Journey to Swakopmund
Good day, February 18th. Today we needed to make it to Swakopmund, even though we could have done that yesterday, but that would have been too long of a day.
Desalination Plant Visit Attempt
On the way, I had already driven this road before, so we ran into the desalination plant again and decided to make a stop to see if we could see more on the inside. Well, that was a nice try. They wouldn’t let us in, for one. Then they needed us to call a number, which when you have a Dutch phone and an American phone and you’re trying a Namibian number, that is not as straightforward as it seems. Eventually, Gert-Jan was able to do it and spoke to someone.
It turned out they were doing a lot of things with the instrumentation, testing stuff, so they were kind of busy that day. They said that they only have tours for people that have an interest or that use the water, once a month or so, and they do tours in March again. Well, we figured we weren’t going to stay around till March. They were calibrating instruments, which makes a lot of sense. So it was disappointing that we couldn’t do any of that stuff, but at least we tried.
Stops Along the Way
We also stopped at the shipwreck, and then we stopped at a place which was like a camping and lodge all by itself. There was a really long table loaded with people that all were living in the neighborhood, as in Swakopmund. They were all retired people and were very interested in what we were doing, seeing the orange vehicle. It turned out that most of them were descendants from German, or German descendants, and mostly had lived in Swakopmund. That was a fun conversation. We ended up not staying around – wasn’t anything that we really needed or wanted at that time. But it was good for pictures and what have you.
Accommodation in Swakopmund
Next stop, Swakopmund. I wanted to go and stay in the same place where I stayed before, in Dongo Guest House. It turned out that there were no openings there. But the person that was there said, well, you just go next door. Well, I hadn’t really paid attention to next door before, but that was the Skeleton Beach Backpackers.
I had been not focusing on backpackers, but backpackers is the South African or the Down Under form of a hostel. In other words, in Australia and New Zealand, you have a backpacker. Most of the time, it’s part of the year, it’s in a family home, you rent a room or two or whatever. But it’s a little different in Namibia. This one was almost like the place next door – you get your own room and then there are some common areas which you can make use of, the kitchen, and they even serve breakfast in the morning. And it was an okay price. So that became our place for 2 nights.
Exploring the Town
We had already figured that out, and then we basically toured a little bit around town just for John to get his bearings. I still had mine. All right, well, thanks for coming along. See you tomorrow.
