Starry night in Solitaire

First stop: Solitaire

After 5 hours of dri­ving we reach our desti­na­ti­on, the Soli­taire Guest Farm, which is loca­ted in the midd­le of not­hing. Sur­roun­ded by a semicir­cle of moun­ta­ins in our back, the­re is an impres­si­ve view of the sav­an­nah and our apart­ment turns out to be a two bed­room man­si­on with a huge kit­chen, a hall of living room and a porch that offers the best view of the desert land­scape. The enti­re win­dow front of our man­si­on can even be pushed open. Maxi­mum cine­ma fee­ling in the desert. I real­ly had­n’t ima­gi­ned it to be that gre­at. For about two hours we water our cast­le exten­si­ve­ly and cele­bra­te our first accom­mo­da­ti­on with ple­nty of water. Becau­se alco­hol is unfort­u­na­te­ly not available in Nami­bia on Sun­days. Even in Windhoek’s Super-Spar the alco­hol rack was locked. Annoy­ing and for a Dort­mun­der hard­ly ima­gi­nable that on a com­ple­te day in the week no beer is available. We put all our hopes in the bar of the guestfarm.

At 8 p.m. we have an appoint­ment with the buf­fet. Today the­re is a real Nami­bi­an BBQ and you can ima­gi­ne that Mir­ko has alre­a­dy tied the baby bib around his neck hours ago and now is asking every minu­te when we can final­ly get some­thing to eat. The poor guy also alre­a­dy looks half star­ved! When the­re is actual­ly Oryx Steak for din­ner, the mood is clo­se to the boi­ling point.

Well sated and in a good mood we lea­ve the bam­boo hut a litt­le later and I could freak out again for joy. We have a star­ry night and that alre­a­dy at at 10 p.m. It is said that Nami­bia is one of the top 3 places in the world to see the mil­ky way and I can tell you that the sky is the abso­lu­te insa­ni­ty. I was alre­a­dy thril­led in Laos, but this one beats it about 10 times! The Mil­ky Way can be seen all night long and I brief­ly think about whe­ther I should re-edu­ca­te and stu­dy astro­no­my. One thing is for sure: Tonight I will not go to bed at all!

So while we sit on our porch, enjoy an ice-cold beer that the guest­farm sold us on Sun­day and admi­re the sky, an Afri­can spar­row gets lost in our house and takes over our own home. How we will ever get him out of the­re again is not quite clear with a cei­ling height of 5 meters. If I were a spar­row, I cer­tain­ly would­n’t fly out of the­re again.

Next: Hike through the wilderness