Melted Credit Cards

Day 8, 04.01.23, from Canyon Village to Lüderitz

On this day, we notice for the first time that a melted credit card is not necessarily the ideal means of payment for a trip. But more on that later.

We get up very early again to go on a sunrise hike up the mountain behind us. When we reach the top, we experience the sun coming up behind the mountains and slowly warming and illuminating the earth. We follow the nearly 7 km long track along the mountain, through a hole back to the plain where we meet springboks and weaver birds with their large nests.

Most species of weaver birds inhabit wooded areas, bushland, or open grasslands in Africa, south of the Sahara. The colonies can consist of thousands of birds.

In addition to individual nests, communal nests are also built. The males build a large nest out of dry grass together, which is constructed in trees or on telephone poles. It can reach a height of about three meters and a width of about 4.5 meters. The nest is divided into many separate areas and is inhabited by several hundred birds. The tube-like entry holes are located below the nest. Construction continues constantly at a communal nest. The birds need about one year to build one meter. When the nest is taken over by new birds, they are obliged to renovate it. You can observe this by the fresh grass that is attached above the old, dried grass.

We are fascinated to watch these little architects and builders tirelessly doing their work before we make our way back to the lodge after two hours and prepare for the drive to Lüderitz.

Now that Cindy is really getting into gravel riding, she sets off ahead of me, and I will pick her up later. In the meantime, I take care of the "paperwork," as they say here. Fortunately, you can pay with a credit card here. However, it turns out that the connection to the local bank cannot be established, and they ask me to pay at the so-called Roadhouse, about 20 km away, as it is also part of the Gondwana Group. Nothing easier than that, I thought, and set off.

Arriving there, the payment went smoothly, and I even see an ATM. So, the cash problem is solved ... or so I thought, because it is now the first time it occurs to me that it might not be advisable to insert a melted card into the machine, as it might not come out again, and a service team in the middle of nowhere will take days.

Since I am already running late, I decide to deal with this problem later and head to the meeting point with Cindy at the next intersection. Unfortunately, mobile network coverage in Namibia's rural areas is not the best, so we cannot communicate about it. It should be mentioned here, to be fair, that our network in Germany, especially in rural areas, cannot be described as comprehensive either, but "the countryside" in Namibia is also sometimes 30,000 km² in size, has less than 1 inhabitant per km², and it is understandable that this is not being developed.

Unfortunately, Cindy is not at the meeting point. I decide to keep going, hoping that she did the same, and after a total of 65 km, a highly motivated gravel biker appears in front of me. Slightly relieved and with the mutual promise to improve our communication in this regard, we stop at the Canyon Farm Yard, a very cute farm stall in the middle of a semi-desert.