only natural harbour of any size along the Namibian coast, and with a rich supply of plankton amassing in its waters it was a magnet large numbers of southern right whales, and they in turn for whalers. Whaling was of course stopped some time ago, but fishing is still a major industry here, as is fish processing.

But we were here not to see fish but flamingos, which like the whales before them are drawn here by the bay’s rich waters.

They were a bit far away from the shore to get good photos (we didn’t have very good zoom lenses back then) but we took some anyway, and then had a leisurely lunch in a café by the harbour before driving back to Swakopmund.

There we had a walk around town and came across an informal craft market in a car park behind the shopping centre, with the stall-holders’ wares spread out on cloths on the ground. Here we bought a wooden mask – we knew it was very likely made not here in Namibia but imported from elsewhere in Africa (probably Zimbabwe), but we liked it and decided not to let that detail put us off our purchase. The mask still hangs in our hallway, the first of several we have collected from different places on our travels.

We also bought a small picture made entirely of sand in a craft shop, Meerkat, which today hangs on our kitchen wall alongside many other holiday souvenirs.

We spent the evening in Kücki’s Pub, a Swakopmund institution – part pub, part German Gasthof. Then it was ‘home’ to Sam’s and a final evening here before we set off on the next stage of our Namibian adventure!