The Hidden Gems of Africa (part 10)

The architecture gems

If in addition to being a culture-vulture, you are an architecture fan, Southern Africa has some architecture gems up its sleeve thanks to its colonial past. While Botswana is mostly a luxury lodge paradise, you can find Namibia’s most interesting architectural wonders in its capital - Windhoek. With a population of almost 500,000 people, it is the largest city in the country. As soon as you set foot there, you will be confronted with a very important question - how to pronounce its name, which means "windy corner" in Afrikaans, and it seems that everyone has their own answer! Once we had made our choice adopting the pronunciation we had heard the most - /wɪndoʊk/, without the /h/, it was time to decide what to see in the city whose name we were now able to pronounce.

While there are numerous buildings from the colonial time that you can visit, from the 19th-century fort Alta Feste to Tintenpalast (the Namibian parliament building which used to be the headquarters of German South West Africa) and its gardens, Windhoek’s most iconic and best-recognised edifice is the cute Christuskirche, which looks like a strange, seemingly edible gingerbread. This German Lutheran church, which stands prominently on a traffic island in the city centre, was constructed from local sandstone in 1907 in conflicting neo-Gothic and Art nouveau styles. You will not be able to skip or deny its incredible cuteness!

You can find architecture gems in other parts of Namibia as well. Similar to its twin - the town of Lüderitz, sandwiched between the Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast, Swakopmund is another mini-Deutschland stuck in time.

German architecture with half-timbered houses lined up next to Art nouveau houses, just as they could be found in any small German town; historic buildings such as the old prison and the railway station; pleasant seaside promenades; and a jetty which is the perfect spot from where to watch the amazing sunsets over the South Atlantic Ocean.

Also, if you like "off the beaten track" experiences, only 10 kilometres away from Lüderitz is located a strange place, for which we unfortunately did not have time on this trip. Once a thriving diamond mining town, Kolmanskop is now a ghost town slowly being reclaimed by the desert. 

The influence of the German colonial times can still be seen in Namibia’s towns and cities today. Many street names are German in origin, even though after 1990 some streets were renamed to honor black Namibian people. In some of the shops one can communicate in German, even though the official language in the country is English. And last, but not least, you will come across many German restaurants with German beer, bread and sausages. 

You might not taste many new flavours in Southern Africa, especially if you are a vegetarian, but there are still a few culinary gems that will blow your mind!

The culinary gems

You will not be able to avoid the German heritage on your plate and in your glass. 

Our lovely host at House on Olof Palme in Windhoek made a dinner reservation at Joe's Beerhouse for us, as it seems that you can not say you have come to Namibia if you haven't been to this place. If you have been to Germany, there will not be any major excitement besides the weird fact that you will be eating perfectly legit German wursts and potato salad and drinking amazing beer in a lovely beer garden in…Africa, almost 12,000 km away from Germany! It was a great opportunity to try the Namibian beers which were pretty good! 

The most popular beer is the light Windhoek Lager, but there are also the Tafel Lager, the stronger and more bitter Windhoek Export, and the slightly rough Windhoek Special. 

Another restaurant we tried in Windhoek was the Stellenbosch Wine Bar and Bistro, which had a lovely garden with a fountain in the middle, so it was incredibly pleasant to hang out there in the evening! We were quite pleasantly surprised by the bottle of wine we ordered but learnt that it came from South Africa, like most wines you will find in Namibia and Botswana! 

Another German or rather Austrian touch that we came across was the apple strudel we had in the McGregor’s Bakery in Solitaire, on the road between Sosussvlei and Swakopmund. It looked more like an apple pie than the apple strudel we were used to in Europe, but was definitely delicious!

If you are not a big fan of German food, most major towns offer some amazing cuisine with influences from all around the world. We tried some tasty dishes, cocktails and (always South African) wines in Johannesburg, Kasane, Nairobi and Victoria Falls. 

However, our most memorable experience was The Tug restaurant, just next to the jetty in Swakopmund. We went there for early drinks and fish nibbles one late afternoon and enjoyed the most perfect sunset view over the ocean, and then returned for dinner the following evening. 

The chef had turned the local fish catch into culinary perfection, with some amazing dishes such as the Tempura-style hake fish cheeks, the Moroccan-style monk fillet and the Cajun-style kabeljou fillet! You could travel around the world while eating your Namibian fish next to the Atlantic Ocean!

Namibia does not have many international food chains, including no McDonalds (same for Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and no Starbucks, which is a blessing for local food and coffee! You have not visited Swakopmund if you have not been to Slowtown Coffee Roasters. It offers without any doubt not only the best coffee in town, but in the whole of Namibia and even Southern Africa! We also bought some coffee beans and some grounded coffee to take home, and enjoyed its marvellous taste for many weeks after the end of our trip, which was a great consolation!

Another ingredient that we brought back home from Namibia was…some local salt! Namibia is the biggest salt producer in sub - Saharan Africa with more than 1 million tons of salt per annum, which is also the country’s biggest export product in terms of volume. The salt pans are situated around Swakopmund and Walvis Bay along the Atlantic coast. On our Sandwich Harbour 4×4 trip, we saw some huge piles of snow-white salt and some bright pink salt pans!

Any German or international culinary influence will completely disappear once you have driven away from Namibia’s towns and penetrated deep into the desert and the remotest parts of the country. This is where you will witness the most unique food experience in Africa - eating in the evening the lovely animals you have seen on your safari drive during the day… 

Both Namibia and Botswana are definitely perfect for any carnivores, and in particular any game meat lovers, but not so much for vegetarians and vegans of all kinds! In addition to not eating much meat and only limited types of meat, I struggled with the concept of eating cute antelopes - this was an absolute no-go for me! Any person from Namibia or Botswana would tell you that there are tons of these animals and it is normal for local people of means to eat them, in the same way it is normal for us to eat porc, veal, beef, deer, boar or chicken, or for Australians to eat kangaroos and crocs... 

