Thursday, May 18: We drove from the Lodge northeast on the high street to head out of Otjiwarongo to the next large town (or small city), Grootfontein. Before leaving town, however, we stopped at the local Spar. Spar is a grocery chain with stores in the RSA, Namibia, and Botswana (and possibly other southern African countries), similar to the Hy-Vee or Hen House chain in Missouri. The Spar in Otjiwarongo was particularly impressive, either brand-new or newly remodeled; it rivaled the nicer grocery stores we've seen in the U.S., with a huge selection of goods, a deli, wine department, etc. Otjiwarongo is a thriving town, with many businesses in new buildings and a great deal of commercial and residential construction taking place.

As we drove along the highway to Grootfontein, the terrain changed from barren mountains and hills with scrubby vegetation to the lusher savannah with high grass, and much smaller, lower mountains. We noticed a larger variety of birds, and saw some camels (imported and domesticated, probably, since they were fenced in), several types of antelope, and even a giraffe. In Grootfontein we spent some time touring the Grootfontein Old Fort museum, originally built in 1896 as a military station. We also began to see women of the Herero ethnic group in their customary mode of dress. You can see excellent photos of Herero women on the Flickr.com website. We were reluctant to openly take photos of people for a number of reasons, and the photos on websites devoted to particular topics, such as the history of the Herero in Namibia or on Flickr.com, will be better than those we could have produced. We borrowed this photo from wikopedia.com.

We bought a take-away lunch from the local Spar and were off again, intending to reach the border separating Namibia and Botswana, spend a final night in Namibia, and cross the border in the morning. We camped for the night at Popa Falls, which sounds grander than it actually is; even the printed receipt with camp rules that were given by the reception office ridiculed the word "falls" as a description of the trickle of water located next to our campsite. The campsite was quite nice, except for the very large colony of wasps flying around in the women's ablution building. Next stop--the border crossing, Botswana, and our introduction to Shakawe.