Our Trip to Swakopmund, Namibia in 2012
Our Trip to Swakopmund, Namibia in 2012
to Nico Botha
from Robert Alan Black
October 21, 2012
Casa Lee on Friday, Saturday
Friday, October 19th, the four of us traveled from Swakopmund, Namibia to Windhoek in our rental car back across the vast desert stretching from the dunes near Swakopmund through the brush area and the surrounding mountains in the distance at the horizon both to the east and to the west. Eventually we drove through the mountains and over them.
Along the way we stopped at a gems selling area, somewhat like a mall in the desert.
Looking down from above on the structure it would look like three overlapping open circles. The walls were made of walls of piled dry flat stones held together inside chicken wire that held them in place. No mortar. Just chicken wire to hold them in place.
Inside the 3 circle were large arcs of flat tables all containing tray after tray of stones from polished stones to crystals or clusters of crystals of many different types of minerals.
After about 30 minutes of wandering from table table to table we boarded our car again and continued our journey to Windhoek.
In Windhoek we drove around the city to see various parts of it. Nico drove us to where the house that he, Annalie and their son Onic live back in the late 80s. Along the way they told us short stories of their life in Windhoek.
Then we went to the city center where there are some modern high-rise buildings and a small street flea market including some women from a tribe from far in the north of Namibia. Their clothing, or lack of clothing, is rather unique. The skin of their bodies is deep red in color from a life of rubbing fat and oils on their skins, all over. Tried to take a picture, but they asked for money to take photos, along the road in their little stall area along the side. Because of traffic I was not able to photo them. Annalie said we must go back to see them again and to take a photo. So we circled the large city block and then gave them some loose change and I took a quick photo of one of the women from the ancient culture.
After that adventure we drove to see “Joe’s” a famous restaurant/bar in Windhoek. Some of the others from the conference speaker crew were going to stop there when they returned to the airport on Wednesday.
Joe’s definitely is an institution in Windhoek. Describing the building, structure and the appearance would take a book the length of War and Peace. Things hanging from the ceiling, the columns, beams, sitting on shelves everywhere. Implements, baskets, empty liquor bottles. Around one of the bars the stools are actually old toilets.
We found a table for 16 and sat our group of 4 at one end.
In the evening Joe’s is backed and can easily seat a few hundred people.
The food was great and plentiful for the prices. I had a giant double decker hamburger that had a single large shrimp stuck in the top of the bun, along with French fries and a little salad.
After finishing our meal we left for the last leg of our drive to the airport.
Nico had a little difficulty with the THRIFTY car rental agent about the total cost of the rental including the TOPPING OFF of the gasoline. Then off to fill out the exiting forms for customs (total waste of time) and off through the customs departure checkpoint and the security checkpoint with the ex-ray machine.
The departure hall was jam packed with people for a smallish airport. Hundreds and hundreds of people sitting and waiting or standing in lines, waiting. A couple planes had been delayed, causing the hall to be over packed. We had over 2 hours to wait for our 17:55 Air Namibia to Joberg.
We found a few seats far from the crowded mass at the entrance to the departure hall near the bar past the duty free shop.
Outside in the check-in area we had seen Stephan, Kobus Neethling’s son, his business partner and friend, Matis (Ma tace), and Rache, Kobus’s sister. She was heading for Cape Town where she and her husband, Paul, live. The two guys were on our flight, also heading to Joberg and eventually Pretoria that evening. The 3 of them had done a workshop for a client in Windhoek after the Creativity Conference.
We stood and talked for awhile.
No sign of Ed.
We talked more.
No sign of Ed in the vast mob scene.
We looked in the 5 shops and the bar.
No sign of Ed.
Then I went back to through the TSA Security checkpoint and to the women at the customs departure checkpoint to ask if he had cleared and passed through the two points.
Checking her computer she found that he had.
The guards said he was not in the private screening room.
Still no Ed.
Finally Ed appeared in the crowd walking from the entrance point to where the rest of us had been standing trying to see him in the crowd, shops or bar.
He had gone into the First Class Lounge and had been waiting there thinking we would join him.
Because of the crowded situation at the entrance to the hall none of us had seen the entrance to the VIP lounge.
We had a good laugh making up scenarios about Ed and the Lounge.
Eventually I walked the length of the large hall to enter the VIP Lounge to perhaps get a bite to eat and use the FREE internet.
No questions at the door. I walked right in just like Ed had said he did. Inside the usual VIP looking crowd of business types lounging around.
