Windhoek Day 2-To Every Man His Own -- Namibian Motto

Kiah and I walked into town on our second day in Windhoek. We noticed that it was much livelier on the Monday than Sunday. Children were in school, cars were zooming around us and people were out on the street. Forgot to mention that they drive on the left side of the road in Namibia. Kiah pointed it out and reminded me that we will be driving on the left side of the road and that left me a little worried so I spent the day reminding myself, left, they drive on the left, stick to the left. 

I also forgot to mention that most things are gated with barbed wire. The houses, stores, shops were hard to get to because of the gates and wire. While we felt safe walking around, it did kind if hard to feel that the city felt at ease with the community. 

We first went to the bookstore "Book Den". Small bookstore but good. We went in looking to find more books to read as well as books about the area or from local authors. We bought 5 books in total (one is a gift) to share back and forth as we have time to read.

We then went to the Craft Center in Windhoek. The idea is that you could buy locally crafted items and are open 9-1. The problem is that all of the stalls had all of the same times so it looked more mass produced than anything else so we didn't buy anything. However, if we decide we do want something, we know where to go. 

After the craft fair, we went to Christkurche which was built in 1910. On TripAdvisor, it's one of the top rated things to see in Windhoek. We walked in, walked around and then walked out not sure what we were supposed to see or notice. 

Looking around Christkurche, we noticed a building across the street and then proceeded to walk towards the much more impressive and modern building that turned out to be the Namibian Independence Museum. The museum was free and all you had to do was sign in. The bronze work for the museum was outstanding and I personally think stood out and spoke louder than the rest of the pieces in the museum. The museum itself raised more questions than answered such as-If Namibia was colonized by the Germans, how did it then gain their independence from South Africa? What is SWAPO? It took 50 years for them to get their independence? And so on. We went home and went on Wikipedia and did a little more research to fill in the gaps. 

This a very, very simplified history of Namibia-- After World War I, Namibia fell under English rule. We believe, that when cars were becoming popular, under British rule, Namibia then found themselves driving on the left side of the street. After a few more decades, South Africa's apartheid ruled Namibia. Guerrilla warfare broke out, war and then after several petitions to the UN, South Africa granted their independence. After about a year of writing their constitution, Namibia became independent in 1990. It's weird to think about, but I'm older than this country. 

After the Independence museum, we went to lunch at Joe's Beerhouse. They took the tiki, outdoors theme and ran with it. Dining tables were under individual huts with lanterns on the tables. It reminded me of the area around Indiana Jones at Disneyland. The food was a little too fried for us, but good. We had the hardest time opening a bottle of water but after trying to cut it off, a gentleman at a neighboring table was able to get the bottle opened for us. 

After lunch, we went to the cultural museum-Owela. This museum was also free after signing in. There was so much information to read that it was overwhelming. So many cultures and tribes and people. I wished they had a tour guide to kind of sum up the information or make it more interactive. There was so much to read that after a while, you just looked at the pictures to get an idea. I would recommend the Independence museum over Owela. But to be fair, Owela was a work in progress and you could see that so maybe in some months or years, it'll be much more streamlined. 

After the museum, we went to a coffee shop - Slowtown to read and relax. The coffee at this place was amazing and so good and fresh. I got an ice coffee and it was the best ratio of cream, ice and coffee. Yum. 

From coffee, we went to our hotel to relax until dinner. We walked down to the restaurant Nice (Namibian  ) for dinner. And wow, did it live up to it's name. The ambiance, the food, the hospitality were all great. It was also one of the few places in the city that didn't seem to be gated or barb wired up. The bathroom also was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen. They do all of their food as fresh as possible and really made the place feel very high class without being expensive. 

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel to prepare for the next day. Day 2 in Windhoek, complete. 

Windhoek-First Day in Namibia

Kiah and I arrived in Windhoek earlier today. I after my 27 hour flight and Kiah after her 13 hour flight are in our hotel room planning for the next day. We arrived at about 2 pm, and after going through customs (which a local told us they just updated their system last week ) arrived at our hotel a few hours later. The airport, Hosea Kutako International Airport (WDH) is about 20 miles outside from the main part of the city. We were expecting to see nature and animals and already on our way here, we already saw 3 monkeys and an ostrich on the side of the road.

After checking in to our hotel, we went for a walk to buy water and explore the city. We were told by our taxi driver that stores would be open, even on a Sunday but when we started walking around, we couldn't find anything open. We were able to walk through the mall, but they were already closed as we walked through at about 6. We even tried to find something to eat and thought just by walking around we might find something but still had a hard time trying to find something. We finally decided to walk to the Hilton hotel we could see from a far figuring that there should be food places near the tourists and finally found a place to eat. 

We ate at a very American inspired place called "Spur". I took a picture of the restaurant and if you notice, a couple of the Spur staff gave me great big smiles. I had a very delicious t-bone from Namibian beef which was one of the best I have had in a long time. Our waitress, Devine, was a local girl of about 17 or 18 who said we had "popped her cherry" because we were the first Americans she had ever met. She also wanted to make sure we were safe in the country and reminded us to keep our items close to us. She was very sweet and asked if we could keep in touch.

We found Windhoek to be a very quiet and slow paced city. My Namibian friends had warned me about that, but I thought they were telling me that because they knew I have lived in Los Angeles all my life and anything slower than that, would be considered quiet. But in general, we saw very few people driving or walking around. It is one of the quietest cities I have ever visited. I cannot stress how quiet the city was. We took a couple of photos and didn't have any problems trying to get cars out of the shot because there were none. Today we took it slow and hope tomorrow we will see more people and get to check off some of the items on our to see list.