The Drive

As I approached my wretched 60th birthday I knew the general location, Namibia, for the Trip of Mystery but I was still left with the chore of trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself that day. I considered several options, one of them being actually flying from Windhoek to Zanzibar to surprise my friend Steve, who was leading a TechDren team delivering more laptops to elementary school children on Pemba (sadly, it proved too expensive). Simple logistics got in the way to my goal of being in Sossusvlei on my birthday; much more on Sossusvlei later. So, instead I woke up in Windhoek, rented a truck, and drove the four hours through the desert to make it to Swakopmund on the coast. My agent, Liza Kotze, from Wild Dog Safari had already arranged the truck rental, but I still had to go pick it up. The folks at the rental place, Namibia Car Rental, were very friendly, although when we sat down to chat about the drive to Swakopmund I had a few reservations. There was a big discussion about what I should do when (not if) a beastie ran out in front of me: slow down when you see it (whatever it is) coming, but just go ahead and hit it as compared to trying to swerve because you'll just end up doing more damage. Secondly, I was walked through what to do if a sandstorm suddenly popped up: drive off the road, point the car away from the sandstorm, and turn off the engine (my response: can I have some more water?). As it turned out the drive was pretty painless, although I got turned around in Windhoek (they're not big on signage) and also in the much smaller Swakopmund (the main road into town was unexpectedly closed, so my directions were faulty. The biggest challenge was getting around all the trucks driving back and forth on the two lane road. Happily the truckers were very cool, and would flip on their turn signals when it was clear for you to get around them.

The beast that I rented. It seemed a better fit for someone camping as compared to simply driving driving on a paved (tarred) road the whole way, but I was happy to have the option. Oh, and if looks like my beard is pretty scant it's because I shaved it off on the 31st before I took off. Partially I had already been travelling for a week so it needed a trim and I didn't have my trimmer, but I tend to do this when I want to change my luck.

Ah, there's nothing like driving a manual on the other side. I'm not particularly good at shifting with my right hand, and pretty utterly shite at shifting with my left. Luckily I had done this before when driving in the UK and in South Africa, so I had a little experience. The biggest challenge was after you'd been in 5th for an hour and then suddenly passed into one of the few towns and suddenly remembered that you were driving a manual on the wrong side.

Sure, you could have a sign that said Extra Wide Load . . .