I tried the internet. The woman who should have cleared us at the door came over to help. No success.
Then I left because the food nor the FREE liquor and wine interested me. I would rather be with the other 5 people in the departure hall.
Our plane boarding was announced and off we went to walk all the way to our waiting plane, nearly a half km from the door. I was carrying my very heavy briefcase with my computer in it in my left hand, my injured shoulder and bicep muscle from my BLACKSTUMP DOWN fall in Costa Rica in 2009. BIG MISTAKE. I paid for it yesterday on Saturday most of the day with chronic pain all day.
Also some of the pain probably was the result of the GREAT FUN I had on the QUAD Bike in the dunes near Wavel’s Bay on Thursday.
A little mixup on the plane. I had seat 9C and Ed 9D in one of the exit rows and our seat/row mates had respectfully 9B and 9E but the sticker up above over our heads showed only 9A, 9C on my side and 9D, 9F on Ed’s side.
Sticker error I guess.
The young fellow with 9E didn’t want to be responsible for opening the door in the case of an emergency so he was moved to the back and swapped seats with another young man.
Both our seatmates were talkative much traveled business people.
We both had interesting conversations throughout the 1 hr and 30 min flights to Joberg.
My seat mate was a business man who traveled throughout the African continent to make deals for various products that the various companies he is a partner in ranging from chemicals for instantly purifying polluted water to the conversions of bakkies, medium size open back trucks into troop vehicles. His stories of his traveling and products/product sales were very interesting.
One of the contracts he had created for the sale of the converted vehicles was to the SAVE THE RHINO organization where NedBank and other corporations actually paid for the vehicles to purchase the vehicles for the men who go out to catch the poachers of Rhinos.
Eventually we talked some about the politics in both our countries and his life in South Africa with its various problems with crime.
The arrival process went smooth. We all got our daily supply of exercise walking the long, long, long hallways from the landing gate to the customs and visa checkpoints.
Off to get checked luggage: my small 4 wheel roller bag and Ed’s refrigerator size 2 wheel bag and Annalie and Nico’s various size bags.
Out into the giant Arrival Hall with its waiting friends and family.
We needed to find the ABSA ATM machines so Ed and I could settle up with Nico about the car rental and gasoline. Annalie and Nico’s son, Onic/Nico and his pretty very newly married wife, Vanessa, were waiting somewhere to pick us up in Nico’s huge bakkie. As we searched for the ABSA bank we saw Vanessa waving at us a few floors above us in the giant open hall.
An elevator ride united all five and off to the pick up point where Onic was waiting with the white chariot to take us to 314 Guesthouse in Pretoria.
During the ride we shared stories from our week in Namibia, including Annalie and Nico’s day long adventure searching for her cell phone. It had fallen out of her jacket pocket when she and I were on top of the dunes on Wednesday evening while Ed and Nico were sharing wine and stories at the bottom of the dunes.
They had searched the vehicle, their hotel room after we left the gem museum and then went back to the giant sand dunes in search of the phone.
They both walked up the remains of Annalie’s and my tracks from the night before. Nico walked straight up to where the board Annalie had tried to slide down the dune on and saw something black sticking up out of the constantly blowing and drifting sands.
It was here phone, a little sandy, yet still working.
A MIRACLE.
After they shared that story, Annalie said she wanted to hear about Vanessa and Nico’s 90 year old mom’s story from that day. She were scheduled to take fast/race car driving lessons that day. Grandma’s story had been in several newspapers, radio and tv news shows for the past few days. We even saw it in a newspaper in a very small town in Namibia, probably a South African paper.
Vanessa and the grandmother’s adventure was extremely funny with grandma racing through curves with the instructor screaming out loud: BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!!! With Vanessa praying in the back of the car along the way.
So much laughter throughout the entire 40 minute or so ride to 314 Guesthouse.
We once again said our goodbyes to the 2 generations of Bothas.
Ed checked in while I picked up my stored medium size roller bag and the laundry I had left to be washed and waited for Lynn and Kobus Vermaak who were picking me up to take me to their wedding and event venue/resort outside of Pretoria in the countryside/bushveld called Casa Lee, which this have owned and run for 13 years now.
When we arrived they took me to my #6 suite, a honeymoon suite with its 4 post bed and huge suite with sauna size bath, shower…..with a waiting basket of mixed fruit, large box of specialty chocolates, refridge filled with drinks and water.
