Our adventures in Windhoek

Taken to the capital of Namibia - Windhoek we were excicted to see our first Namibian city. Home to around 322,000 people Windhoek is (quite obviously) far smaller than a typical city in England. But as we settled into the hostel which would be our home for the next couple of days, we were keen to explore.



An amusing sign in our room!

Our adventures however first started at the hostels bar, where we first met our country representative Robert (I should point out that he was there to see us, not just sat there drinking as we came in). We were informed that we would be picked up in an hour and then he was gone. Since we had nothing to change into our group simply stayed at the bar, chatting to some of the other residents and answering questions about England.

Soon we were picked up and the ten of us, as well as three young children (Robert's children and a friend) squeezed into his car - and the boot and made our way to a local sports bar. There for the first time in my life I watched a football match properly - Chelsea vs. a German team (we quickly realised by the reactions to the game that we were the only Chelsea supporters in the room) and ate an amazing dinner of steak and bread buns - topped off in a burning hot sauce which left a couple  of the group virtually in tears (thankfully I had had the sense to try some of it before plastering it all over my food so I managed to avoid this problem!) Once the game had finished we were driven back to the hostel where we all crashed, happy to finally have a proper bed to sleep in.

Day three - and still in the same clothes, we ventured into the city and found the local shopping centre. There we managed to try some of the local food (at a burger restaurant named 'wimpys') and bought ourselves new phones and sims. We also managed to stock up on some of life's essentials - water, crisps and sweets. Very aware of the fact that we couldnt look more like tourists if we tried we headed back to the hostel where our bags were FINALLY waiting for us.

Even the coke is African!

Fast forward a couple of hours and Robert was driving us to another restaurant. This time it was a truly 'African' resturant. We ate looking at the stars as we sat around a large fire and ate amazing food like crocodile, zebra and other wierd but wonderful animals. I had chosen well, ordering a Zebra steak. It was perhaps more pink than I would have liked it but anything more and it would have been impossible to eat - zebra we all agreed was definately the chewwiest meat we had ever come across. I did however, also try a bit of crododile - white like chicken it had a strange texture, almost like scollops, and none of us could quite decide whether or not we liked it.

The night, and the meal was finished off with a delicious chocolate brownie, decorated in casting sugar in the shape of a lions paw (suprisingly enough the dish was called 'lion paw brownie') and so once again we collapsed in our beds exhausted - although this time we were actually wearing something clean!!