South Africa and Namibia: September 2018: Day 4: Namibia

South Africa and Namibia: September 2018

Day 4: Namibia

Driving manual left-handed on the left-hand side of the road was fun.

And back to the airport. Are you sensing a theme to this trip?

BidVest Premier Lounge. Most airlines as well as Priority Pass use this place.

Food was pretty bad.

Second seating area. When this place gets busy, both areas are packed.

South African Airways feeds you even on a 2 hour flight?!?

Christuskirche, one of Windhoek's landmarks. Independence Memorial Museum in the background.

Fast food fried chicken is apparently a thing here.

Awfully nice for a Nando's Peri-Peri.

Well-worn chicken.

Is this off a chicken or a cornish game hen?

They brew their own beer here. Not bad.

The bar at Roof of Africa Hotel.

Joe's Beerhouse.

Well-fed kitty visited the table.

Super touristy, inside and out.

Oryx carpaccio. Pretty meaty, not much else to say.

Kudu sirloin. They covered it in sauce for a reason. *sigh*

Joe's special combo-- pork rib, pork neck, pork kebab, chicken wings, bockwurst.

Found that the Protea Victoria Junction does a pretty solid breakfast, then packed off to the airport yet again. Ended up going in a massive loop around the airport after filling up the rental car (oops), and then found the Bidvest Premium Lounge in the airport is decidedly so-so. At least the airport itself was nearly empty, and there were no lines anywhere except at passport control. The little regional jet bus gates were somewhat bare but had ample seating, and the tiny Embraer ERJ-135's that South African Airways Airlink uses for CPT-WDH were likewise partially empty, so it was a pretty comfortable flight.

Had the usual service quibbles with our hotel pickup, but we at least fixed that with a pair of phone calls. Upon arrival, we found the Roof of Africa hotel to be pretty nice, complete with an on-site brewery. Apparently even the Germans and their former colonies are finally catching on to the microbrew trend.

The next stop was Windhoek's tiny downtown, including an unexpectedly large multi-level shopping mall, before walking back to the hotel. Found everything to be surprisingly clean and reasonably comfortable, although some of that might be related to the time of year-- it's probably very hot in the summer and uncomfortably cool in the winter. Dinner was a few short blocks down the road from the hotel at Joe's Beerhouse.

As promised, Joe's was a ridiculous tourist trap, but with good wine, beer, and both conventional as well as wild game options. Opted for the springbok carpaccio, which was a hint of chewy and mostly middling enough to be forgettable, then the kudu sirloin, which, again, reminded me of a middling quality piece of beef, both in texture, taste, and color. Sam stuck with more conventional protein for his dinner. *grins*

As the trip would progress, kudu, springbok, and oryx would all be available on the menu and subsequently eaten, and surprisingly, all found to be rather similar to lean beef, probably because wild game or even farmed game tends to be lean?