It was time to sleep after a long day of traveling from Swakopmund, Namibia to the Casa Lee Country Manor east of Pretoria.
to Nico Botha
from Robert Alan Black
October 21, 2012
Casa Lee on Friday, Saturday
Friday, October 19th, the four of us traveled from Swakopmund, Namibia to Windhoek in our rental car back across the vast desert stretching from the dunes near Swakopmund through the brush area and the surrounding mountains in the distance at the horizon both to the east and to the west. Eventually we drove through the mountains and over them.
Along the way we stopped at a gems selling area, somewhat like a mall in the desert.
Looking down from above on the structure it would look like three overlapping open circles. The walls were made of walls of piled dry flat stones held together inside chicken wire that held them in place. No mortar. Just chicken wire to hold them in place.
Inside the 3 circle were large arcs of flat tables all containing tray after tray of stones from polished stones to crystals or clusters of crystals of many different types of minerals.
After about 30 minutes of wandering from table table to table we boarded our car again and continued our journey to Windhoek.
In Windhoek we drove around the city to see various parts of it. Nico drove us to where the house that he, Annalie and their son Onic live back in the late 80s. Along the way they told us short stories of their life in Windhoek.
Then we went to the city center where there are some modern high-rise buildings and a small street flea market including some women from a tribe from far in the north of Namibia. Their clothing, or lack of clothing, is rather unique. The skin of their bodies is deep red in color from a life of rubbing fat and oils on their skins, all over. Tried to take a picture, but they asked for money to take photos, along the road in their little stall area along the side. Because of traffic I was not able to photo them. Annalie said we must go back to see them again and to take a photo. So we circled the large city block and then gave them some loose change and I took a quick photo of one of the women from the ancient culture.
After that adventure we drove to see “Joe’s” a famous restaurant/bar in Windhoek. Some of the others from the conference speaker crew were going to stop there when they returned to the airport on Wednesday.
Joe’s definitely is an institution in Windhoek. Describing the building, structure and the appearance would take a book the length of War and Peace. Things hanging from the ceiling, the columns, beams, sitting on shelves everywhere. Implements, baskets, empty liquor bottles. Around one of the bars the stools are actually old toilets.
We found a table for 16 and sat our group of 4 at one end.
In the evening Joe’s is backed and can easily seat a few hundred people.
The food was great and plentiful for the prices. I had a giant double decker hamburger that had a single large shrimp stuck in the top of the bun, along with French fries and a little salad.
After finishing our meal we left for the last leg of our drive to the airport.
Nico had a little difficulty with the THRIFTY car rental agent about the total cost of the rental including the TOPPING OFF of the gasoline. Then off to fill out the exiting forms for customs (total waste of time) and off through the customs departure checkpoint and the security checkpoint with the ex-ray machine.
The departure hall was jam packed with people for a smallish airport. Hundreds and hundreds of people sitting and waiting or standing in lines, waiting. A couple planes had been delayed, causing the hall to be over packed. We had over 2 hours to wait for our 17:55 Air Namibia to Joberg.
We found a few seats far from the crowded mass at the entrance to the departure hall near the bar past the duty free shop.
Outside in the check-in area we had seen Stephan, Kobus Neethling’s son, his business partner and friend, Matis (Ma tace), and Rache, Kobus’s sister. She was heading for Cape Town where she and her husband, Paul, live. The two guys were on our flight, also heading to Joberg and eventually Pretoria that evening. The 3 of them had done a workshop for a client in Windhoek after the Creativity Conference.
We stood and talked for awhile.
No sign of Ed.
We talked more.
No sign of Ed in the vast mob scene.
We looked in the 5 shops and the bar.
No sign of Ed.
Then I went back to through the TSA Security checkpoint and to the women at the customs departure checkpoint to ask if he had cleared and passed through the two points.
Checking her computer she found that he had.
The guards said he was not in the private screening room.
Still no Ed.
Finally Ed appeared in the crowd walking from the entrance point to where the rest of us had been standing trying to see him in the crowd, shops or bar.
He had gone into the First Class Lounge and had been waiting there thinking we would join him.
Because of the crowded situation at the entrance to the hall none of us had seen the entrance to the VIP lounge.
We had a good laugh making up scenarios about Ed and the Lounge.
Eventually I walked the length of the large hall to enter the VIP Lounge to perhaps get a bite to eat and use the FREE internet.
No questions at the door. I walked right in just like Ed had said he did. Inside the usual VIP looking crowd of business types lounging around.
I tried the internet. The woman who should have cleared us at the door came over to help. No success.
