Swakopmund, Namibia

Photos: Swakopmund

October 29, 2011

Today was mostly a travel day. We left on a 7 am flight out of Gaborone to Johannesburg which meant an early morning wakeup.

While going through airport security, there was a new screening machine we have never seen before. People were asked to stand on the footprints and bursts of air were shot at Them After a few seconds, the light turns green and they are allowed to proceed. Amanda asked for clarification on what the machine was actually doing and was told that it “searches for drugs”. Amanda asked for further clarification that no radiation was involved1 and we were told no, so we went through the machine. Not sure how it works but luckily we passed and were allowed to board the plane. Anyone else ever have this? Have we been away so long that this became the new thing and we just haven’t see it yet?

After a lengthy layover in Johannesburg including a delay with Air Namibia, we finally arrived in Windhoek. Unfortunately, it was very late in the afternoon which left no time to explore the city. We settled into a great room at the Chameleon Guesthouse and then caught a cab to a restaurant called Gourmet that had excellent food.

We decided to go with the flow a bit on this trip. As such, we don’t have a firm itinerary or plan for the week yet. One option was to possibly rent a car and drive to some of the sights in the dessert. We have been a bit hesitant about this since we haven’t driven at all on Africa yet. Not only are they on the wrong side of the road here, but the drivers can be a bit unpredictable. We realized though that this decision would be an easy one since I left my driver’s license back in Gaborone. 2 No worries though, it is still shaping up to be a great week in Namibia.

October 30, 2011

After a light breakfast, we headed took a shuttle from Windhoek to Swakopmund. It was a comfortable ride and took about four hours.

Swakopmund, as the name would suggest, is a town heavily influenced by Germans. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean. The drive was interesting since the land becomes more and more desert with less and less vegetation until the last 20 km heading down to the ocean. The temperature then drops, it was 30 degrees in Windhoek compared to 17 degrees in Swakopmund, and the extra humidity from the ocean means more plants and the streets are lined with palm trees.

Since it was Sunday, many of the shops were closed, but we still found one of the many cafes open for lunch, and walked down to the beach for an afternoon stroll. We ended the afternoon with a short run along the beach before heading out to a local pub for dinner.

October 31, 2011

Halloween in Swakopmund! 3

We started the day with a run in the fresh air along the Namibian ocean side. We had a fairly low key day overall spending the morning trying to make some arrangements for later in the week. This afternoon, we packed a picnic lunch and walked just south of Swakopmund to the local sand dunes. They are only about a kilometer from where we are staying but we felt like we were definitely starting to get into the true desert. We circled back around to the ocean and headed back into town. A nice Italian dinner and the day was done. Not really sure where the day went, but it was another good one!

  1. We have been here long enough to know that Botswana standards may not be the same as they are back home. So even if they would have told us that there was radiation but at safe levels, we would have been skeptical at best! ↩

  2. As a general rule, we have been purposely separating our passports from our driver’s license so that if one piece of photo ID goes missing, we will still have the other. This means when traveling, we have only been bringing our passports and leaving the license back in Gaborone. I did the same this time out of habit forgetting the possibility of driving on this holiday. I haven’t driven at all in Africa yet so I guess it’s bit surprising that I didn’t think of this. ↩

  3. Apparently some of the ex-pats in Namibia do celebrate Halloween, but we were told that people do not go door to door as they do in North America. We dressed up as two traveling Canadians. ↩