South Africa

South Africa is lot like Namibia, but more modern. The phones work everywhere, internet connections do not die, and you can reschedule a flight. In addition, it is just as dry as in Namibia in a lot of places. There should have been a lot of flowers in Namaqualand when we were there, but there were none because the rains had not come that year. We had to look at the famous Namaqualand flowers in irrigated places: a golf course, a flower garden, and a plantation.

Cape town has a very cosmopolitan feel about it. A lot of well maintained buildings, an area for the rich, a tourist centre, and a business area. Robben-Island has become a tourist attraction that teaches people about the horrors of the apartheid regime and about the beginnings of a new society that sprang from it.

At the start of the holiday, I took the bus from Cape Town to Windhoek. A long drive of 20 hours that, thankfully, was interrupted 3 or 4 times by a 15 to 30 minute break. During that break you could relieve yourself and get something to eat and to drink. At a certain point, the motor had been overheated due to driving up a slope for a long time. After about half an hour we could continue. It appears that the busses there are infamous for this.

Once we were at the border of South Africa, we had to pass through all the checks. First, all the passengers had to have their passports stamped. One woman spoke Portugese, which was a problem for the customs officers. It caused a bit of a delay. After about half an hour, everyones passport had been stamped and we could go back into the bus and wait. But first, we had to get out again after 15 minutes for another check. We had to collect our luggage, which was in a trailer behind the bus, and then stand in a long line with our luggage in front of us. A sniffer dog that had a bad day was led along the luggage. It was not trying hard enough so it was passed back along the line a couple of more times, with success. Two bags were found to be suspect. The owners of the bags had to accompany the officers inside to unpack everything.

In the mean time, we were allowed to repack everything into the trailer. Without waiting for the other two persons that had to accompany the officers, we drove to the Namibian side of the border after about 45 minutes. There, we had to get out again in order to get another stamp in our passport. While we were waiting in line for that, the other two people joined us again. It appeared that the dog had smelled their medication. Drugs indeed, but not illegal. After two hours in total, the Namibian stamp had also landed in each passport (and the Portugese speaking woman had again caused a delay) and we could finally leave South Africa and enter Namibia.