After being so tired last night, it wasn't surprising that we both slept well. We woke up at 5:30am, with the idea to be up and out of the camp by 6:00am, ready for another long day of driving. We took a little longer than expected to get ready and packed up, so we only got to reception at 6:30am. When we got there we found the reception still locked and sitting outside it was the same guard who let us in last night. He told us that the reception was only open from 7:00am and that we would have to wait for them to be able to pay the R370 for the night. We were also really lucky to have found this place as we didn't have much money left and it was in Rands, but thankfully the Namibian dollar and rand are pegged together, so we could pay in Rand.
We told him we really needed to get going and didn't want to wait around for half an hour, so he phoned the manager and put her on the phone to us. She told us adamantly that we would have to wait for her and that we could not pay the guard, so what did I do? I handed the guard the cellphone and the R370 and told him it was ok to leave it with him, and we scarpered as quickly as we could. Thankfully the gate was unlocked or our clever plan may not have worked! Dan took the first driving shift, and after a couple of hours of finding no petrol stations at all, we pulled off at a rest stop to use the jerry can. I was so unbelievably grateful at that moment to have our emergency 25l of diesel, especially when we had to drive another 100kms or so for the next fuel stop!
We pulled into the little town with a fuel station right on the main road, but headed past that to find a cash machine. Thankfully the sat nav pulled through again and found an FNB for us, where we could finally get our hands on some Namibian dollars. We withdrew N$2000 and headed back up the road to the petrol station. Dan filled up the car and the jerry can while I went and got us a seat in the Wimpy. We both decided that we deserved a sit down breakfast because we hadn't had anything decent since leaving Lusaka, apart from a couple of sandwiches and some chips. It was heavenly! We grabbed some snacks from the shop next door and headed off, this time I took the wheel.
My few hours of driving were beautiful but uneventful. The scenery in Namibia is truly stunning in this part of the country, it's really quite green at this time of the year, and the mountains were stunning. Dan had been driving again for a while when we hit a really extreme storm. It became extremely dark and the thunder and lightning was petrifying. Great flashes of it would flicker across the sky, and with the rain pelting down on us it was hard not to be a little frightened. We were driving through a town when the rain got so hard that Dan pulled into a petrol station for us to wait it out.
It seemed everyone had had the same idea, as there were cars parked everywhere. We got out and were soaked on the way to the shop. We had enough snacks already but I was grateful to be able to use their loo. We waited out the storm for 20 minutes or so, during which time the whole town had a power cut and the road outside the petrol station was severely flooded with water! It was almost as high as the bottoms of most of the cars lining the opposite side of the street. Thankfully it eventually abated enough for us to set off again, and after driving for half an hour along the roads that now resembled rivers we broke through the storm cloud and left the ridiculous weather behind us. We felt so sorry for those going in the opposite direction, they had no idea what they were getting themselves in for.
The sat nav had us arriving into Windhoek just before 6, but unfortunately we were delayed by a police check point that wanted to search our car. Surprise surprise! The fat lady obviously couldn't find anything to fine us for so let us go quite quickly. I set the sat nav for different hostels in Windhoek. We stopped outside a few and Dan went in to find out the price; if it was reasonable he would agree, if not he would have to "ask his wife" and come out to the car and we would leave! A brilliant plan that has worked well for us this trip :D One hostel was full, another was deserted by the looks of things, but we finally found a great one called Rainbow Backpackers. A private ensuite double room including breakfast the next morning was just R340 for the two of us!
I was exhausted, so after dragging our bags into the room I lay down and skyped Mum and Dad to let them know we were ok, whilst Dan proceeded to have three castles with the owner of the backpackers, both chatting away about our trip so far. The owner recommended a great place for dinner that was quite famous, called Joe's Beer House. Anything named after my Dad is ok by me! As Dan had already had three beers I drove us to the restaurant, which was really tucked away but really busy. It was separated into loads of different areas both inside and out, and was full to the brim with interesting antiques, statement pieces, old farm equipment and signs. It could have easily doubled for a peculiar rummage shop!
They had loads of reservations for that evening but because it was so large they were still able to accommodate us. We were taken into a room on the left and seated at a wooden table near the corner of the room. The mantle piece and parts of the walls were covered in empty Jaegermeister bottles and on my left was a piano covered in antiques. There was always something new to look at! Once we were equipped with a glass of red wine and a bottle of castle larger, the waitress took our order. We decided to share a starter of Namibian smoked fish because it sounded really interesting, and it tasted great too. For our mains we ordered a Kudu steak and a Zebra steak, and shared both as neither one of us had ever tried Zebra before. They were both delicious, the Zebra was a little lighter in colour and had a more subtle flavour than the Kudu, and went perfectly with the herb butter that accompanied it. After the fantastic dinner and the very long day of driving we had had, we went straight back to Rainbow backpackers and fell asleep.
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