Flight to Accra / Ghana

We went for a meal on the last night in Windhoek. Bun finally got to have Kudu steak which she had been after since arriving in Namibia.

 Before we left we met a Swiss couple who we last met in Nairobi. A long time ago and they were just making their way to Walvis Bay to ship their vehicle to Europe. Their VW camper van had made it all the way with little hassle. We chatted with them before we had to go for our meal. Bun remembers the lasagna they made with the small oven they carried in the back of their camper.

Saturday turned out well, no delays or problems as we left Namibia and Southern Africa behind us. One last word on Namibia. We’ve left the isolation and Wild West feeling behind. We were wondering how long we could spend there, to see it all properly. We would have liked to have stayed longer, and can see ourselves going back one day to take in Namibia and especially Botswana all over again. The Okavango Delta and surrounding reserves are out of this world and a great place to stay up close and personal with a host of wild animals. We will miss having elephants eating close by as we prepare our own food over the fire.

We left Windhoek at 4:30 am on Saturday morning. We had our taxi friend, Gery, who we had been using to get about town to take us to the airport. Flight leaves at 7.10, so we had loads of time. The international airport is very small, and only two Air Namibia flights were leaving that morning. One arriving from Frankfurt.

We were still a bit confused if we needed to change planes in Johannesburg. The flight number was the same, but once we got on the plane, Bun confirmed with the crew that we would get off temporarily and wait ‘in transit’ there.

We did get to see Soccer City as we landed in J’burg, not having made it up there during the World Cup. We got a glimpse of the stadium and Soweto.

In transit, Bun went off to wander around and I waited for our flight to show up on the departure screen. We had an hour or so to kill. As I was wandering through the duty-free shops I saw a shop selling loads of cameras, so went in to check them out. Duty free seemed to have expanded massively with the arrival of the World Cup.

I bought a replacement for my stolen camera after taking a while working out if it was a good idea to get it here. While they were digging out a new camera body I worked out that it was as good a price that I could get elsewhere. The original intention was to get one shipped out to me in Ghana, but I decided to get it there and then. We just had time to get to the gate and board the plane.

It took five hours to get to Accra. We hit the ocean just south-east of Kinshasa in the DRC. After that it got cloudy below and we turned to the in flight entertainment which showed films in German and English, both at the same time which was impossible to understand. It was only good on the first leg to J’Burg when they showed The Simpsons!

An odd sensation with our first flight since being in Africa and having come all this way. I was trying to work out how long it would take us to drive after ten minutes of flying! Making out random tracks and wondering if we would have followed those on our trip north if we had driven.

Bun started to get agitated after four hours! She had let me sit next to the window and regretted it after a while as she couldn’t get to sleep in the middle seat! The last hour went pretty quickly when they came round with some more food and drinks.

Immigration was easy, and we were out quickly with our ride waiting for us. We are staying at the Afia hotel, near Independence Avenue. The driver took us back in a Landcruiser, the same as ours, so we felt right at home.

We were shattered that evening. We found enough energy to eat at the restaurant in the hotel. It’s called Tribes and is meant to be one of the best places to eat in Accra. We sat there melting, so not used to the heat after coming from Namibia. We getting through the bottles of water already.