Day 9. Lüderitz
That morning we drive to Lüderitz, a Bavarian style seaside town on the west coast of Namibia, or so said the Lonely Planet.
I don't know if the first night's sleep on Namibian soil was any
better than South African, but it surely was warmer. Perhaps
the few degrees of latitude that we've notched since Cape Town have
made a difference.
Namibia has had a large German influence. During the late
1800s it was a German colony but only after WW1 did Germany give up
its colonial conquests. There was enough time for the German
language, the people and ways of life to be ingrained into certain
communities. Our first exposure to this influence was the
continued use of the umlaut in Germanic town names, for example
Grünau and Lüderitz (notice the ü).
The roads here were just as well maintained as in South Africa,
beautiful black tarmac. Makes you wonder if getting the 4x4
was really a necessity, so far we've only driven on asphalt.
From Grünau we head west towards Aus, roughly our half way
point. After we passed Aus, the terrain started to
change. Long gone were the small trees and shrubs only to be
replaced by hard soil, short brown grass and every now a fence or
two which suggested some form of human habitation.
Ann-Marie decided that it's about time to start driving on the
wrong side of the road (in Germany they drive on the right) - while
I had a short nap.
With each kilometre, sand became the resounding feature and
although there were still plenty of grasslands they were starting
to thin out. Then almost instantly all the hills turned to
dunes. Electric poles sticking out of the ground pointed the
way towards Lüderitz.
As we pulled out of one corner, the town of Lüderitz appeared
and spread itself in front of us. The LP said that Lüderitz
is one of the most Bavarian looking towns on the African
continent. We drove around the town trying to both orient
ourselves and see this Bavarian influence in the flesh. To be
perfectly honest, other than perhaps a handful of buildings that
share some European features, I really won't go as far as to say
that Lüderitz has the feeling and charm of a typical small Bavarian
town - although having never been to Bavaria except what I've seen
on TV I'm not in a position to judge.
We did see the Goerke House and a nice church which did look
authentic, but we certainly didn't feel as though we were
transported to Bavaria. Sometimes I feel that all guidebooks
exaggerate in order to make the destination seem more than what it
really is. Of course it's all down to personal interpretation
too.
We were both tired, and all we wanted to do was to eat some
food, put up the tent and sleep. For some reason I wanted to
camp out in the desert, I could see a road that went north from
Lüderitz towards what looked as though it could be a
campsite. We asked everyone, but nobody seemed to know
anything about it. In the end, we came to realise that the
campsite was actually that of Shark Island but obviously misprinted
some 10 km on the map.
We had a quick look around Shark Island caravan park and happy
with the facilities we drove back into town to get some food.
Ann-Marie had earlier spotted a restaurant on the waterfront and we
decided to have dinner there. My sleep in the desert would
have to wait for another day.