Day 77 of 111 (4/7/19) – Walvis Bay, Namibia after Luderitz, Namibia yesterday.

April 07, 2019

Day 76 – Luderitz, Namibia is about as exciting as it sounds. We took a quick walking tour of the town, which included two churches and the “main” street (think one paved road with dirt roads at the intersections). We then stopped at the Portuguese restaurant that was suggested by our tour guide (certainly some relative!) We had a lovely snack and the beers were cheap and Ingrid and I both got small lobsters with butter and garlic sauce that we also thought were cheap at 85 rand per lobster. So close to the sea we thought we would try them. The owner of the restaurant, also our waiter, even came out curiously to tell us that one lobster was 285 grams and the other lobster was 385 grams. That sounded good to us so we said go for it. The lobsters came and were wonderful until I went in to pay. She said our bill was 644 rand, which was almost $50 US dollars. We then found out that the fine print said that the lobsters were 85 rand per 100 grams and the curious actions by the owner of telling us how much they weighed were just to make sure that we really wanted them! And then, that was the only meal so far on the trip that upset my stomach. I think it was more upset because we hadn’t read the fine print and the “cheap” lunch we thought we were eating actually cost us $50 dollars! The lobsters were very good and we did have a lovely lunch with Jan and George under the Namibian sun. Live and learn.

Day 77 – Today – we hired a private car through trip advisor and had Nicollette take us from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund on a lovely tour. She was a Namibian native and told us all about the diamond industry as we drove the Namibian desert to Dune 7. Apparently Dune 7, (the world’s highest dune), has been there for years and it is a big thing for tourists to climb it. Both George and I made it to the top, which took about 20 minutes. My scamper down the dune took about 1 minutes while George took it a little more slowly, fell a couple of times, but arrived at the bottom, triumphant and unscathed. A few more miles brought us to Swakopmund and The Tug restaurant. We had a lovely lunch in a converted tug boat that overlooked the pier and the breaking surf. The early clouds had cleared and left the sun bathing the ocean in warmth while you could still see the cloud bank a few miles off shore. The scene reminded us of San Francisco (minus the Golden Gate Bridge), where the fog is just offshore. After a few stops for nick-knacks and essentials it was back to the ship. Namibia was interesting, but is not high on our “must see” list.