[Namibia] Chapter VIII: In which N drives rather faster, perhaps, than before

After Etosha we travelled more than 600 kilometres through north-eastern Namibia (via Grootfontein, Rundu and Divundu) en route to the Caprivi strip.

This region was remarkably different from the one we had previously experienced, in the Namib desert and Damaraland. Most noticeably, it was greener, with trees everywhere, as well as bushes, and

sometimes even green --- rather than yellow --- grass.

Additionally, it was much more populated, with numerous small enclosures lining the road for many kilometres, especially on the outskirts of Rundu. Each such enclosure, possibly an extended family, was encircled by a fence of sticks, and was composed of a handful of structures or more, mostly traditional one-room huts with thatched roofs, occasionally supplemented by corrugated metal shacks, and rarely by one-storey brick houses. Around these enclosures, people were going about their days, men herding goats or cows, women raking tiny vegetable patches, teenagers carrying empty jerrycans for long distances in one direction only to return back with them full of water later on, children playing kick-the-dirt, toddlers waving at the passing cars, dogs digging in rubbish heaps, hens pecking and clucking.

And last but not least, the main road was paved throughout, allowing for travel at much more reasonable speeds.

The peculiarly mixed nature of the communities we saw, at once both urban and rural, was best exemplified when we visited the largest supermarket in Rundu, a city of more than sixty thousand people. At the entrance to this supermarket --- a modern supermarket which would not have felt out of place in any Western town --- there hung a large billboard advertising a contest or lottery that the supermarket was holding among its customers. But what stood out to us was the grand prize offered: twenty heifers.

Accommodations:
- Meteor Travel Inn, Grootfontein (1 nights; nice enough, if you ignore the run-down neighbourhood)
- Niilo's Guesthouse, Rundu (1 night; pretty nice)

Photo captions: (a) a rural enclosure; (b) a traditional hut