DAY 162: Windhoek, capital city of Namibia, like Cape Town, South Africa, is a modern city which reflects its historical past. During the late nineteenth century, when all the European nations were scrambling for colonial territories in Africa the way last-minute shoppers scramble for gifts on Christmas Eve, the territory which was later known as Namibia became a German colony. Despite the rebellions from the indigenous Herero and Nama tribes, the Germans conquered with their big guns -- that is, until after WWI when they were conquered by the South African army. (They probably had bigger guns.)

The territory was then known as South West Africa and South Africa desperately wanted to annex it as a part of them. When the United Nations refused the annexation, South Africa did the next best thing: influence the area with its then apartheid ways. For most of the twentieth century, the political battle went back and forth: the UN helping to keep the South Africans out so the territory could become an independent country (it was finally named "Namibia" in 1973); and the South African government attempting to win back the territory like a desperate boy/girlfriend that just got dumped and won't stop calling for forty years. (Can you say "stalker?")

Despite the fact that Namibia went democratic with a new constitution in 1990, I saw that the South African influence was still present in the country, at least in Windhoek. Afrikaans was a spoken language and even South African's currency, the rand, was in widely-accepted use. (One rand = one Namibian dollar.) As my transport to the hostel took me through the downtown area, passed the Supreme Court building and the shopping areas, I saw the same store names that I had seen in Cape Town: Checkers, Pick 'N Pay, Mr Price. Like Cape Town, some of the architecture was still in a colonial motif, only German instead of Dutch.

CHAMELEON BACKPACKERS, in its new and more central location, was a clean and newly-constructed mini-resort with bungalows, a pool (picture above), TV lounge, kitchen, internet, pool table, bar and a dog named "Burn" that was really good at playing dead -- all for just $10 (USD) with a dorm bed. We had arrived early, before check-out time for the previous night's guests, leaving me and another solo traveler that I met from the bus to wait around. He was Rhys, a Welsh guy from the U.K. on working holiday for six months in Cape Town, taking a "holiday from his holiday" in neighboring Namibia so that he could reset his tourist visa when going back to South Africa. We arrived just in time for complimentary breakfast, which included toast and two eggs that you had cook yourself. Despite the fact that I was American and Rhys was British, it was me who had Marmite -- Rhys had good ol' American peanut butter and jelly. Apparently influences weren't just between South Africa and Namibia.

THROUGHOUT THE "RESORT" were signs posted that further made me see the similarities between Cape Town and Windhoek:

Having gone through a knife point mugging myself in Cape Town, I wasn't about to take any chances and just left my passport and camera in a safe.

There wasn't much to take pictures of anyway when I ventured downtown to mail out the airline tickets I was trying to get refunded on. While Windhoek had the same stores as Cape Town, there wasn't much else; no waterfront, no Table Mountain, no nearby beaches. If you didn't know you were in Africa, you'd probably think you were in some small generic Western city. To escape the generic Western Windhoek World during the three days before my scheduled safari, I looked into day trips with Morne, guy tending bar at the backpackers. He made some calls for me, but it seemed that most tours weren't available due to a lack of staff or client quota to make it worthwhile.

In the meantime, I drank at the bar, did some blogging, made tuna sandwiches and met fellow travelers -- not necessarily in that order. Most of my day was spent vegging out with others in the TV lounge watching American movies: Gladiator, The Lion King, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Six Days, Seven Nights. With the movies of Hollywood and the fact that there was a big Bally's casino in the center of town and a KFC down the block, I thought perhaps the South African influence was losing ground to the American one.