Exploring Windhoek and Okapuka

Exploring Windhoek

We have been so busy these past couple of days and time has just been flying by, hence why I will be posting a long, two-day blog.  The past two days here have been spent exploring this beautiful country in Africa, I have taken 200 pictures in the past two days, and I will try to share several of them with you all even though the Internet makes loading pictures quite the chore. 

We started off Tuesday with a tour of Windhoek, led by our hilarious guide Uanee (Pronounced “ONE A.”)  Uanee is from Namibia and comes from the Herero tribe, and he is one of the nicest people I have had the pleasure to meet. Uanee took us to see the Parliament building where we were strictly told not to take pictures of police officers, but I managed to take beautiful pictures of the building and the surrounding garden which I will post for your viewing pleasure. We also visited the oldest church in Namibia and it was beautifully built, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the beautiful stained glass but I’ll post a picture of the outside. After a few more stops along the way and more humorous dialogue from Uanee we were dropped off in groups on the main street of Windhoek for a group scavenger hunt.  Each group was tasked to find the places described on our scavenger hunt list and along the way we found amazing shops, met amazing people, and overall had a wonderful time.  It was a great way to familiarize ourselves with the area and explore the town on our own terms.

On our way back to the house after the scavenger hunt we stopped at some beautiful lookout points and I got some amazing pictures of the city that I will share below.  We spent only 30 min. at the house before we all hopped back in the car to head to the Tjiramba’s home for dinner.  Edwin Tjiramba and his family have been great friends of my professors for many, many years and they were kind enough to invite us into their home.  It was touching to see how close these two families were in spirit even though they spend the majority of the year apart, and I felt so honored to be a part of this celebration of friendship and family. 

I was so tired after all of this that I came home and went straight to bed.

 

 

Okapuka

I woke up this morning to begin probably one of the coolest things I’ve done to date, a game drive at the Okapuka farm! We drove 30 min away to see one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and I will try to post multiple pictures, but they don’t do such Okapuka justice.  On the game drive we saw giraffes, springboks, wildebeests, ostriches, warthogs, impalas, crocodiles and more!!!  I’ve seen some of these animals before but always in an enclosure and usually only one at a time.  I saw several herds of these animals roaming and wandering in the wild and it was absolutely breathtaking! The best part about this is that this is only the first of FOUR game drives!!! This country is so beautiful and I can hardly believe I’ve seen so much in only three days; I am so excited to see what the rest of this trip will bring.  I miss you all back home and I’ll talk to you again soon! <3