Namibia - How Remote Can You Get? - This is Why You Travel Part IV

Part of our trip around the globe includes countries and places we've never been

   And one of the countries is Namibia, where we arrived last night.  This place is on the South West coast of Africa, with 1,570 kilometers of shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean.
   We love to visit places for the first time, because often you don't know what to expect.
   For example, I'm on the plane getting ready to take off from Cape Town to fly here.  So I'm reading an app on my phone that talks about Namibia.  Let's face it, it's not a well known country, fairly minor league among the nations. 

   So the stewardess lady comes by and tells me to shut down my phone because we're going to take off.  So I calmly explain to her that it's on "airplane mode" and I'm just reading an app.  She says in a rather direct tone of voice:  "Shut it off!"  Well, alrighty then ...
   So I seethe over this harsh rebuke.  I have a pretend conversation with myself, "So how am I supposed to know about Namibia?  It's like your country is a secret.  I need to do some research here.  What if I get off the plane and know nothing about your country?  What if I start speaking Spanish?  Not gonna do me much good in Namibia ...  What if I start speaking Russian?  (I can't speak Russian anyway, but I'm trying to make a point here)  
   So I calm down and we arrive in Windhoek Namibia the capital.  It's pronounced like Wind Hook, but they say Vind Hook, because guess which language they do speak here ... German!

   Yes, that's right folks, this place was once colonized by Germans about 150 years ago, and still has a strong German influence.  Who'd a thunk it?  Not me. 

Not what you'd expect in most of Africa   

   Part of your reaction to something is based on what your expectations were.  We did not expect what we found.  It's clean here, good roads, well organized, well maintained, and dare I say, efficient!  Most developing nations are not defined by those terms.  But Namibia has been described as "not a third world country" and Fiona and I would have to agree, it's quite a surprise.

   And there is a lot of old German architecture as you can see from the pictures.

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   Short history lesson here.  Namibia is sparsely populated and is one of the very few countries to ever be colonized by Germany.

   You don't think of Germany as a colonizer of nations like Spain and England, or the Dutch or Portuguese.  Germany had other methods and ideas on dominating countries ... but I digress.

   At the end of the 1800's this place was a German colony, made up of 90 percent blacks and 10 percent whites.  During the two world wars of the last century, which turned out disastrously for Germany, they lost control of Namibia, which eventually gained independence from South Africa who "occupied" Namibia after the Germans left.

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How Remote Can you Get?

   So today we drove (rented a car for the first time on the trip) from Windhoek to the coastal town of Swakopmund - try to wrap your tongue around that name.  It's a long way, like 425 kilometers.  Takes hours and hours to drive it. 

   You pass through a whole lot of empty country.  Strange and beautiful in it's own way, but pretty void of people, animals, buildings, trees, not much of anything.  

   About halfway across this vast expanse of emptiness I turn to Fiona and say "This has to be one of the most remote places in the world."   It is miles and miles from anywhere, in a remote corner of Africa, in a place nobody knows about.  

   And she says "oh, I don't know, there was a KFC in Windhoek."  But I am thinking about where we were at that moment.  It was stinkin' remote!

At the Coast on the South Atlantic Ocean, with shades of Germany 

   We eventually made it to Swakopmund on the coast later this afternoon, and went for a walk down to the beach and to get some dinner.  

   The buildings look like something out of Bavaria, with gingerbread and alpine styles.  They look cool, and very out of place. 

   I guess when you resettle somewhere, you build like you did where you came from. 

   And all the signs are in German too, and the locals, black and white, speak German.  Kind of a culture shock frankly.