Into Windhoek

(295kms)

S 22° 34’ 08” – E 17° 04’ 37”

I left the River Chalets at 8.00am, the earliest start I had managed so far… I filled the bike up, before turning north for the 300km dash to Windhoek. There was not much traffic on the road, and I made good time. I zoomed past the turnoff to Stampriet, and on to Kalkrand, where I stopped to take in some liquids… and release others… It was very hot, and I could feel drops of perspiration running down my back… I was now riding through the Hardap district, home of the “Basters” (do NOT call them Coloured, I was told by one of the Overlanders the night before…!) These are a very proud and independent people, and there are streets named after their hero from days gone by, Hendrik Witbooi. The men gallop around on wiry horses, wearing Stetsons, with either one or both brims folded up on the sides. All along the road, every few hundred metres were the skins of springbok, goats and other animals I did not recognize, hanging from fences, for sale to any brave enough to stop. Many a fist was shaken at me as I zoomed past, I assume that word had spread that I was not buying curios on this trip…

Just before Rehoboth, I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn for the first time. (All going well, I should cross it again going south, somewhere in Mozambique…) It would have made for a good photo opportunity, but by the time I saw the sign, I was already adjacent to it, and doing a steady 160km/h…. the “Big Fella” was overly keen to get to BMW Windhoek for his service, and would not let me turn around… Honest!!!

There are no garden services in Rehoboth…..

Rehoboth is surrounded by a range of low hills, and the houses are scattered fairly wide apart, making this little town seem bigger than it really is. I stopped for fuel at the only filling station, and made a few calls while I cooled down. Tar melted quietly in the main street as I stood in the shade of a large tree watching the coming and goings of the “Baster” people… Many of them rode into town on horseback or in little “karretjies” as they called them; a wooden cart pulled by two or four tired looking donkeys… Having spent a fruitless ten minutes trying to explain to a gap-toothed pump jockey, how to take a photo of me with the bike, I finally gave up and left town…

Just short of Windhoek, I was stopped at yet another road-block, and was asked to produce my licence. Again I showed the expired one, and again it was accepted without comment…at least consistency reigns here…. A troop of baboons watched idly as I slowed down to ensure I did not hit any of them, a huge male sat right on the yellow line, and did not move a muscle as I rode past and hooted at him… Cheeky devil!! After a long section of twists and turns, I was suddenly riding down the main street into Windhoek. I had set my GPS for the street in which BMW was located, and rode directly there, causing the staff to gawk openly at the sight of a fully-laden GS just outside their showroom… We were in our element, the “Big Fella” and I, and we both seemed to stand a little taller… While I answered a hundred and one questions from the staff, I heard one of the mechanics say, “My bliksem, die ou het te feel son gehad…!”… He was probably right…    

I confirmed my booking for Monday the 8th, and then rode across to the industrial area, to pay for the tyres I had ordered. To my chagrin (always wanted to use that word…!) the Metzler’s I had ordered had not arrived!! I had to settle for a set of Bridgestone Battlewing’s, which in my humble opinion, are not nearly as good as the Metzler tyres are… But beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose… My current Metzler’s were still good for at least another few thousand kilometres, and I had no intention of leaving them in Windhoek… A plan had to be made…

The spotless workshop at Danric Motorrad in Windhoek, busy as always…

I found Etosha Transport’s offices, the firm who deliver the furniture we produce from Wadeville into Namibia and Botswana, and arranged for them to hide my old tyres in the next truck going back to “the states” as the warehouse foreman called South Africa… I was instantly reminded of my National Service days on the Angolan border, where we also referred to home as “the states”… Some things never change, I guess…

I arrived at Backpackers Unite on the corners of Bach and Greigstrasse, not sure what to expect. I reported to “reception” (the pool, in this case!) having pre-booked a room for four nights. I assumed that the bike would not be ready in time for me to make the run to Swakopmund on Monday, so I had resigned myself to a very long weekend in Windhoek… I was escorted to my room, which had two single beds and an en-suite bathroom…

The “reception” at Backpackers Unite….

I unloaded the bike in the blistering heat and carried all my kit to my room, using one of the beds to spread everything out so I would not have to scratch in all of the bags when I wanted to find something… Most of the guests walked around in their costumes all day, and I followed suit, lounging neck deep in the pool while watching the comings and goings around me. There were two groups of female German students, each vying with the other to look as attractive as possible for the guys who ogled them… There were Dutch, American, Danish and Swedish guests, as well as a few South Africans and local Namibians in residence.

The atmosphere was very friendly, and within a short space of time, I was “one of the gang”… Two guys, who had been engrossed in a game of cards which seemed to involve the liberal use of every swearword that I had ever heard, got up and introduced themselves to me… We were to become firm friends over the course of the weekend… Attila (yes, really!) was a German local, born in Swakopmund, and had his own business, making those “rock art” ponds and swimming pools. After explaining how he costs out the various contracts he enters into, I could see why he was living in a tent at a backpackers joint!! The other guy, Steve, was a South African rigger, working on the oil rigs in Angola, and was on leave before having to go back to the rigs at the end of January…

Attila the Hun and Steve “20 dollars”…..