Then I left because the food nor the FREE liquor and wine interested me. I would rather be with the other 5 people in the departure hall.
Our plane boarding was announced and off we went to walk all the way to our waiting plane, nearly a half km from the door. I was carrying my very heavy briefcase with my computer in it in my left hand, my injured shoulder and bicep muscle from my BLACKSTUMP DOWN fall in Costa Rica in 2009. BIG MISTAKE. I paid for it yesterday on Saturday most of the day with chronic pain all day.
Also some of the pain probably was the result of the GREAT FUN I had on the QUAD Bike in the dunes near Wavel’s Bay on Thursday.
A little mixup on the plane. I had seat 9C and Ed 9D in one of the exit rows and our seat/row mates had respectfully 9B and 9E but the sticker up above over our heads showed only 9A, 9C on my side and 9D, 9F on Ed’s side.
Sticker error I guess.
The young fellow with 9E didn’t want to be responsible for opening the door in the case of an emergency so he was moved to the back and swapped seats with another young man.
Both our seatmates were talkative much traveled business people.
We both had interesting conversations throughout the 1 hr and 30 min flights to Joberg.
My seat mate was a business man who traveled throughout the African continent to make deals for various products that the various companies he is a partner in ranging from chemicals for instantly purifying polluted water to the conversions of bakkies, medium size open back trucks into troop vehicles. His stories of his traveling and products/product sales were very interesting.
One of the contracts he had created for the sale of the converted vehicles was to the SAVE THE RHINO organization where NedBank and other corporations actually paid for the vehicles to purchase the vehicles for the men who go out to catch the poachers of Rhinos.
Eventually we talked some about the politics in both our countries and his life in South Africa with its various problems with crime.
The arrival process went smooth. We all got our daily supply of exercise walking the long, long, long hallways from the landing gate to the customs and visa checkpoints.
Off to get checked luggage: my small 4 wheel roller bag and Ed’s refrigerator size 2 wheel bag and Annalie and Nico’s various size bags.
Out into the giant Arrival Hall with its waiting friends and family.
We needed to find the ABSA ATM machines so Ed and I could settle up with Nico about the car rental and gasoline. Annalie and Nico’s son, Onic/Nico and his pretty very newly married wife, Vanessa, were waiting somewhere to pick us up in Nico’s huge bakkie. As we searched for the ABSA bank we saw Vanessa waving at us a few floors above us in the giant open hall.
An elevator ride united all five and off to the pick up point where Onic was waiting with the white chariot to take us to 314 Guesthouse in Pretoria.
During the ride we shared stories from our week in Namibia, including Annalie and Nico’s day long adventure searching for her cell phone. It had fallen out of her jacket pocket when she and I were on top of the dunes on Wednesday evening while Ed and Nico were sharing wine and stories at the bottom of the dunes.
They had searched the vehicle, their hotel room after we left the gem museum and then went back to the giant sand dunes in search of the phone.
They both walked up the remains of Annalie’s and my tracks from the night before. Nico walked straight up to where the board Annalie had tried to slide down the dune on and saw something black sticking up out of the constantly blowing and drifting sands.
It was here phone, a little sandy, yet still working.
A MIRACLE.
After they shared that story, Annalie said she wanted to hear about Vanessa and Nico’s 90 year old mom’s story from that day. She were scheduled to take fast/race car driving lessons that day. Grandma’s story had been in several newspapers, radio and tv news shows for the past few days. We even saw it in a newspaper in a very small town in Namibia, probably a South African paper.
Vanessa and the grandmother’s adventure was extremely funny with grandma racing through curves with the instructor screaming out loud: BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!!! With Vanessa praying in the back of the car along the way.
So much laughter throughout the entire 40 minute or so ride to 314 Guesthouse.
We once again said our goodbyes to the 2 generations of Bothas.
Ed checked in while I picked up my stored medium size roller bag and the laundry I had left to be washed and waited for Lynn and Kobus Vermaak who were picking me up to take me to their wedding and event venue/resort outside of Pretoria in the countryside/bushveld called Casa Lee, which this have owned and run for 13 years now.
When we arrived they took me to my #6 suite, a honeymoon suite with its 4 post bed and huge suite with sauna size bath, shower…..with a waiting basket of mixed fruit, large box of specialty chocolates, refridge filled with drinks and water.
It was time to sleep after a long day of traveling from Swakopmund, Namibia to the Casa Lee Country Manor east of Pretoria.
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