Windhoek

After a 22 hour bus ride through God-only-knows-where-Africa, we made it to Windhoek, Namibia a few days ago. We didn't have a lot we wanted to accomplish here, but one thing rang true with all of us... beer.

Windhoek brews our favorite South African beer, originally named "Windhoek." We have probably been planning a brewery tour for 2 years. Unfortunately, it wasn't until we came that we learned they're under renovation and aren't giving tours at the moment. : ( Fortunately for us, we had been to the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town and sampled a great craft beer called "Camelthorn." After chatting with the guy for a while, we learned it was a Namibian beer based in Windhoek! Score! So today, we're off to check out the Camelthorn brewery and taste some of their delicious beer. We've also learned that "Hansa" beer is brewed here too (though I'm still not convinced it's not South African) and we'll see how much there is to do in our next town and if some more free beer is in order...

We've spent the last few days wandering around the city of Windhoek, enjoying German Schnitzels and beers. In case you didn't know, Namibia was colonized by the Germans, however long ago. It's interesting because there are technically three colonial languages spoken here: Afrikaans, German, and English. Then there are at least 7 different tribes, each with their own language, or at least dialect.

Namibia is a fasinating country (what we've seen so far anyway). It is a huge country with only 2 million people, making it the least densely populated country in the world. When we drove in, I saw a sign saying we were 20 km from Windhoek. As the capital of Namibia, you would think there would be smaller towns, townships, something leading up to the biggest city in the country. Nope. It wasn't until we were 2-3km from city center that any sort of life appeared. Namibia is apparently just towns seperated by rolling desert hills. Beautiful, but weird.

We met a Peace Corps Namibia volunteer at the backpackers we're staying at, and he graciously invited us to come out with him and his fellow volunteers that night. We were quick to agree and we soon found ourselves in a big mall, eating pizza, drinking "Jam Jars" and surrounded by 10 volunteers familiarly all talking at once. We were in heaven. It's not like we haven't been with Peace Corps volunteers the whole way so far, but we're a small group traveling. There's something about a big group of American Volunteers getting together that makes me all warm inside... everyone talking over each other, complaining about life in their communities (though everyone actually loves it), dishing out the latest gossip in the PCV and expat community. We all agreed we'd missed it. Peace Corps Volunteers are in general, pretty awesome people, so we had a blast and made sure to hang out with them again last night, after a delicious dinner of springbok, kudu, ostrich, crocodile, and zebra. Mmmmm.

Tomorrow, we're headed to the coastal town of Swakopmund. Everyone we've talked to, every guidebook we've read, has said it's like Germany in Africa. Considering I've never been to Germany, I'll probably have to take their word for it, but it should be an interesting sight, a German town in the middle of the sand dunes of the Namibian desert. On the coast of Namibia are the infamous dunes that you see in the typical pictures of African desert, set up right against the ocean. Namibia was the first country in Africa that we saw as we flew to Johannesburg oh so many years ago... Our first glimpses of the continent were of this desert set up right next to the ocean. I'm very excited to see it from the ground. I'm also excited to hopefully do some sandboarding on the dunes. Should be fun!

We'll be in Namibia until Friday when we head north towards Angola and then east through the Caprivi strip and into Zambia to Victoria Falls. People keep talking about the bungee jump and I keep covering my ears. In my mind, it's still WEEKS away and I don't have to think about it, no one remind me it's only days away...