Namibia Road Trip – Day #8: Sesriem to Luderitz
When driving in Namibia, plan well ahead when it comes to gas, water, and cash. You will always need more than you think of all three. Far more.
You can’t simply calculate your needs based on the day’s drive in front of you. You’d be screwing yourself if you did. How do you now they take credit cards at the next location? What makes you think the fuel pumps there are working or that the other drivers haven’t already sucked them dry? Did you anticipate all the hidden costs that you can only address with cash (park entry fees, firewood, etc.)?
For the Swakopmund – Sesriem – Luderitz leg of our trip, I’d underestimated badly. We readied to depart Sesriem with insufficient fuel and hundreds of miles of mountain and desert in front of us. I’d thought we had enough cash, but the Sosussvlei entrance fee could only be paid in cash, the shuttle bus could only be paid in cash, and the credit card machine wasn’t working in the camp store when we arrived. Oops.
Fortunately, it worked the next morning. Seeing it took the pump jockey a good minute to stand up from his nap to ask us what we wanted, I didn’t tell him that I was paying with credit card until he’d already filled the tank. He wasn’t happy to walk those extra 50 feet into the office, and did so slowly and reluctantly. Tough sh*t, pal.
I had only N$ 19 in my pocket (not even US$ 3) at that point. The nearest ATM was hundreds of miles away. Looking at the map, I saw we could make it all the way to Luderitz … provided the route wasn’t too rough.
Too bad we had to drive through a fantastic rainstorm that flooded our route in four places and required a detour. (At one point we drove on a road that had become a raging river; at one point, water had begun trickling into the cab of the truck.) It was sweltering and sunny again when we approached the sleepy town of Aus.
The only thing between Aus and our final destination of Luderitz was an 80 mile drive through lifeless desert and moon rock. The home stretch was before us, and we had a hair under a quarter tank left.
“We can make it,” I decided.
“No we can’t,”my wife corrected.
It took a left turn off the asphalt B4 road and followed the only paved road down into a gully and over some railroad tracks. We passed the old passenger train station and followed the road as it ascended again towards the town’s only gas station.
As soon as I killed the engine, the heat radiated off the ceiling onto our heads. I rolled down the window, and couldn’t even rest my arm on the door lest the metal burn me. I spotted the attendant sitting in the shade across the street with friends.
Not a creature stirred in “down town” Aus. Including this guy. Seeing we wouldn’t leave, the attendant reluctantly got off his tree stump in the shade and ambled towards us. After a customary “hello” I popped the question:”Do you take credit cards”
Pause. “No.”
Oops. Forgot my own rule.
“Is there a bank here? An ATM?”
Pause. Pause. “No.”
“Well, here’s our situation…”
He sympathized and gave me a full N$ 25 worth of gas, N$ 6 more than I could pay for. I felt like a sh*t for having to borrow money in Africa. Jesus, what a loser.
“You can make it if you keep your rpm’s low,” he advised.
My wife wasn’t too happy with that. “We need to get more money,” she urged.
She walked into the Bahnhof Hotel (”train station”). She explained the situation to the owner, who confirmed that yes, they took credit cards, and yes, they would be willing to give us cash back against a credit card charge.
We ended up staying at the Bahnhof Hotel for a late lunch. I had a fantastically tasty (and brutally spicy) ostrich curry (called “Track Hack” in the menu). A Windhoek Lager helped fight off the heat. The waitress laughed at my red, sweating face.
“Too spicy, eh?” She accused.
It was too hot to reply.
Aus used to be a key train station when the passenger railway line was still running. That’s long been closed – along with the mines – so Aus doesn’t have much to offer. The occasional freight train pulls into, providing the only entertainment. It was awfully quiet that Sunday. Most of the town – German and Coloured – spent their day exactly the way the gas station attendant did – beating the heat by sitting around on their arses trying not to move too much.
We finished our meal, and I drove back to the gas station with a crisp N$ 100 note in my sweaty palm. Kapitein Hendrik Witbooi stared back at me one last time before I handed the note over to the grinning attendant.
I know it sounds counter-intuitive to advise travel in Africa with a huge wad of cash, but if you’re in Namibia, you absolutely need to a huge wad of cash. Take more money than think you might possibly need. After Aus, we did that, and still it was barely enough cash! (Our truck was a real gas guzzler, and gas prices varied widely across the country.)
Once we found an ATM in Luderitz, we broke our wad into separate piles (wallets, suitcase, knife sheath, under the seat, etc.). It turned out you can drive around Namibia with lots of cash without getting jacked. I had one roll of bills to give up should be get robbed, but I never needed it (although my Spidey sense tingled more than once as I’d been conditioned by driving in South Africa, where you had to exercise extreme caution).
When the attendant in Aus finished pumping our N$ 100, we were close to the halfway mark on the fuel indicator. My wife relaxed finally. We hit the road on the home stretch towards Luderitz, wiser for the experience.
