Arrival

One of the great advantages of travelling from the UK to places like Namibia or South Africa is that, although it is a fairly long flight, there is no jetlag at all so you're ready to go the moment you arrive.

So here we were, at Windhoek Airport, ready to pick our hire car and start the adventure.  We don't like travelling with tour groups so we had decided to hire a car and travel independently.  We had spent weeks carefully planning the itinerary, prebooking accommodation and checking every book, website and any other bit of advice about driving in Namibia.  The  consensus seemed to be that the roads, although mostly unpaved, were generally in good condition and adequate for a normal 2WD, at least to reach the main attractions.  You just had to be extra careful and drive slowly to avoid any trouble.

We overheard the guy at the car hire desk: "yes... another write off..."

Still... accidents do happen in Namibia.  As we were waiting at the car hire desk, someone came to return the car keys.  After some lengthy discussions and filling in forms, we overheard the car hire rep on the phone: "yes... another write off..."

Then it was our turn, and a surprise wasiting for us:  they didn't have the car we had requested, so they had given us a free upgrade. Great!  Well, you'd normally think so... but not this time.   The last thing we wanted, being about to embark on a 4000km tour around the desert, and having just heard what we'd heard, was this: a massive, spotless and hugely expensive white Mercedes!