Saturday, 6 October 2012 – Windhoek to Keetmanshoop
[written ‘live’, on the road]
Just a brief sign of life after today’s 500 km drive in the heat, 33C, back south. Nothing much to see plant wise – I took just 3 pictures, all three of the pickup truck in front of us, full of people in the back – must have been a taxi!
This is a rather barren area in terms of succulent plants, as we had already taken pictures of the Aloe dichatoma and other unknown Aloe sp (growing to over 2 m (6ft) tall, a few days ago as we headed north.
Even some of the hotels that claim to have internet facilities, don’t or charge too much. It’s still very much the same as Alain & Greet found it in 2010. Looking back through Alain’s Diary (in Dutch) we have seen much the same places, but also travelled some alternative routes and may be saw something different as a result.
Tomorrow we head west to Luderitz and after a few days, go south to Rosh Pinah and then cross at Sendelingdrif back into RSA.
We’re on our second car – nothing wrong with the first one, except that as we approached Windhoek, the service light came on. We were told that in Windhoek, it takes up to a week to get the service done. Instead they gave us a replacement – another Nissan XTrail. We checked back with them today as we noticed that this car has a service due in 2000 km time – before today’s 500 km stretch. The next Budget place is in Luderitz – could they ring ahead and book us in for a service there or get another replacement with enough km to the next service to get us to the end of the trip? This seemed to be an impossibility. They said that we would be OK for another 2,000 km before the next service is absolutely essential, so we’ll make it the problem for the Budget Dealer when we need to – in South Africa.
Today we are staying in the Canyon Hotel in Keetmanshoop, rather than the Quiver Tree. As you can see – it has wifi, which today is more important to me than stroking the Cheetahs again.
I promise to do catch ups of proper Diary reports when I get back to the UK.
[PS: from the UK, playing catch up; I’m getting there!]
The Cactus Trip Diaries 