Riding Home for Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go… Nothing says that quite as much as 40+ degrees, warthogs running around with their tail in the air and an excessive online shopping spree (Ben’s favorite pastime). Since we’ll briefly be back in the land where every material thing you could want is just one Amazon delivery away, it’s time to replace some gear.

We order new inner tubes as our old ones are by now so riddled with patched up punctures, we’re no longer confident that they’ll get us to Cape Town. We also replace Ben’s shirt, so sun damaged that it doesn’t even make it to Windhoek. Lina’s butt – hard as steel from months of riding – has now fully worn through her beloved hemp pants and she orders the exact same again. Money well spent since we still have two months of riding ahead of us when we get back at the end of December.

Over the last few days we’ve already gotten glimpses of The War of the Baboons raging around the farm. This time it looks as if a skirmish has taken place at our campsite. The tent is in tatters and some animal seems to have succeeded in getting high on our stove priming fluid. Upon inspection we have to conclude that the tent won’t make it to Cape Town either. The pole has broken again and the outer has a massive tear.

Lina messages her dad to let us buy his tent for the rest of the journey. Then we prop up the remains of ours as best we can and go to sleep. Fingers crossed it won’t rain. The next morning we cycle past the rhino family one last time and enjoy the perfectly graded gravel road. After 25km we’re back on the main road with lots of trucks and tourist traffic. On the horizon we spot the first real mountains since Zimbabwe. The terrain is getting hillier and dryer again, a sneak peek of the desert that awaits us in the new year.

We take it easy over the next few days. There is plenty of time to get to Windhoek and we feel a bit drained after some tough days the previous week. Christmas songs have featured in the background of our minds for months. Now it’s time for them to take center stage. Frosty the Snowman and Holly Jolly Christmas are playing on repeat as we cycle past warthog warning signs and game breeding/hunting farms. Fences line the road on either side and sometimes we spot oryx and other animals on the other side.

The German colonial heritage becomes apparent in places like Teufelsbach and Döbra. Here and there we see a “Banhofstrass” or a “Kleine Professor College”. At least the typos assure us that we’re still in Namibia. The locals mostly speak English and Afrikaans, but 90% of tourists are German. In the supermarket you can now splurge on Apfelstrudel and at restaurants you get Eisbein as a daily special. Lina just shakes hear head at the overload of German-ness (and nibbles that tasty Schweineohr).

In a town just north of Windhoek we take a couple days off to not arrive too early and overstay our welcome with our Warmshowers hosts. We’re glad to stay indoors in a little rondavel, albeit without AC. The rain and sun take turns pounding against the window while we lounge around and play online advent calendar games. We dream of Plätzchen and almost get drunk in anticipation of Glühwein.

After gathering together all our courage we brave the curio market in town. There are about a hundred stands, all selling the same tat and we are the only tourists – fresh meat for the curio seller vultures. We quickly pick out a couple of things for our future Christmas tree and begin the haggling ceremony. Starting offer: 450 Namibian Dollars (22.50€) for one small wooden bird; final deal: 200NAD for two birds and a hippo. Still too much but we can see that the woman really needs the money.

The next morning we are getting ready to leave for the capital. We try to keep a straight face as we watch a baptism in the camp swimming pool. The receptionist then tells us about how people sometimes play God by geo-engineering the weather. This is done for instance to make it rain in England all the time, to cause last year’s flood in Valencia or to flush out the Vietcong. Apparently today’s cloudy weather is also abnormal and someone is to blame.

We don’t dare ask what those people have against the English, Spanish or communist Vietnamese and why God is not intervening on their behalf. Instead we quietly thank the mysterious wizards for the cloud cover and start pedaling. The highway to Windhoek is at first a pleasant surprise. There is a nice wide shoulder just for us and comparatively little traffic. But we know that other cyclists have been robbed at knifepoint close to the city center and we are slightly on edge.

Apart from one guy chasing after us we get through just fine and finally get to meet Cronje and Mari – our Warmshowers hosts. They have been holding on to a package that a friend of Lina’s has dropped off for us a month ago. We exchange stories over halloumi salad and watermelon. We play with their cute dog Blikkas and go for a couple of sumptuous lunches at a local craft center. We also get Jo and Olive serviced and washed. Now they are ready for their little holiday away from us.

We also get ourselves a haircut and take the time to empty Cronje’s and Mari’s fridge. Then we scrounge a couple of their duffle bags and sort all our stuff into chuck/keep/take back to Germany. Mari takes us on a quick tour around the imposing state house of Namibia (kindly built by the North Koreans). Then she drives us to the airport on a road built by China. Namibia is keen on making friends. Time always passes quickly at the airport and before long we board Santa’s sleigh and a team of oryx is bridled and ready for takeoff.