Day 11 Etosha to Windhoek

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After an incredible 3 days in Etosha it was time to head back to Windhoek for our last night in Namibia. What an enchanting country this is. From the endless sand dunes of Sossusvlei to the play land in Watrus Bay; the incredible desert haunts at Twyfelfontein to the magnificence of Etosha, this is a country that EVERYONE should visit! we couldn’t have felt safer driving ourselves through this expansive country. The people, the food and the experiences were outstanding! If you ever want to visit Africa, and the prospects of it worry you, try Africa Lite in Namibia! Your money goes a long way here!

We started our morning with a leisurely breakfast and a Quick Look around the facility once again. We managed to hit the road around 9:30 or 10 am for our 5-6 hour drive back to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital. Our drive was an easy one as all the roads were “tarred” or paved. 2 lane highway most of the way and then it branched into 4 lanes about 50 km north of Windhoek. When we stopped for gas, the attendants would guide you into a pump stall and while one person pumped the gas, another would polish your windows. All very civilized, like something out of the 50’s back home! Washrooms were clean, the attendants were always polite and attentive, and the diesel prices were about the same as back home. Here’s some of the landscape as we drove south.

We break out of the flat pains of Etosha and into hillier country. This is the “tarred” road. While only 2 lanes, it was fairly straight with little traffic.
You can see some mountains coming up in the background, but they stayed to the east of us as we drove.
Much of this stretch is cattle farming. Here you see them herding the cattle from one grazing pasture on the east side of the highway to another on the west side. Farms are emended due to the arid conditions.
And the ant hills prevailed. Red here because of the red sand substraight, but in other areas they were grey with the clay and salt
We were a little taken aback when the highway signs said road closed as one point. Other cars drove by the barrier, so we decided to do so as well. ( there was not parallel route we could take that would get us to Windhoek!). Near the end we saw the bridge was being worked on, so we simply drive off road around the bridge, through the dry river bed and back onto the highway! Here’s our brief detour!
Driving into Windhoek to drop off our car. Lovely paved streets (with a few potholes, but easy to navigate!

We soon made it to our car rental place and hand someone from there drive us to our guesthouse where we would stay tonight. Tomorrow they will pick us up and take us to the airport for our flight to Cape Town. The organization that arranged our Namibia touring was Namibia Tours and Safaris out of Swakopmund. I can’t say enough great things about them!

Anyway, we finally checked into the Elegant Guest House for our last night. Pauline at reception booked us a lovely dinner table at Stellenbosch wine bar and restaurant and arranged for a taxi to drop us off and pick us up again…perfect!

Our dinner was amazing. Grilled KingKlip which is a delicious white fish with fired calamari and herb seasoned fries. Amazing!

Well a wonderful dinner and fabulous bottle of wine set us up for a memorable send off to Namibia! We’ll chat tomorrow from Cape Town where new adventures begin!

Categories: An African Adventure

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