In the evening, after yesterday's post, we went out to dinner at Fakhr-El Din, a Lebanese restaurant that had been recommended to us before we left on our trip and then was subsequently recommended by Bashar at the Intercontinental. V had called the hotel from Toronto pre-trip and had had the concierge make a reservation and we were glad that she did, very busy. As an aside we have been trying valiantly to approximate the pronunciation of arabic names and places and I was very pleased at how well I succeeded in telling the taxi attendant where we wanted to go even though mustering the throaty guttural required to pronounce the restaurant's name made me fell as if I was calling him a very robust anglo-saxon epithet.

The restaurant was wonderful, very elegant and in the home of a former Prime Minister of Jordan, with indoor dining rooms and an outdoor candle-lit garden where we sat. We arrived at 7:30 and by 8:30 it was packed with locals seeing and being seen. Amman culture appears to be very secular and the tables were filled with larger groups of mixed gender as well as smaller tables of 3 or 4, in some cases all men in others all women, and in others mixed. The table immediately beside ours was made up of a woman with whom we chatted briefly and who turned out to be Egyptian but now living in the US and two local men who were her hosts for the evening and who spoke no english. We have been struggling to find an appropriate drink to have with dinner as the wine is for the most part imported and expensive and beer which while very good, does not appeal for accompanying a meal. Our table neighbour then introduced us to the drink that her table as well as many others was drinking, arak also known in Turkey as raki, in Greece as ouzo and in France as pastis, a semi-sweet licorice-flavouered liquor that turns milky white when mixed with water. Our neighbours sent over to us two glasses and as soon as we tasted it we knew we had come home! Under our neighbour's tutelage we learned the appropriate ratio of water to specify and the way we should ask for it to be prepared, mixed 2 parts water to one part arak in a small glass with a handful of fresh mint leaves and ice. I immediately ordered a quarter bottle, it is quite strong, and consulted with our waiter about the right bottle to order as there were a variety on offer and it seemed to be as important a decision as the right bottle of wine to order with dinner. Our waiter took charge of it when it came, mixed it properly and made sure our glasses were kept filled throughout the evening with fresh mint leaves and cold refreshing arak...

Windhoek like Swakopmund was modern, bustling and clean. We had skirted it when we arrived and drove from the airport to Africats, our first stop in Namibia, the road to which passed through the outskirts of Windhoek. At that time we had the strong impression of its German cultural heritage, many of the older brick building being designed in a recognizably germanic colonial style. On our arrival today, the centre of the city strengthened this impression with graceful old neighbourhoods filled with colonial homes and a thoroughly modern CBD with stainless steel and glass skyscrapers.

Our hotel for the night, the Olive Exclusive Guesthouse, so named not to confuse it with a rival property next door, the Olive Grove Guesthouse, was charming and need I say, not exactly exclusive as it accepted us, scruffy, dusty and the worse for wear after 2 weeks on the road. Very, very large and modern suite and a wonderful restaurant on the property, our only regret was that we were there for only one night. Dinner in the restaurant, a long hot shower, a good nights sleep and off to the airport next morning for our flight to Amman, via Jo'burg and Dubai...

In my last post we were heading from Swakopmund to Sossusvlei after a surprising and interesting three days exploring the coast. As usual, a 6 hour drive over gravel roads but before leaving I made sure that we had our route set in my portable gps linked by bluetooth to my iphone and the Tracks4africa app. Road construction and detours out of Swakop so our usual three way discussion ensued, V with her paper map, the gps with its inflexible and naggingly annoying one-track mind and me with the steering wheel and a very short attention span. Finally got ourselves sorted and on the right road south to the &Beyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge.

Not a particularly memorable drive, gravel road and desert so with a brief stop for lunch in Solataire (sic), we pushed on, arriving in mid-afternoon. The lodge, like all &Beyond properties, a stunner, on a rocky rise overlooking miles of flat desert to hills and very large dunes rising in the distance.  There are 12 individual self-contained stone units scattered over the ridge, each with its own deck looking out over the infinite desert views, somewhat reminiscent of Doro Nawas, but there the resemblance ended. Instead of desultory service and a rundown air, the rooms and the lodge were spotless and sparkling, service was pleasant and attentive, rooms luxurious and food some of the best we have had. Only drawback is the 1 hour drive from the lodge to the gates of the Sossusvlei Reserve and a further 1/2 drive from the gates to the beginning of the Sossuusvlei dunes...

In my last post I talked about our 9 hour drive to Damaraland. Because we got our roads so wrong before the Tracks4Africa gps app came to the rescue, we drove to the Doro Nawas camp from the opposite direction than the one taken by visitors which meant that there were no signs for the camp on the sides off the road, we keep looking for them but never saw any, which given the overlong drive worried us considerably. One of the benefits of our wrong-way drive however was that it took us through parts of the country not usually traveled by visitors and over a mountain pass that was stunning, hairy driving but fabulous views. Our guide when we finally arrived couldn't believe that we made managed the drive in our vehicle, clearly a drive that is not normally taken by tourists.

Damaraland the region, and Doro Nawas our lodge, in neither case had any really compelling connections for us. Doro Nawas is reached by 4 or 5 kilometres of gravel road branching off the main gravel highway to a very rocky and wind-swept hill rising out of the dusty desert and about 40 or 50 metres high. The main lodge was perched on top and the various individual stone chalets scattered around the hillside. The 5k drive to reach it was unquestionably the worst piece of track that we have driven  in our entire trip. It was bone-shaking, teeth-rattlingly bad and while the gravel roads and highways are pretty pretty grim in places, corrugations really shaking the car, you can usually find an optimum speed that is not so slow that the car is is slowly being shaken into piles of bolts nor so fast that the bumps are minimized but the car is unsafe, slewing about on the gravel, but a happy and tolerable balance between the two. In the case of the Doro Nawas road there was no optimum manageable speed and we feared for the safety of the car as we pounded along it. Not a good introduction to the lodge, which is a Wilderness Camp, a brand for a number of camps throughout Southern Africa which like the &Beyond Camps is a guarantee of a high level of service and accommodation. Someone was not watching the store in the case of Doro Nawas and given the cost of the camp it was surprising that no attention was paid to the first impression that a camp creates, the road to the site. It quickly became clear that the road to the camp was not the only problem faced by the camp, the service was forgetful and unpleasant and the food less than compelling....