Namibia continued
InBetween in Windhoek
at the Rivendell Guest House
June
19 - June 22
Originally, we would have stayed at the Rivendell the 19th, and
then went back to Swakopmund and then to Walvis Bay to kayak,
but after the tour, we were both exhausted and Laura was sick.
A cold had gone around the bus, Miriam was hit the hardest, but
everyone had the sniffles and felt tired. So we woke up on the
19th and cancelled our trip to Walvis Bay. We had booked the
trip all through Crazy Kudu and they were not happy that we cancelled,
and in the end, we had to pay some cancellation fees, but it
was worth it. Rivendell was nice, we were tired, and we had a
lot more planned. I woke up on most days to get donuts from downtown,
and to practice for the Fish River hike. Hiking to get donuts.
Not really the best way to train, but it worked well enough.
And then it happened. We were robbed.
June 19 Sherri left her stuff in our room before she went out to run some errands, I went to do email and to write some musings, and while Laura was in the room, a guy walked in, grabbed Sherri's bag, our airplane ticket holder (which we dubbed Andrea's Thing since Andrea gave it to us), and Laura's hiking boots. The same guy walked in on Miriam in her room, and she shooed him away. So our break turned into a crime report. Bad enough they stole our things, but worse they took Sherri's bag which we were supposed to be watching. It was the first time the Rivendell had been robbed, and we just got unlucky. Well, we got lucky. Sherri was hit hard. The full story can be found in my NOT SPARED musings, if you are so inclined to read it. We had to cancel our credit cards, and of course, we got the most inept woman in America to help us. Here we are, calling long distance, and this woman doesn't quite know how to cancel a stolen credit card. All around the world we prided ourselvs that at least in America we are organized, that we have the best customer service in the world. Well, yeah. Laura got a supervisor and still had trouble. She could send the cards to South Africa but not Namibia. Aren't all those African countries the same anyway? While Laura was cancelling our credit cards, I got us new bus and train tickets. We then spent the night writing up a police report. Sherri went on to the Fish River Lodge, since there was nothing she could do anyway.
June 20 and it was shopping day. Laura needed new boots for our upcoming hike and I must say, my shoes I bought last year and walked in everyday since also could be replaced. So we bought new boots and walked around Windhoek to break them in. Both Veronika and Bernard were great at Rivendell, but the owners, a sickly, thin woman and her roguish husband never said a word to us, not one word about the robbery. Here we are, their customers, and they ignore the whole thing. The woman did chide us for leaving the kitchen dirty while we ate one afternoon, but nothing about the robbery. Luckily, because of Veronika and Bernard, we have no ill feelings toward the Rivendell. The police sent men to question people at the Rivendell and they were on the case! That was nice to see.
So after repairing the damage from the robbery, hardly getting the rest we had wanted, we did get to hang out with Miriam and Peter and play cards with them at night. That was a lot of fun, and Miriam is a crack-up. At first we thought that her English wasn't so good, some of the crazy things she'd say. Then Peter let us know that Miriam told herself jokes and the world was sometimes welcome to join her, but sometimes they were only for her. We played the Dutch version of Crazy Eights and the American version of Hearts and had a fun time. Staying with them in September will be great! On June 21, thanks to Peter and Miriam, we were able to see the partial eclipse of the sun. They had glasses for us to look, and it was a lot of fun, seeing the sun getting chewed up. When the sun was fully eclipsed by the moon, the air turned color and it got a little darker, as if one were wearing dark sunglasses. Very strange.
Hanging out at the Rivendale Guest House with Mirium & Peter
Laura checking out the solar eclipse with Mirium's special sunglasses
