On my first visit to Windhoek, Namibia, about fifteen years ago, I saw dozens of blonde-haired German children and their parents milling around this church one afternoon. African traders were lined up across the street selling tourist trinkets. I stayed in a small German hotel in the centre of the city, within walking distance of the research institute. At night I drank in the bar, next to large bearded men who downed glass after glass of white wine. I visited the luxury hotels to meet up with pretty local girls or cute-but-naive American Peace Corps women, the latter type a distressingly common occurrence throughout my travels around Southern Africa. I met representatives of the local German community, who told me increasing numbers of young Germans were coming to the country and running hunting farms for the tourist trade. Namibia sports a bleak, desolate landscape, beautiful in its spareness, reminiscent for me of Arizona and Southern California, and it occupies a special place in my memories.
05 February 2012
Windhoek
On my first visit to Windhoek, Namibia, about fifteen years ago, I saw dozens of blonde-haired German children and their parents milling around this church one afternoon. African traders were lined up across the street selling tourist trinkets. I stayed in a small German hotel in the centre of the city, within walking distance of the research institute. At night I drank in the bar, next to large bearded men who downed glass after glass of white wine. I visited the luxury hotels to meet up with pretty local girls or cute-but-naive American Peace Corps women, the latter type a distressingly common occurrence throughout my travels around Southern Africa. I met representatives of the local German community, who told me increasing numbers of young Germans were coming to the country and running hunting farms for the tourist trade. Namibia sports a bleak, desolate landscape, beautiful in its spareness, reminiscent for me of Arizona and Southern California, and it occupies a special place in my memories.
"....bleak, desolate landscape, beautiful in its spareness...." Spot on.
ReplyDeleteYour post makes me want to follow in the tracks of my father who is a seasoned Africa-traveller since the early 60s and who also visited Namibia a coulpe of years ago. His stories about the bleak landscape and the sparse architecture still stemming from German colonial times were similar to your descriptions above.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteI would never have thought of Namibia, but now that you mention it, it does sound romantic.
ReplyDeleteOn the large pull-down map when I was a little boy in school it was still German Southwest Africa. (The school board didn't waste money on new maps if the old ones weren't worn out yet.)