After weeks of preparation, organization and saying goodbye “Day X” has finally arrived. I’m starting on my big trip around the world! And to all of you, who are wondering where I’ll go, or who are thinking about joining me at some point, here is a quick overview of my idea for this trip:

• October 20th to November 30th: Southern Africa, including Namibia, Botswana and South Africa (flying out of Cape Town)
• December 1st to December 10th: Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Ilha Grande, Iguacu)
• December 10th through January: Argentina and Chile
• End of January through mid March: Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador (including the Galapagos Islands)
• Mid March until September or October: Canada with one or two trips to the US

 As I haven’t booked anything (except for the flight to Sao Paolo) these plans may change by a few weeks. If you’re interested in joining me anywhere along the route, let me know and I’ll consider that in my planning.

So now I arrived at the international airport of Windhoek, Namibia, on Thursday morning. The whole airport had five airplanes parked next to the main building, including ours. Windhoek has only about 400000 inhabitants (Namibia 2.2 million) and you definitely get a feeling for that when you look at the arrivals screen – about 10 arrivals in total in the next ten hours…

Windhoek International Airport

The only other thing I’ve booked here, except for two nights at the hostel, is the airport transport to the hostel, which is necessary because the airport is an hours drive outside the city. Here I meet Renske again, who I had briefly met at the airport in Munich. She is staying at the same hostel and gets picked up by the same driver. She’ll be working as a volunteer at a wildlife station for the next three months.

After checking in at the hostel, we walk around the downtown area, which is close by. We admire the German heritage, which is not only visible by the style of some of the older houses, but also lots of people, who can speak German, German info tiles or dish names like “Macaroni  Auflauf” or “Eisbein”.

During the ride from the airport we already got to see some of the abundant wildlife of Namibia –  Baboons (monkeys) and Kudus (antelopes with long, twisted horns) were right at the side of the road. Here, close to the old (German) church from the early 1900s, we found some interesting lizards enjoying the warmth of the rocks on the outside of the church.

A little further down the road we found the independence museum. Originally we just saw the glass elevators on the outside, promising a good view over the city. The museum is free of charge and has much more to offer than the good view (from the empty 5th floor or the restaurant on the 4th floor) – it has impressive large-scale paintings of the Civil War during the 70s and 80s and the independence from South Africa in 1990. Besides from that we met Carsten again, who was also sitting next to us at the airport in Munich, and who is also staying at the Chameleon backpackers.