The Elegant Farm

The last day in Africa. Finn booked this place from booking.com but started to regret as soon as he turned to D2102, a corrugated gravel road. A severely corrugated gravel road was one of the worst roads to drive on. The car shakes in such a short and quick rhythm with deafening noise that makes you feel the car, and yourself, are about to fall apart. He didn’t prepare that the “farm” was in such a remote and hilly area and worried that he might not get the WiFi as promised. The anxiety ran high even though the wifi was good enough to allow him to check in with the KLM. He resented the poor attitude of the receptionist who I also found very cold and even rude. The room was so far from the parking lot that made it impossible to pack the luggages in the room. We had to take everything out of the car in the parking lot and pack our bags there.

The pool water looked too green to be clean. The “living room” area and garden were well manicured. Chairs, sofas, cushions and even day beds. Finn thought it was phony. I agreed. However they did look nice on the pictures.

We met two German couples, very strange people. They won’t give you the slightest smile or a greeting even if they stared you right into your eyes. Most of time they avoided to look at people. Another couple, also from Germany, was very nice, always smile and exchanging a few simple words. The wife was on the wheelchair and her husband pushed her all over, including higher steps. We checked out almost the same time, and two hours later, I saw them crossing street in front of us in Windhoek.

We didn’t get the three course meal for dinner, it’s too much food. Fortunately, the kitchen allowed us to only take the main course and charged us N$165 pp. The dish was too salty to my taste but overall very good. Finn had a glass of white wine and I had a beer. I have been drinking this beer, Windhoek Lager, the whole time.

The breakfast was quite impressive, in addition to the regular cold cut and cheese it had smoked salmon. I had a lot of salmon, plus an omelette. Again, the omelette was too salty. I didn’t finish it.

We left the “farm” at 9:45, 15 earlier than our planned time. The driving on the gravel road seemed not as bad as the way we came in. It’s the second time we had such a feeling. Last time was to Messum Crater. The road was very shaky on the way in to the Crater even though Finn drove on the “both sides” of the road, trying to find a smoother surface.

One thing that needs to mention was that due to the limited space of my backpack I decided to discard my flippers which I used for gym for two years and looked more worn after only one day standing on a sandy ground. So, I put into a waste basket in the room along with other trash, including a swimming suit. When we came back from dinner the room was tidied up again but the flippers were gone. Finn said he was not surprised (I was). I should have also left my old T-shirts out which could be useful to someone. The next day Finn gave the chamber pillow case I brought for the trip but prepared to throw away to a guy sweeping the yard. Most people in the country were quite poor.Read more