Since one thing leads to another, the love for meat has given birth to the love for braai - one of the most famous institutions and traditions in Southern Africa, transcending racial, social and cultural divisions! The word "braaivleis" is Afrikaans for "roasted meat", or the equivalent of the barbecue in Europe and the US and of the barbie in Australia! Contrary to barbecue, braai exclusively uses charcoal or wood (absolutely no gas!), which explains the smoky flavours. Also, while barbecue is cooked outside but can be eaten inside, a braai is always eaten outside, even if it is 0ºC!

Finally, braai is more than just a cooking technique. The  "B & B" or "Bring & Braai" is a casual and laid-back social event, which involves family and friends converging on a picnic spot or in someone’s garden with their own meat and side dishes in hand, and participating, sometimes for several hours, in what might look like a whole ritual - building and tending the fire, cooking the food and eating and drinking together while at the same time chatting, catching up and basically having a good time! 

Almost all campsites and lodges in Namibia had a braai spot and our 4WD had every tool we needed for braaing! 

Somehow, we never managed to do our own braai, but participated, together with the other guests, in a fancy one at the Lappa dinner of Hobatere Lodge. It was really lovely with the fire burning in the middle of the tables and the African sky with its endless stars above us! The bottle of delicious South African wine we drank with our new friends from Germany and Spain did not hurt either!

Eating outdoors were the best moments during our trip, except a couple of nights in the Caprivi Strip where there were way too many mosquitos and other insects flying around! The weather was simply perfect for an outdoor meal experience! We tried to cook some eggs once but it appeared way too slow on our gas cooker, and we decided to go with simpler dishes including canned food, rice and pasta.

During the day, we prepared ourselves sandwiches, and in the evenings when we were not camping, we were eating in the lodges. Some very remote lodges offered meals close to a Michelin-star experience, in particular Lapa Lange Game Lodge, Ndhovu Safari Lodge and Chobe Safari Lodge! The last one was where we came across two dishes which we had already had in Swakopmund and in the Okavango Delta, but this time they were prepared at another level - the hake fish filet and the famous Malva pudding with butterscotch sauce! Even people without a sweet tooth will admit that this dessert of South African origin which contains apricot jam and has a spongy caramelised texture is a killer! We had it each evening while staying at Chobe and it was so good that I was not even counting the calories anymore!

We found the restaurants in Botswana a little bit more vegetarian and pescatarian friendly than those in Namibia. However, our disappointment in both countries was that we did not find a single local restaurant or a hole in the wall with local food for locals. The culinary scenery involved necessarily nice or fancy places, which somehow lacked the authenticity we were looking for… 

The situation was the same in Zimbabwe and neighbouring Zambia, even though we still managed to find and try a couple of typical local dishes such as chibwabwa - a side dish made of pumpkin leaves and peanuts, and sadza - white maize made into either porridge or something resembling mashed potato, which is eaten with your fingers with tomato-based relishes, meat or gravy. 

So we were beyond happy when next to our fancy hotel in Nairobi in Kenya, we came across a local food court and, later on during our tour of the city, found another local restaurant where the customers were the employees from the surrounding buildings having their lunch break! 

We discovered githeri - a mix of maize and legumes (primarily beans) boiled together; irio - a mix of mashed potatoes, corn, and peas, which is so green that looks somehow Martian but is delicious; nyama choma - a specialty of barbecued goat meat or cow meat; and the nation’s obsession - the spiced masala chai with cardamom and cinnamon.

The discovery of this typical Indian drink was surprising at first but then we remembered where we were and the Indian influence made perfect sense. The last country of our safari trip had been under British colonial rule as part of British East Africa from 1895 until 1963…

In case you want to get the feeling of this country and have not watched it yet, I highly recommend the movie "Out of Africa", telling the story of a Danish baroness, establishing a coffee plantation in Kenya and falling in love! It is based on a true story and the landscapes are stunning!  

Kenya was also the place where we learnt that "hakuna matata", which roughly translates to "there are no troubles", is a real word in the Swahili language - one of the two official languages of the country, together with English. This will definitely be our slogan for our next trip to Africa!

It was time to head back to Europe, but somehow it felt less like the end of a trip and more like the beginning of a new journey to a whole new world to which Africa had opened the gate for us! See you soon for more discoveries, Mama Africa! And dear leopard, we are coming for you! 

Hakuna Matata !!!

Published in Elle Bulgaria in May 2025.

 A note about our trip organisation

We are used to organising our own trips, even if we sometimes rely on tour operators for specific destinations or by lack of time. Africa being our last continent to discover, and having read and heard many different points of view about it, we decided to work with a tour operator to organise this trip.

The French company was very professional, listened and understood our requests, and offered great recommendations. Unfortunately, they subcontracted to a local agent who was more than disappointing. The trip started with us waiting at the airport for the driver that the local agency obviously forgot to book for us… This never happened to us anywhere else in the world! And it was only the beginning…

In the same way that we don’t make advertisements on our website - our trips are totally self-financed, we don’t want to publicly speak ill about bad experiences, but you are more than welcome to ask us (on the About page) if you want to know more about it.

Also, we are now convinced that travelling in the countries mentioned in this article is safe and easy, as long as one takes basic precautions. Therefore, whenever we go back there, we will take care of the whole organisation ourselves.