Attila taught me to play the card game “Spite and Malice”, but remained unbeaten all weekend at this German game. He would get up off the couch to which he periodically retired to take brief naps, to give both Steve and I, a sound thrashing… Try as we might, even preventing him from dealing the cards, he remained the “Spite and Malice” champion. He spoke in slow measured tones and seemed to be asleep half of the time, but was quick to take advantage of any lapse in concentration on our parts…

Steve became known as “20 dollars” after an evening when we decided to have a braai… Attila and I had gone to the local Spar to buy all the ingredients. (N$140.00 in total). I paid my third, but when Attila asked Steve for his N$45.00 contribution, Steve advised him that he would only eat N$20.00 dollars worth, as he was not prepared to spend N$45.00 on one meal!!! Attila and I made sure we got the lion’s share of the food that night, and ate all the leftovers the following day… Attila made a vegetable stew consisting of an entire cabbage, two large onions, and four large tomatoes, four large potatoes cut into quarters, and a handful (literally!) of spices which he had fetched from his tent or nicked from the kitchen… This was mixed together, and after an entire 250g block of garlic butter had been melted in a large cast iron pot, the vegetable mix was thrown in, stirred with a large brown hand, and then left on the grill of the braai. He then lit a large spiff, and returned to the couch, shouting the occasional instruction for me to “stir ze shit, Ggonnie!!”… Indeed…

We all enjoyed the meal, with Steve grumbling that he had not got his N$20.00 dollars worth…. His complaints were totally ignored and he was rechristened “20 dollars” by Attila and I. By the time I left, everybody in the house was calling him by his new name, and any new arrival was immediately told to call him that and nothing else… He was not amused…

There was a little consternation during the course of the evening, when the Dutch contingent discovered that some of their chicken pieces had gone missing from the grill. Attila and I had each liberated a piece, eaten it quickly and then put the bones on Steve’s plate when he wasn’t looking… Steve was loudly accused of breaking the etiquette of the house, and the two unhappy Dutchmen retired to the lounge to sulk, Steve following behind protesting his innocence… At one stage he volunteered to have his stomach pumped to prove that he was not a “chicken thief”… Attila and I laughed till we cried…

Also staying at the house was a fellow “lone biker”, Stefan Walrond from Cape Town, who spoke passable German and flirted unashamedly with all the German girls who came within talking distance of him… He was riding a F650GS Dakar, and was halfway through a trip that had taken him from Cape Town, up the West Coast, into Namibia and on to Windhoek, where he was spending a few days resting… He would be returning via Botswana and Gauteng, and through a part of the Karoo which he had not yet ridden, before heading back to Cape Town to start work again at the end of January… His bike, a 2003 model, was in immaculate condition, and had already done 84 000 kilometres, a great advert for the BeeEmm Dakar!!

Stefan’s bike had been used on a few “Africa Epics” before he bought it, and he had obviously lavished a lot of care on the machine. How I wished it could talk…!!! He had ridden it hard over the Khomas Hochland Mountains from Walvis Bay the day before, and had understandably lost a bolt or two on his front mudguard, as well as other bits of his camping gear which had fallen off along the way… This road, the C28, gives 4 x 4 enthusiasts a headache, and from his description of some of the sections, I resolved never to attempt this ride without a back-up vehicle…or two!!

Stefan’s Walrond’s Dakar, loaded and ready for Botswana…

Stefan is also a freelance photographer and showed off his collection of stunningly beautiful photographs of the ghost town at Kolmanskop and Luderitz, which he had visited for a few days before riding to Walvis Bay. Memories of my last trip there flooded my mind and I recalled the days Vanessa and I spent looking for the desert horses, the stay in the stone hut at Eagles Nest in Klein Aus, digging for desert roses in the salt pans north of Luderitz and the trip to the Fish River Canyon…

I noticed that Stefan had a number of photos in which he himself featured and I asked if he had stopped people along the way to take these photos. He flashed me a huge grin, then hauled a tripod out of his kit, and explained how he used it… Clever lad…!! I dashed around Windhoek looking for one, and eventually found an inexpensive model that folded down to a small enough size, to fit comfortably into my Tank Bag. The “Big Fella” will be sharing the limelight with yours truly in future…!!

Stefan also gave me a short lecture on the best use of my camera, and changed a number of settings which would hopefully improve the quality of my pic’s…. (I said “hopefully”…) We chatted about many things which we had in common, and I enjoyed the short time we spent together. He gave me advice about riding in sand, and showed me his fuel consumption spreadsheet, which I copied for my own use. His Dakar is incredibly light on fuel, and if memory serves me correctly, he was getting between 30 and 35 km’s on a single litre. The range on his bike, with its far smaller tank, exceeded my range by quite a margin… (Cue gnashing of teeth…) I had already refuelled on 21 occasions on the ride from Johannesburg to Windhoek…

Speaking of fuel consumption and mileages, when I later plugged my numbers into my own spreadsheet, I realized that somewhere between Rehoboth and Windhoek, I had managed to complete 5 000 kilometres of my journey this far… It took a few minutes for that to sink in, and I felt a sense of pride at what I had already achieved in the last three weeks of riding…

Attila’s tent (middle) gets a wash from an afternoon shower in Windhoek….

Attila had assured us that it would not rain on one particular afternoon… He looked up at the sky and proclaimed that these were “Ovambo Clouds” (named after the largest indigenous tribe in Namibia) because the clouds “come ven zey vont, hang around doink nuzzink, and zen leave ven zey vont”… Needless to say, that afternoon the “Ovambo Clouds” were not as indolent as they usually were, and rain poured out of the sky for a half an hour, wetting his tent, inside and out… 20 dollars and I tried to keep a straight face while we commiserated with Attila, but our occasional gales of laughter eventually caused Attila to ask, “Vot’s funny?”, which had us “rollink on ze ground, like dogs” according to our German friend… He was not amused, and retired to the couch to muse on the misfortunes which seemed to continually befall him…

A “surprise” shower cooled the bike down, and cleared some “travel dust”….

Most people seemed to spend only a night or two at the backpackers, so after a few days I began to feel as if I had been there for weeks… I was seen as a “regular”, and therefore could behave a little “differently”…there was just too much opportunity for the practical joker in me to remain dormant… I began planning my campaign… There were so many people to annoy!!

It was going to be a long-weekend to remember….

© 2008 TBMH