Windhoek — Final City

Our second-to-last day, and the last full day before flying back to Lisbon, was spent in Windhoek. Breakfast at half past eight, car collected, and the morning was ours. Our first stop was the Craft Centre — a shop packed with souvenirs, some handmade, some not, all carrying a distinctly Namibian character. Worth a browse even if you leave empty-handed.

From there we walked through the city: the large Protestant church, one of the city’s main landmarks, and then the statues commemorating Namibian freedom and honouring the victims of the genocide carried out by German colonial forces in the early twentieth century. A short walk further and we came across an exhibition of meteorite fragments — pieces broken off the very rock we had visited earlier in the trip, now displayed in the city. That closed out Windhoek proper.

Lunch was at Stellenbosch Wine Bar & Bistro, a little further out toward the suburbs, before heading back to the lodge. On the way we took a short detour through the park to look for wildlife and found wildebeest at close range — a fitting last encounter. Back at the lodge we had a couple of hours to rest before dinner at half past six, after which we packed for the following day and spent the remainder of the evening together. It felt, in every sense, like the last real day of the trip.