African Adventure Begins!
A different trip again this time, And we wanted to travel light, so no taking of laptops or tablets, so this blog is being written when we have already returned home, and so is more of a record of what we did, and what we saw. Luckily, I did take notes as we went along, as my memory is not great!
We started our adventure on 7th May 2017 in Windhoek, the capitol of Namibia. We were a little jaded on day one - on the plus side Namibia is in the same time zone as London, so no jet lag, but on the minus side we got there via a 12 hour flight to Johannesburg, a 2 hour transit, then a 2 hour flight to Windhoek - all of which went smoothly, but meant we were pretty tired on arrival!
Audley (or rather their agents in Africa, ATI) had arranged for 2 people to aid our transit at Johannesburg, which seemed a bit of overkill, as Johannesburg airport is modern, and transits are well signposted, though they did manage to get us through passport control quicker than quicker than we would have done on our own.
Our brief experience of South Africa was a good one, and during our transit time we managed to grab some food at a nice cafe, which gave us our first (of many) unexpected realisations that vegetarian food is easier than we thought to come by in a continent renowned for its love of meat!
It was also the first of many times this holiday that we ate too much. Okay, maybe I should rephrase that that, I ate too much. Not on that particular meal, but a combination of the previous 24 hours. We are used to veggie options on aeroplanes being pretty poor, so we tend to eat a decent meal beforehand, as we did at Heathrow before we left. But the 2 meals supplied by South African Airlines were good, as was the other one on the flight to Windhoek, so we were pretty stuffed by the time we got to Namibia.
We were grateful that a driver had been laid on for the 45 minute drive into Windhoek. Our first experience of Namibia was a small airport, long queues for passport control, clean, open spaces and very quiet roads in very good condition. Wildlife spotting in our knackered state was restricted to pointing and general grunting at some baboons that were sitting by the side of the road.
Windhoek was very quiet, almost deserted, despite it only being about 2pm. But it was Sunday. Our B&B for one night was very nice, with a view over the city, and a lovely sunset. An ATI rep talked us through the plan for the holiday, and a Europcar rep delivered our vehicle - The Tank - which he proudly told us was an upgrade from the intended Nissan Duster to a larger Toyota Hilux.
Very big, very clean, but with only one spare tyre (we were told that we ought to get two), and the tread on the other 4 tyres was pretty low. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we should have refused that car and insisted on another with at least better tread on the tyres, but the roads we had been on so far were very good, so we accepted the car, though with a request that another spare tyre be arranged at some point soon (which we had to chase up later, but did eventually get sorted out)
A good night's rest, a very nice meal at a restaurant that we booked a taxi to get to, but turned out to be just around the corner (though I did manage to leave my bank card in the taxi when it fell out of my wallet without me realising it, and we then experienced our first of many examples of good Namibian hospitality and trustworthiness when the taxi driver phoned the restaurant to tell me that I had dropped it, and he returned it when he picked us up again - he got a good tip!), and a nice breakfast later, and we headed out to our first destination the next morning. Like most places we visited, we couldn't pronounce it until about the time we were leaving it. Sossusvlei, in the south, on the edge of the Namib Desert.
We started our adventure on 7th May 2017 in Windhoek, the capitol of Namibia. We were a little jaded on day one - on the plus side Namibia is in the same time zone as London, so no jet lag, but on the minus side we got there via a 12 hour flight to Johannesburg, a 2 hour transit, then a 2 hour flight to Windhoek - all of which went smoothly, but meant we were pretty tired on arrival!
Audley (or rather their agents in Africa, ATI) had arranged for 2 people to aid our transit at Johannesburg, which seemed a bit of overkill, as Johannesburg airport is modern, and transits are well signposted, though they did manage to get us through passport control quicker than quicker than we would have done on our own.
Our brief experience of South Africa was a good one, and during our transit time we managed to grab some food at a nice cafe, which gave us our first (of many) unexpected realisations that vegetarian food is easier than we thought to come by in a continent renowned for its love of meat!
We were grateful that a driver had been laid on for the 45 minute drive into Windhoek. Our first experience of Namibia was a small airport, long queues for passport control, clean, open spaces and very quiet roads in very good condition. Wildlife spotting in our knackered state was restricted to pointing and general grunting at some baboons that were sitting by the side of the road.
Windhoek was very quiet, almost deserted, despite it only being about 2pm. But it was Sunday. Our B&B for one night was very nice, with a view over the city, and a lovely sunset. An ATI rep talked us through the plan for the holiday, and a Europcar rep delivered our vehicle - The Tank - which he proudly told us was an upgrade from the intended Nissan Duster to a larger Toyota Hilux.
Very big, very clean, but with only one spare tyre (we were told that we ought to get two), and the tread on the other 4 tyres was pretty low. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we should have refused that car and insisted on another with at least better tread on the tyres, but the roads we had been on so far were very good, so we accepted the car, though with a request that another spare tyre be arranged at some point soon (which we had to chase up later, but did eventually get sorted out)
A good night's rest, a very nice meal at a restaurant that we booked a taxi to get to, but turned out to be just around the corner (though I did manage to leave my bank card in the taxi when it fell out of my wallet without me realising it, and we then experienced our first of many examples of good Namibian hospitality and trustworthiness when the taxi driver phoned the restaurant to tell me that I had dropped it, and he returned it when he picked us up again - he got a good tip!), and a nice breakfast later, and we headed out to our first destination the next morning. Like most places we visited, we couldn't pronounce it until about the time we were leaving it. Sossusvlei, in the south, on the edge of the Namib Desert.
Place stayed: Villa Vista, Windhoek
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