From Maun I said goodbye to Botswana and made my way to the next country on my list, Namibia. I was supposed to have an hour and a half connection in Johannesburg, but my flight from Maun left thirty minutes late, and my flight from Johannesburg got changed to thirty minutes earlier, so an hour and a half turned into a thirty minute frantic sprint through the Johannesburg airport. I sprinted, cut in line at immigration, sprinted, cut in line at security, sprinted, and made it to the gate just in the nick of time. Whew! I boarded the plane sweaty and out of breath and made it to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

I have a few days here in Windhoek to make preparations for the next month and see some sights. I spent my first day renting a 4X4 with some camping gear. Day two I drove out to Daan Viljoen Game Reserve for some safari lite and a little hiking.

Daan Viljoen is a small game reserve just outside of Windhoek. There’s a 4km off road track for game viewing to start. Surprisingly, I saw some roan antelope and two giraffes. They were all a bit far off, but the ostrich above crossed right in front of me.

Next, I parked at the Daan Viljoen Lodge and started the 9km hike around the reserve. I was a little nervous being on foot because the park supposedly has leopards, but then again, at home I hike amongst bears and mountain lions so maybe it’s not as big of a deal as I think.

I didn’t see any leopards on the hike, thankfully, but encountering giraffes while on foot is always a memorable experience. I spotted two of them at first. After taking a couple of pics I started walking again and startled a third giraffe only twenty or so feet away that I hadn’t even noticed!

As it turned out those three giraffes were the only animals I saw on the hike. It was so nice to get out and walk for a change, though, as opposed to sitting in a safari jeep all day and it being too dangerous to walk around. Towards the end there were some distant views of Windhoek.

To finish, I ate my lunch next to the small reservoir near the lodge.

After cleaning up back at my hotel, I drove all the way back out to the airport, which they decided to build 25 miles outside of the city for some reason, to pick up a special Holy Crap Adventures guest star. That’s right, my own mother decided to make the long flight from California all the way to Namibia to join me for a week and a half for her first safari. First, we spent the day exploring Windhoek, starting with this neglected collection of meteors in the middle of a pedestrian mall with no signage or explanation of any kind.

After a brief visit to the tiny National Art Gallery we headed to the pseudo center of Windhoek, Christuskirche, a German Lutheran church built in 1907 out of local sandstone. It looks sort of like a gingerbread house.

Directly behind Christuskirche is the Namibian Independence Museum. The three floors of historical photos and artifacts were cool to see, though there was no explanation or context of any kind. It’s probably a great museum if you already know the history, but we were kind of lost.

Luckily, the museum is housed in this really unique building with fantastic views over the city, including Christuskirche and the Namibian Parliament building. That’s Sam Nujoma, Namibias founding president out front, by the way.

Well, this is just a quick post to start the Namibian part of this trip, but don’t worry, I’m just getting started in this unique country, so stay close…