6 am in the morning, still dark with some bright flashes coming through the curtains and a frequent low rumble sound accompanied by heavy raindrops against glass.
I pulled the covers over my head, only 24 hours ago I was in 35°C, and now it felt like a Scottish summer, although I was in a southern hemisphere winter. Less than 12 hours ago I was in a pub discussing the trip with Brian McMahon, who had gone out of his way to give me a better map than what we had found, paid for of course in liquid form. Still no reason to procrastinate, better get up, put the kettle on and jump into a nice hot shower.
By 6:30 I was knocking on Kim and Neil’s door, after which Neil and I drove up to the reception to pay our hotel bills for a night in the Indaba at Johannesburg, then hit the road to the airport for our flight to Windhoek.
The journey to the airport we soon discovered was going to be a long one, even at 7 am the traffic was a nightmare and the local radio station was reporting traffic signal malfunctions due to rain and various accidents also, by 7:30 we were no more than 3 Km from the Indaba, even I could have walked faster.
Fortunately we made it on time, (after 2 hours in the traffic) and the only hassle we had at check-in was Keith’s tripod, which they insisted had to be checked in as hold baggage even though he had taken it as hand baggage all the way from Dubai. With hindsight now it would have been better to put it into one of the cases as it was damaged by the time we reached Windhoek.
Once into the “air” side we had a decent cup of coffee and everyone relaxed. The flight over to Windhoek was uneventful, with a superb meal by SAA. Arrival at Windhoek was a bit chaotic as immigration forms were not freely available, but we did manage to get through fairly quickly and customs was fairly straightforward, the car hire though was not.
Our Defenders were booked only from Friday and we had arrived on Thursday, so had arranged to hire two vehicles for 24 hours in order to run around and purchase our supplies etc before heading off into the bush.
We had arranged vehicles through Budget, and behind their desk we could see envelopes with Smith and Liston written on them. Neil produced a bit of paper along with licence and passport and after some time received the keys for his car. For me however it was a different story, I had not thought of printing my bit of paper (which was an e-mail attachment), and therefore expected that since I could produce my driving licence and passport that this would be sufficient as both vehicles were booked together etc etc. This was not to be, no problem, I pulled out my computer and opened up my e-mail found the attachment and showed it to the guy, he needed it printed though, problem. Okay says me “do you have a printer so that I can print it out?”, “No” he replies.
Eventually we speak to his supervisor, and he accepts viewing the laptop as all he needs is some number on the confirmation sheet that was e-mailed to me, which incidentally was on the rental agreement already in the envelope!
This is Africa.
We pick up our vehicles, Neil’s fuel tank is full, mine is less than half. After some time we find the guy in the car park responsible for Budget and have the tank filled.
On to Windhoek. The 45 Km drive is driven at a nice pace as we take in the new landscape, it is warm and I am enjoying the heat after our cold wet start earlier in the morning.
Once in Windhoek, we successfully navigate to Arrebbusch Travel Lodge for our first night. Once we check in, the next plan is to find a supermarket to stock up on provisions for the trip, then back to the Lodge for a well-deserved cold beer.
Later that night we drive over to “Joe’s Beerhouse” for a fantastic meal (I had Oryx) and then back to our last proper bed for a few days.
