NAMIBIA’S HQ

Windhoek is a bustling city with a great vibe, but it still feels like a dorp. Here’s your guide to the capital of Namibia.

As you approach Windhoek on the B6 from Gobabis, you don’t see any signs of a city. Instead, you’re surrounded by open plains with mountains in the distance. The thorn trees and veld are green in times of rain and you might see baboons or a warthog family next to the road. Buildings start to appear as you enter the outskirts of the city, then the B6 becomes Sam Nujoma Drive near the suburbs of Ludwigsdorf and Klein Windhoek. These are the nice parts of town, where Portuguese, Indian and Italian restaurants are within walking distance of each other. It’s a bit like Melville in Joburg, but without the hipsters. I take a drive up a steep hill to a German castle called Hotel Heinitzburg at the top. Windhoek still has a strong German influence, dating from the colonial days (1884 – 1915). You can see this influence in the architecture (like the parliament building, called the Tintenpalast), in the restaurant menus (anyone for a wiener schnitzel?) and in the way people greet each other. “Wie geht’s?” they’ll say, which means “How are you?” But you’ll also hear Afrikaans, Oshivambo, English, Herero and many other languages. This cultural melting pot is reflected in the street names: Frankie Fredericks Street honours Namibia’s famous sprinter; German names like Beethoven Strasse and Guthenberg Street abound; you’ll find Beijing Street in the Katutura township and see if you can spot my favourite – the intersection between Rugby and Netbal streets. I carry on downhill to the city centre with the Khomas Hochland Mountains on the western horizon. Something about Windhoek’s vibe, the colours and the surrounding landscape makes me think of Bloemfontein – with a few skyscrapers thrown in, the most prominent being the nine-storey Hilton Windhoek. Windhoek is a sprawling city, covering a surface area of about 5 133 km² – twice the size of the Cape Metropole. But where the Mother City is home to about 3,74 million people, Windhoek only has about 400 000 residents. And unlike Cape Town, and indeed other big African cities like Joburg, Nairobi and Lagos, the morning traffic is a breeze. Your next appointment, whether it’s with a friend, at a museum or at Joe’s Beerhouse, is never more than a 10-minute drive away.

A city for everyone

A man called Jonker Afrikaner founded Windhoek in 1840, when he built a church and a small settlement near a permanent stream. The origin of the name is unclear – the settlement was either named after the windy place that Afrikaner found himself in, or after the farm Winterhoek in the Cape where his ancestors had lived. Windhoek was a tiny settlement until German officer Curt von Francois arrived in 1890 with 32 men. He built Alte Feste – the fort on the corner of Robert Mugabe Avenue and Sam Nujoma Drive – to serve as the headquarters of the German troops in Africa, called the Schutztruppe. Alte Feste used to be a great museum, but it’s now a little neglected. The highlight is probably the famous statue of a German soldier on horseback, known as the Reiterdenkmal, which once stood opposite the Christuskirche. The statue was relocated to the Alte Feste courtyard in 2009. I head to the Warehouse Theatre in Tal Street. It’s in the same complex as the Boiler Room, The Loft, the Craft Centre and the Craft Café. The theatre turns 28 this year and it’s the best place to see Namibian musicians like Shishani, Elemotho, Tonetic and Ras Sheehama perform. Co-owner Conny Pimenta has lived in Windhoek her whole life. “The city is small so people usually hang out at the same places,” she says. “The service is more personal. In South Africa, you can feel lost and alone when walking around; in Windhoek someone will inevitably strike up a conversation.”

Cheers, Windhoek

The new Independence Memorial Museum next to Alte Feste is five storeys high. The building is also known as the Coffee Pot because it wouldn’t look out of place on your kitchen counter. I head to the NIMMS restaurant on the fourth floor and order a Windhoek Lager. (NIMMS is short for National Independence Memorial Museum.) Windhoek has no shortage of scenic sundowner spots and NIMMS is the latest addition. There are two spacious balconies where you can sip a cocktail as the city lights start to twinkle around the Christuskirche. Before I got to know Windhoek, it was just a place to pass through on my way to Etosha or the Zambezi Region. But stay a day or two and you’ll see why the residents love it so much…