We arrived at our hotel in Windhoek at 6:30pm, three flights and 41.5 hours after we left home. I wasn’t looking my best after back-to-back overnight flights.
Our transfer through Johannesburg was pretty easy. They’ve really cleaned up on the bribing since our last trip through there ten years ago. The immigration folks even looked for space on a non-blank page in my passport, of which I’m running short. Namibia has an entry requirement of three blank pages, and South Africa requires two consecutive blank pages for some types of visas. These rules aren’t strictly enforced, but I’d rather not leave it to the discretion of the border official.
We had a five-hour layover in Johannesburg. It took less than an hour to get our luggage, clear immigration and customs, transfer to the domestic terminal (just a floor up), check-in for our Airlink flight to Windhoek, and get some cash from an ATM. South African rand and Namibian dollars are pretty much equivalent, and can be used interchangeably in Namibia.
We arrived around 5:30pm in Windhoek, and quickly got through immigration and got our luggage. There was a bit of line through customs as they scan everything.
We were met by an ExpertAfrica rep who connected us with our driver and we were off! Country number 104 for me and 64 for Heather :)
The airport is about 30 minutes outside the city, and it’s not until the last five minutes that it’s urban. We’ll see lots more of similar landscape over the next couple weeks. Our driver even pointed out a family of baboons and a warthog along the way in. There was also swarms of grasshoppers which I’m hoping aren’t going to be messing up our windshield every day.
We checked in, cleaned up and then went for dinner at the Butcher Block across the street. We sat outside in really comfortable weather (22C) and enjoyed our dinner. A nice start to Namibia!
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