Windhoek, Namibia

We started Wednesday with sun rise over the Indian Ocean and finished it with sun set over Namibia:

As we took off, the views of the reef around the island were pretty spectacular:

It was a very unhealthy day of airline food and airports and neither airline served gin 😱. For those of you who think I’m obsessed 😂 , I’m actually intolerant to wine (which was a bit of a shock when I found out!) so gin is now my drink. I like to think I’m something of a connoisseur so it was also a bit of a shock when we also discovered that there’s no duty free allowance for spirits between South Africa and Namibia – WTF?!! Luckily our gorgeous hotel came to the rescue:

We are staying at the fabulous Weinberg Hotel, for two nights, which was organised by our travel company Namibia Tours & Safaris and is somewhat posher than our usual abodes:

We had breakfast outside (in the shade, the sun was too hot 😂) and the standard “breakfast tower” was awesome!

Thus far, Namibia is looking pretty damned amazing! The thing that really struck us as we came in to land was that there were no lights. As you come into land in Nairobi or Mombasa or Arusha (Tanzania) at night there are dots of lights everywhere from houses and small villages but coming into Windhoek there was absolutely nothing. Really extraordinary.

Today we have picked up our home for the next 3 weeks. Ladies and gentlemen – let me introduce you to Naomi the Nissan Navara (Naomi is a popular name in Namibia and means pleasantness and sweetness so I’m hoping she lives up to her name):

She’s a bit of a beast after 800cc Suzy the Suzuki!

Matt has been given all of the technical instructions around changing wheels (we have 2 spares and I’m hoping and praying we don’t need either of them), reducing tyre pressure for sand (and then raising it again) which we definitely will need to do, the dust vent for dirt roads (of which there will be a LOT) and other such exciting manly things.

We’ve just been shopping and have filled the fridge, bought fuel for the Braai (that’s barbecue to you and me) and have our route planned for the next couple of days. Namibia is BIG and we are driving pretty much all around it. A couple of maps – the one on the right showing our (sort of) route, starting and ending at the black splodge (Windhoek) and travelling in a generally clockwise direction:

Tomorrow (Friday) we have a 165 mile (265km) drive south to the Kalahari, some of which is gravel, to our first campsite and first night on the roof. We are soooo excited!

The blog may be a bit intermittent over the next 3 weeks as I’ve no idea how often we’ll get WiFi and/or how good it’ll be so please bear with!

In the meantime, more shots of the lovely Naomi:

FYI, Matt is banned from eating beans for the whole trip and, yes, we have made plans for having wees in the night (more of which as our safari progresses, no doubt!).