Namibia - Windhoek

We arrived in Windhoek after a fantastic 18 hour journey on the Intercape from Vic Falls. Double decker, reclining seats, free tea and coffee and, now this is luxury, no religious overtures - great!

As soon as we arrived we felt like we had left Africa behind, or certainly the Africa we had come to know and love. Chaos, dirt, dust, obstacles on the pavements, beeping cars, overloaded minibuses, friendliness, hospitality, bartering, people wanting to chat to you . . . All this had gone and had been replaced by what to all intents and purposes seemed like a European new-town.

And the award for the most boring city in the world goes to . . . Windhoek.

In fact Namibia was colonised by the Germans, and the German influence remains, including a strict sense of order and cleanliness (not to mention the fact it's dull - sorry!). It feels like the African has been knocked out of it so much that one particular group, the Herero people (who incidentally have been trying to get the Germans to admit to genocide against them since 1904), walk around in Victorian dresses - bizarre.

At the end of WWI the League of Nations handed the country to South Africa, with all the wonders of apartheid. Although the country has had its independence for just over 15 years, it is still very much a divided country (in fact according to the UNDP it is the most unequal country in the world) and this can be clearly felt in the capital. Walking around the centre you feel like there is this veneer that you can never quite get beneath. Unless you make an effort it's the white Namibia you see. And like it or not that is still the rich Namibia.

We had a whole week to kill before our friend Andy arrived for a two week holiday and after only half a day we felt like we were going out of our minds. There was so little stimuli that it was like some sort of grand scale solitary confinement.

It feels wrong to say that we missed Africa, as it is such a complex continent anyway, and who can say what the 'real' Africa is. But for us it's not Windhoek. So simplistic or not, it's true . . . we missed 'Africa'.

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