Windhoek, Namibia - 26 April

Monday 21 April to Friday 25 April - We're back on the bicycles for five riding days from Maun, Botswana, to Windhoek, Namibia - about 840 km. Wednesday was the longest - 207 km. Rae got a lift on the lunch truck for about 50 km that day, but Ursula was amazing, remained strong, and did the whole thing.

The route is along the north edge of the Kalahari Desert. It is flat, not many bends in the road. The soil is mostly sand, but there's enough moisture to support small trees and grass. There is some agriculture here and there and grazing for cattle. The scenery is beautiful, but it doesn't change very fast.

The biggest trees were on Monday.


The biggest cow on Tuesday.

A big curve on Wednesday.

No curve on Thursday.

At last, a feature on the horizon on Friday.



Little things broke the monotony... like this warning sign for warthogs (we didn't see any)...



...or these things that somebody said were armoured crickets. The body is about 2 inches long; we saw them on the road all week either engaged in combat with each other or - they must be cannibalistic - consuming the remains of their own.



Soaring raptors were far prettier.



There was only one turn all week and we didn't want to miss it... seems that some of our number have left messages for others.



Most days we were on the road at dawn which gave us some nice shadows and early morning light.



Long days, sparsely settled, few coke stops, so we rest at roadside.



Eventually, in the last 40 km entering Windhoek, we get into very attractive hillside scenery.

This blog has previously mentioned the physical exhaustion and mental fatigue that come with riding the bike for 6 to 8 hours day after day. There are other stresses including insect bites and ordinary cuts and scrapes that don't behave the way we'd expect in normal life in Canada. As early as in Ethiopia, several people had scrapes that didn't heal quickly and in some cases resulted in infection that didn't want to go away.

Coming out of the Okavango, both of us had bites - not sure what from - that got infected. Ursula's appeared to be several bites on her ankle, accompanied by swelling of the foot and pain in lymph nodes.

Rae's was on the hand. That tiny blister on Sunday evening grew to three times its size (in the inset) overnight and broke open. By evening, the hand was swollen.

Both of us have responded okay to antibiotic - we're probably lucky we're in the drier climate of Namibia as that seems to help the healing. We both had bites back in the middle of March in Tanzania that have only dried up after leaving the wet and humid conditions in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia. We usually heal much faster than that.

One of our fellow riders has managed to get the larva of some worm that is usually resident in cats or dogs into her foot. It moves around beneath the skin and is excrutiating itchy. Apparently it will die off by itself when it discovers that it can't survive in humans, but she got medication to speed up the process.

There are many theories around the group about whether people's immune systems are low from the constant physical effort or whether the bugs and bites that we get in Africa are more severe, or a combination of factors. It's a good thing we have a doctor and nurse on the TdA staff - we have all been helped by them.

Weather can be another surprising factor for us. It may be hard to see in this photo, but that's frost on the tent. We woke up Wednesday morning to ice instead of condensation on the underside of the fly... and, yes, we're still in the tropics. Skies were completely clear all week - hot in the daytime sun, cold during the night.



The highlight of last week was surely Ursula's birthday on Thursday. Here she enjoys the warmth of a fire at the campsite with Basil on the left providing the musical interlude, Henk and Luisa and Eugene on the right.



We had enjoyed a little red wine with dinner, and we had some birthday cake. In fact, we got cake enough to feed everybody on the Tour - cake and sweets are not part of the normal menu. But it's hard to carry cakes on a bicycle, so it wouldn't have happened without the effort of Randy, the deputy Tour Director, who did the shopping for us. He scoured the little town between lunch and camp and bought all three cakes in the town. Thanks Randy.



As well as the nice campfire on a cool night, Thursday's campsite had some unique architecture in the facilities - such as this heart-shaped bathtub built of stone that was part of the outdoor washroom - a far cry from some of the... let's say 'basic'... loos earlier in this adventure.

Saturday and Sunday... rest days in Windhoek... culture shock... downtown has multi-story buildings, shops like we left behind when we left Canada almost four months ago... they take credit cards.

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia which gained its independence less than 20 years ago. The Tintenpalast built in 1913 houses the parliament.

Nearby is the Christus Kirche that dates back to 1910. Behind it is the 1892 Alte Fest that served colonial German troops until after World War I. The Alte Fest now serves as a national museum with a wing devoted to the resistance to the German colonial power and the later struggle for independence.



Beside the fort is a monument to German soldiers and sailors who lost their lives putting down resistance in the early 1900s. This colourful lizard is resident in the monument.



We had a more formal birthday dinner for Ursula, here with Louisa (Henk was taking the picture) and Rae - can you guess why we're in Windhoek... hint... t-shirts.

We finishing with some handmade Namibian chocolates and expressos, luxuries that we had almost forgotten existed.

Next week we head south. By Monday night, we'll be out of the tropics. Next Sunday will be our last rest day, immediately before crossing into South Africa and the final week of the Tour d'Afrique.