Botswana & Namibia, February 2016
After only a week in Botswana, it would now continue to Namibia. Somehow, time seemed to run away. Usually this super fast travel style was not so to my taste.
My day here in a camp in Maun started already at four o'clock in the morning. Shortly after five I was already on a bus to Ghanzi. Once arrived, I had to wait nearly two hours for a bus to take me to a petrol station about 8 km away from the border to Namibia.
Originally, the bus driver had promised to let me get off directly at the border. But when we reached the gas station, he suddenly stammered something about he did not feel very well and urgently needed to go home.
At the gas station, I then tried in vain to find a ride to the border. However, only every half hour a vehicle came by, and they were not headed in direction of the border. Five exhilarated native women sat at a table in the shade and were already drinking a lot.
They finally waved me over and told me to sit with them while I waited. Since there was not much else left, I joined them. Of course, they immediately encouraged me to join in the drinking. The alcohol tasted pretty strong.
As soon as a bottle had been emptied, they opened the next one. I always just sipped a bit. Getting completely drunk at noon in the glistering heat did not seem like a good idea to me. Besides, I was very hungry. And lo and behold, one of the ladies served us a nice lunch. They did not want to miss sharing this with me. These were cow guts with giant intestinal villi. I do not know if I had ever mentioned how I feel about this delicacy. Actually, I am relatively hardened, as far as food is concerned – only with these intestines, I just do not get warm. For the sake of politeness I forced myself to eat one of these pieces. It almost turned my stomach around.
After waiting for longer, another car finally came by. An elderly woman got out if it. I immediately ran to her and hopefully asked if she would drive to the border. Of course, she would not. But she said, she would take me there for a little change. Well, thank heaven.
The border seemed dead. First and foremost, I had to look for a border official. After I found one, I let him stamp the mandatory exit stamp into my passport. On we went to the Namibian border post. This was about 2 km away. So I tortured myself through no man’s land in the brooding midday heat of about 40 °C while wearing my much too heavy backpack on my back. The area around me was completely flat and desert-like. The air flickered from the heat.
When I arrived on the Namibian side, the formalities were quickly finished without problems. But what should I do now? I asked the police officers, who were taking a nap in the shade, how best to get to Windhoek. They looked at me confused and said, I could be glad if even today a vehicle would pass the border. Those were great prospects. So I joined them and sat in the shade.
I was lucky. After a long hour, a huge truck stopped. I immediately addressed the somewhat scary-looking driver. He told me that he came from South Africa and was on his way to Gobabis.
Gobabis is only halfway to Windhoek, but at least I would approach my goal. The guy did not seem so trustworthy, but what else was left for me to do? As a precaution, I asked the policemen how they felt about this guy. They replied that he looked okay. All right, I decided to go with him then. Normally, I am not an anxious type, at all, but for some reason the driver made a bad impression on me.
So I sat next to the guy in his huge truck. He lit one cigarette after the other. After a while, he asked me if I would like to watch a movie. He had a small portable DVD player. Sounded good. When I saw through his DVDs, I noticed that about half of them were porn. Again, a strange feeling came to my mind. I put them aside and told him that I would rather read.
After about half an hour, he suddenly asked me if it would be okay for me when he took off his T-shirt. Oh my god! I just nodded nervously. What should I have said? If he really was a crazy criminal, then he could have done whatever he wanted, anyway.
After about an hour's drive without any incidents, he suddenly stopped. The truck has a technical problem, he said. A cold shiver ran down my back. It all just reminded me of some bad horror movie.
The guy got out and started repairing the vehicle. About 20 minutes later, he came back covered in sweat and with a smile on his face. Everything was fixed. A feeling of relief came over me. Maybe my feeling had deceived me, and the young man was actually very nice. We ended up having some really nice conversations.
The truck driver asked me, how I wanted to get from Gobabis to Windhoek. Well, by hitchhiking, otherwise there would be no public transport, I replied. He explained that this was too dangerous, and he did not just want to drop me off somewhere. He would try to stop another truck for me, because he thinks truck drivers are good people.
And really, the guy was seriously waiting with me on the side of the road to find another ride. What a good soul. And I had previously thought he wanted to harm me. Now I almost felt guilty. In the end he was a good guy.
After about an hour, a truck arrived. It stopped. Two young Africans sat in it. Luckily for me, they were on their way to Windhoek. The two said, it was forbidden to drive in a truck with three passengers, but if I hid in the bed behind their seats, they could take me with them. Said and done.
I had to go to my couchsurfing host in the center of Windhoek, and they did not have to go to the city center. But they did not want to leave me somewhere on the outskirts in the middle of the night. That is why they took me safely to the meeting place I had arranged with my host.
One should normally listen to gut feeling, but as I was allowed to experience, one can also be fooled by it. This day brought me unforgettable and beautiful acquaintances that I will never forget again. Sometimes you just have to believe a little in the good in people and not always expect the worst.
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