We’ve been in Africa now for about two months, 3 weeks in Morocco, 3 weeks in Egypt and the last couple weeks in Namibia.  Once we hit Morocco our internet connection largely dried up, getting worse in Egypt then Namibia.  Two weeks into our Namibia tour, today is a rest day with internet connection so I’ll post an update on Namibia, maybe post something on Morocco and Egypt at a later date.

Our plans for southern Africa were far from set when we started our journey.  Tanzania topped our list but as we researched the country it sounded expensive and tourist ridden this time of year. We have a former coworker from Namibia who always encouraged us to visit his homeland so it eventually became the obvious choice, benefiting from connections on the ground that are potentially a huge help.

Namibia is located in south western Africa, bordering the atlantic ocean to its west, Botswana to the east, Angola to the North, and South Africa to the south.    The original natives were the Bushmen, Damara, and Namaqua.  The 14th century brought a Bantu from the north (think black African) migration into the region, followed a century later by white Europeans.  Germany created a number of strongholds around the coast to support the maritime trade routes, eventually making the region, then know as German South-West Africa, a protectorate until the end of World War I.  Their influence can still be seen today as Namibia has a strong German undercurrent including the widespread use of the language and cuisine.

Namibia was part of South Africa until gaining it’s independence in 1990.  The new nation had the foresight to make English the national language, a potentially competitive advantage in the modern global world.  Most people speak multiple languages including Afrikaans, German, tribal dialects, and English.  Traveling the world as an American quickly makes you feel like an idiot as most people speak multiple languages, even the uneducated.

We landed in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, with no idea what we would do other than visit Etosha, a large national park where you can get the African safari experience.  Our initial rough plan was an overland journey from Namibia through Botswana, up to Victoria Falls, Zambia and eventually Tanzania, flying out of Dar es Saalam.  Naively we thought buses and trains would take us most of the way, not knowing public transportation is virtually non existent in southern Africa.

We also had little idea what to expect in Namibia.  Egypt and Morocco were both overwhelming in many ways:  the crowds, the noise, the smells, the filth.  We expected much of the same in Namibia, especially since it’s perceived to be a poorer area of Africa. Windhoek was a shock in many ways, all good.

The Windhoek airport is about 25 miles outside the city, basically in the middle of nowhere.  The plane made an unusually long and low approach to the airport so we had good close up view of the ground, not a house in site.  The geography looked very similar to the southwest US, maybe New Mexico, with rolling hills, small trees or shrubs and a lot of dirt, clearly it’s a dry environment.

Muyeve (our former coworker) had his brother and sister greet us at the airport, a welcomed relief from landing in a foreign land and having to negotiate with taxis to find our way to into the city.  Driving into Windhoek I was torn between thinking we could be anywhere in the US or somewhere in a war zone.  The most striking observation was most houses are surrounded by a wall of some sort topped with barbed wire and/or electric fences.  Clearly there is concern for safety or property.  The houses all look clean and maintained, sized similar to a typical american house.  Cars on the road were all modern and in good condition, unlike north Africa where you see all manner of ancient vehicles, kind of reminded us of Cuba.  The streets were strikingly clean, more so than a similarly sized US city, a huge difference from north Africa.

Our guesthouse was very nice, a small operation with about six rooms, a swimming pool, a couple dogs, and an affiliated travel agency which would prove key to our planning.  We walked about a mile downtown to shop at the local mall for groceries and a few other items. The mall also felt very familiar, different store names but selling the same merchandise you would find locally in the states.  The supermarket was the first we’ve seen since Europe.  North African “supermarkets” were typically the size of a 7-11.

We were told about areas of town to avoid with the main problem being theft.  Perhaps we were viewing Windhoek through tourists eyes but we felt safe walking around town even though the streets were lined with barbwire and signs on local businesses said to not leave valuables in your car. Sounds crazy but we didn’t feel out of place.

Our lack of internet connection in north Africa required us to spend the first week in Windhoek coming up with a plan.  We spent a couple days looking over information on Namibia and bordering countries, trying to come up with a plan but making no progress.  We never use travel agents, now or in the past, always making our own plans but we decided to chat the agent (ATI Holidays) at our guesthouse (Rivendell).  A couple conversations later the agent came up with a few different options and pricing.  We settled on a self driven tour, renting a 4×4 Toyota extended cab pickup with two roof top tents. Although we were certainly paying a premium for the agents service there is no way we could have come up with such a plan in a matter of days.  Since the car rental was the largest fee we decided to look into renting a car on our own, getting a much better deal at about $130/day, $50/day less than the agent offered.

No doubt we also paid a premium on the accommodations but there was no way we could plan a similar trip in a matter of days.

A couple days later we picked up our car (looks totally bad ass) and hit the road.  Our plan is to head south to Fish River Canyon, west to the coast, up to Etosha, north east to the Angolan border and eventually to the borders of Zambia and Botswana with a visit to Victory Falls, down into Botswana and back to Windhoek.  We will be on the road for 30 days.

Here’s PDF of our itinerary.