We navigate across Windhoek to the place Avis Guy had recommended called Urban Camp. It’s a walled complex with a security gate. We pull up to the gate and tell the guard we’d like to stay. It opens up and we park in a gravel lot by the check-in. This place looks dope already. It’s basically a camp ground with amenities right in the middle of the city.
We walk around to the check-in, which also doubles as a market, merch booth, bar and food ordering area.
Great sign right out front
A girl named Carmen checks us in. She’s bubbly and funny, “Are you guys nice?”, “We’re nice”, point to Jamie, “He’s kind of a dick”, “Ok, I just needed three out of four of you to be nice. I’ll give you my favorite spot!”
She walks us down to the camp spot. This place rocks. There’s a pool and hang out area with deck chairs and picnic tables. Several shower facilities and lots of personal campsites that all have a sheltered table area and a fireplace/braai at the back.
This dude looks like he’s on a fun roadtrip.
We get a spot slightly away from everyone near the wall. Close to showers and restrooms. Perfect.
Carmen is cracking us up, “We’re trying to conserve water so if you could all shower together…”, Drisdelle can’t believe it,”Hey you stole my joke!”
We bring the truck around. This is great, Urban Camp is the bees knees.
We get Belinda set up and head back to the common area to chill with a round of beers. They’ve got some Namibian craft beers so we decide to try out the Oktoberfest style Helles from Camelthorn. Not bad, light and refreshing. Perfect after a days drive.
Killer spot with a lot of outdoor seating, a decent looking menu, and a bunch of beers to sample. Walking distance to Joe’s Beerhouse and decent location within Windhoek. What more do you want?
Against Carmen’s recommendation, we take turns showering up between rounds and rounds of beer by the pool. Ahh the shower feels great, just a mud river of road grime running off of me. I towel off and go to put my jeans back on but the floor is wet and I start to slip. I kick out my leg in reaction and slam my big toe off the brick wall with a snap, cracking the nail down passed the center of my toe. Ah Fuck! Ahh fuck that hurts. It starts bleeding immediately. Shit. Ahhhh. I sit on the floor holding it for a minute. Fuck sakes. I get the rest of my stuff together and limp back to camp walking on my heel while blood soaks the slip of my flip flop.
“What the fuck happened to you?”, “I slipped in the shower and kicked the wall”, “Shit dude, you’re gonna want to wrap that up so the dirt doesn’t get in. Last thing you want is an infected toe out in the desert”, “Yeah, where’s that shitty first aid kit?” I sit at the table and dress things up. My big toe nail on my right foot is split in two and flapping off my toe leaving the tender skin underneath red, bloody and exposed. I trim up the nail but don’t really want to rip the cracked parts off, I still want the shield in place. So I just place some gauze over it and wrap it up with surgical tape in the hopes the nail grows out and I can ditch the broken bits later. Hurts like hell. This sucks.
I limp back to the pool area and get another beer. A Namibian guy comes over to chat. His name is Shreal. “Shreal?”, “Yeah, Ess, Aitch, Ar, Ee, Eh, El, Shreal.” He’s driving down to Cape Town. We give him the 411 on Lion’s Head, the drive around the Cape, The Backpack, Orphanage, House of Machines, Cause | Effect, etc… He’s taking off soon so he shakes up and thanks us for the tips. “Cool man, keep it Shreal.” No reaction. I get a snicker from Mark.
All cleaned up (kind of) and a good foundation of beer, the sun is going down and the hunger is coming on. Time to mosey down to Joe’s Beerhouse. Literally everyone has told us to go to this place so I don’t see why we’d go anywhere else. Hopefully it lives up to the hype.