Goodbye Cape Town, hello Windhoek

A bit of catch-up today.  Wi-Fi has been spotty.

Last day in Cape Town:
We took the day pretty easy.  In the morning we walked the beach for a few hours.  It's a mix of Vancouver, California and the south of France.  It's very cosmopoliton city mixed with poverty and crime.  Most houses had high walls with electric fences, but joggers and families were out enjoying the sunshine.

In the afternoon we headed back to the Waterfront to visit the Aquarium and hang out for a bit people watching.

Some traffic notes:

Stop lights are called 'Robots'.

Cross walk signals give a bird squawk followed by little chirps.

This is yet another country that drives on the left, (or the Right! side as some say).  Still not used to that: before crossing look right, left, right again and then run.


Onto Windhoek:

After repacking our bags a few times (it all fit before!) we caught an afternoon flight from Cape Town airport (one of the nicest I've seen) to Windhoek.  The landscape was incredible: vast barren plains with a few bushes and roads that went straight for what looked like a hundred miles.

Landed in Namibia and cleared customs with no problems, no strip searches yet.

40km of nothing but a few cattle to Windhoek and our first nights stay.

We went out for dinner at a higher-end resturant (<$60).  I had the Spring Bok.  Yum.  When people say the meat just melted in their mouth, they must have been talking about Spring Bok.  (My lunch the next day was un-eatable beef :-()

Next day (today) we transfered to Arebbusch Lodge (named after yellow & black birds which have interesting hanging nests with several rooms) where we are to meet our Exodus tour.  We took a taxi to downtown Windhoek to see the sights. 

Wow.

Buildings going up everywhere.  The downtown is packed with high-end stores and shoppers.  I don't know where the money is coming from (the taxi driver didn't either) with a 50% unemployment rate.  We bought some last minute safari wear and will meet the group for dinner.  Until then, it's off to the pool.

Tomorrow we're off on our tour, so the updates will be sporatic.