In praise of South Africa and Namibia

[Freebie]

Many many years ago i lived in South Africa for 5 years and 5 years ago I visited Namibia for 2 weeks.

Thought I should combine a road trip to both places which I did over the past 35 days.

Conclusion, absolutely brilliant and will do it again net year and include Botswana.

35 days, 10500 kms, over USD 1000 spent on diesel alone for the " double cab 4 wheel drive bakkie " that I rented.

Stayed in 17 separate airbnb places where the hosts, highly interested in having a well travelled gent living in Philippines staying with them would invariably invite me for dinner or lunch or sundowners on a rock in middle of nowhere or giraffe and zebra spotting or springbok BBQ etc etc.

Both countries are vast hence the distances I drove ( some days over 800kms ) but if I drove a long distance would stay in one place for 2 or 3 days so that I could see something of the towns/villages I was in.

Had one flat tyre and cracked rim in northern Namibia that was fixed and replaced by a garage in Otjiworongo near Etosha .

Vehicle had 2 spare tyres which is normal especially for some of the gravel roads that one finds in Namibia.  In some places was similar to Western Australia with the same vast distances and normal 100kms between available gas stations. Tell someone you are going 200 kms and they say " oh just down the road then ". A long drive for many Namibians is anything over 1000kms.

Both countries have populations suffering from covid effects on economy with people outside supermarkets and gas stations requesting spare food or spare change. No one gives money to these as it invariably goes on drink or drugs but many will share spare food I saw.

Wonderful first trip out of Philippines since covid. Lots staff in NAIA checking I had RT PCR done for arrival in South Africa ( 72 hours before travelling ) but on arrival in Cape town airport I think the RT PCR form wasnt even looked at. Passing border from South Africa in to Namibia was super easy . The health check consisted of a guy asking " have you been vaccinated " "Yes and I prepared to show him all certs etc... he waved these away and said no need to see. He also said " and dont forget no need to wear masks in the country unless you want to wear it ".

Finished my trip with 3 days in Cape Town which must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world with Table Mountain predominating .

 

Happy to share more details with any folks here should they be interested to know more  or be considering such a wonderful road trip.

 

( Animals seen.. Rhino, baboons, zebra, giraffes, meerkats, lion, ostrich, springbok , orix , Ibix, kudu, gemsbok wildebeest, warthogs, etc etc )

 

 

 

 

[Old55]

Please do share more.

We hear so many bad things to do with Africa very little of the many good. Frankly I know little of modern Africa.

[Dave Hounddriver]

8 minutes ago, Old55 said:

Frankly I know little of modern Africa.

I know Elon Musk was born in South Africa.  Its why he cannot be the next Former President 

[Viking]

Please share some pictures, if possible 

[Freebie]

Well to add more.,  I was alone and I guess 101 things could have gone wrong but nothing did. Could have gotten sick, in traffic accident, held up etc which would have been a major problem as very few hospitals when you are 100 kms away from nearest town but i didnt.

I suppose if you worry about the "what mights" you might never live your life. I prefer to plan ahead, research some plan B's, hire a very good safe vehicle with trust pilot good scores and go from there.

Africa, at least the southern part is a land of large contrasts... big cities that I studiously avoided except for Cape town.

I worked in Durban and Joburg and probably have no interest in ever returning to it.. safety, crime etc but where I went was perfectly safe.

No danger in saying " sorry mate I dont have spare food" to someone begging. In many of the rural areas a waved hand as you pass would get waves back regardless of age of waver.. young and old all wave which is cute. Namibia is 3 million population in a country twice the size of Germany and half that  population seems to be in Windhoek the capital.  If you tearn for wide open spaces where there is next to no traffic ( which I did ) then the open spaces of Klein Karoo, Karoo, Kalahari and Namibia as a whole has more open traffic free spaces than you dream of seeing.

 

With such little traffic and so far from factories or industry, the stars are a total revelation. There are thousands ( the human eye can only see 2000 apparently ) but the skies are filed with stars.

 

Some animal pics attached. hopefully they all uploaded

 

 

[manofthecoldland]

3 hours ago, Viking said:

Please share some pictures, if possible 

If interested in Namibia, I watched several of these solo motorcycling episodes throughout that country last year that had a lot of spectacular drone footage embedded. 

 

 

[Freebie]

Hi Manofcoldland.. actually I followed Itchyboots.... who is a Dutch female solo traveller and she went to many of the places I eventually went to.

[manofthecoldland]

16 minutes ago, Freebie said:

Hi Manofcoldland.. actually I followed Itchyboots.... who is a Dutch female solo traveller and she went to many of the places I eventually went to.

That's good. Her channel has been part of my video entertainment for a year or two. Glad you enjoyed it as well.

 

[OnMyWay]

Wow, what a trip!  Great pics!