We crossed the border into South Africa and drove straight to Windhoek. On the way, we passed the tropic of capricorn again - for us, it was already the third time crossing it on this journey :-) It’s hard to believe that we were here with my parents exactly 8 months ago. Where did all this time go?!
We arrived in Windhoek on a Sunday night and wanted to start the next morning by organizing as many visas as possible in Windhoek for our trip up north. Toby also needed to see a mechanic; the first 1’500 kilometers after their complete rebuild of Olga, their Defender, brought up some issues on the car, which must have happened in the workshop. Since we would need to move around in the city a lot, we preferably didn’t want to sleep in the car. The first night, we were invited by Doren, a guy Toby and Martina met while in Windhoek a few months ago. He was hosting a little braai and invited us to join. We ended up spending the night in our cars in his driveway ;-) The next day we left early and started driving to all the embassies in Windhoek to gather information. We discovered that we could organize visas for Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo here. For Ghana, we needed a residence card from Namibia; without it, we would not receive a visa in Windhoek. There is no embassy of the Ivory Coast in Windhoek, so we would need to organize this visa later, and for the other countries en route, we can either apply online for a visa or we don’t need one at all. After visiting all the embassies, our next stop was the mall, where we took some new passphotos of us and printed all the necessary documents for the visas. We then returned and handed in our first application at the embassy of the Republic of Congo. For 1300 Nam$ (~65 USD), we got our visas within two days, which was faster than what they initially told us, but after sharing our story about Toby’s pregnant wife waiting for us back home, I think they fastened up their process, and we even did not have to pay the “express-fee,” which would have been double the price - yay! We received our passports with the visas on Wednesday and went straight to the Embassy of Nigeria to hand in our next application. The lady working there was very friendly, but also, she didn’t have much power to fasten up things for us. It seemed like it was the most organized embassy of all the ones we visited, and therefore, the process was straight forward and there was nothing to change about it. We had to pay an extra fee of 3000 Nam$ because we are not Namibian residents (~150 USD), but at least it was possible to get a visa after all. The total costs came to 240 USD, including the express fee; it's not a cheap visa, but on the bright side, we already had it the next day. ASnd after we heard many stories from other Overlanders, who couldn’t get the Nigerian visa abroad or had to pay a lot more than us, we were still quite happy with how it went. Unfortunately, we were too late for the DRC embassy on that day, so we only managed to hand in our visa application there on Friday morning. They told us it would take 7 (!) days to receive it; again, we would have had the possibility to pay an express fee (but even the lady working at the embassy told us she would not spend that money because it would not be much faster). After we told her our story again and that we needed to get home as soon as possible because of Martina, who is pregnant and waiting for Toby, the lady however assured us to hurry up. We received the visa for the regular fee of 1200 Nam$ (~60 USD) on Tuesday already :-)
During these ten days in Windhoek, we (especially Toby) spent many hours at different mechanics; we treated us to a couple of dinners out and had many nice braai nights in our super cool Airbnb apartment. During this time, we got to know Toby (and Martina) better, which was very nice. It felt like we had already been friends for a long time. After spending months of traveling and living in the car, we shared a lot of hopes, fears, and thoughts in general about life and especially about going back home to Switzerland. And Talking to Martina on the phone, who was already back, was also interesting and sometimes increased but also decreased our joy of returning home.
On Thursday, we were finally ready to continue our trip up North. Our next destination was Angola, and we had some people we wanted to meet up with. There was Noortje and Marjin, the couple we met the last time Tom and I were in Angola and with whom we spent some lovely days at the beach. Of course, we wanted to see them again since we would be driving through Lubango, the city where they live. Marjin was even able to take some days off work, and we planned to spend some days together at the beach again; this time also, their kids would be joining, whom we didn’t meet the last time. We also wanted to meet up with Maarten and Renske, a couple from the Netherlands, who is driving from North to South along the West Coast of Africa in a fully electric car. And to top this, their goal is to charge at least 51% of their energy from solar power! A very inspiring project. When we told them that we were finally ready to leave Windhoek and on our way to Angola and that we could meet somewhere along the route, they told us that they were staying with a Dutch couple they met on the streets of Lubango while getting some groceries - it turned out that “the Dutch couple” was Noortje and Marjin :-D.
Toby, Tom, and I drove straight to the border to Angola and spent the last night in Namibia at the Piscas Hotel, where Tom and I already stayed before and after we entered Angola the last time. Marta, the receptionist, still remembered us. The following day, we could leave early and directly drive to the border, which took us 4 hours to cross. We still managed to go all the way to Lubango and arrived just after dark. Marjin, Noortje, Renske, and Maarten warmly welcomed us. They even cooked a lovely curry for us, and we spent a great evening sharing maaany stories around the fireplace in their backyard.
The following day, Maarten and Renske gave us a full car tour. It was very interesting to see how they equipped their 4x4 to drive all the way from the Netherlands to South Africa and back up again, using mainly solar power. Of course, they need a lot of space for their solar panels, but on the other hand, they have storage in the front of the car since there is no motor and the battery doesn’t use that much space.
Toby, Tom, and I spent another day at Noortje and Marjin’s place. We cooked “Gschnätzlets and Rösti” for them for dinner (a very typical Swiss dish), and the next morning, everyone was ready to leave and spend a couple of days at the beach, at the same spot we already went together last time. This was a welcome change of scenes after all the visa organization and mechanical work on the cars. We enjoyed the few days on the beach, laying in the sun, going for a swim, Toby even speer-fished his first fish, which was delicious, and Judah and Salome, the two kids, taught us how to catch crabs. We truly had a blast. Unfortunately, Tom wasn’t feeling very well, so he spent most of the time in the shade doing not much; I’m not sure if he had corona; the symptoms were very similar. But luckily, after two full days without driving anywhere, he recovered again and was ready to continue. We said our goodbyes and continued up north. From here, it was also all new territory for us - and we were very excited to explore some more of Angola.
