The air hits you first. It's dry, cool, and smells faintly of dust and eucalyptus. I'm standing outside Hosea Kutako International Airport, watching the sky do that thing it does here, where the blue is so clear it feels like a bell. The transfer van hums behind me, and I'm about to begin the forty-five kilometre drive into Windhoek. It's the first of August, winter here, and the city is having its mildest days, cool nights and bone-dry days that make everything feel possible.
The road into town is straight and empty, and the landscape is all low scrub and pale earth, with the Auas Mountains shimmering on the horizon. The driver is quiet, and I'm quiet too, trying to take in the scale of it, the way the land just goes on. I've read about this moment a hundred times, but being here, it's different. The light is lower, the dust is finer, and the silence has weight. We pass a sign for the Daan Viljoen Game Park, about twenty-five kilometres west, and I make a mental note to come back when I have a car and a full day.
My first task is the visa. I'd applied online before flying, through the MHAISS portal, which was straightforward enough, but I'm told some nationalities can also pay on arrival at the airport, about sixteen hundred Namibian dollars, which is around ninety US dollars, for up to ninety days. My passport is stamped without fuss, and I'm out through the doors with a small piece of paper that feels like the beginning of something. I'm not here as a tourist, though. I'm here for two years. So the visa is just the first stamp.
The transfer drops me at a guesthouse in Klein Windhoek, a leafy suburb of embassies and boutique guesthouses, with narrow village-like streets and a restaurant cluster that feels more like a small European town than an African capital. I've booked a room at the Magnolia House and Gardens, which is all whitewashed walls and bougainvillea, and the owner, a woman named Elsa, hands me a key attached to a wooden fish. The room costs about a thousand Namibian dollars a night, around seventy-five US, which is mid-range for the city. I drop my bags, open the window, and let the evening air in. It's quiet, and I can hear birds settling in the garden.
The next morning, I'm up early. The city is waking up, and I walk down Independence Avenue, the main artery of the capital, past the Christuskirche, that sandstone Lutheran church from 1907, with its stained glass gifted by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The gardens around the Tintenpalast, the parliament building, are laid out and green, even in winter, and I stop to watch a man in a bright blue overalls sweeping the path with a broom made of twigs. The city is walkable, and the centre is safe by day, though I've been told that night movement is best done by taxi, and the inequality is sharp, with gated suburbs like Ludwigsdorf and Kleine Kuppe on the hills, and Katutura in the valley.
I need a SIM card, so I find a small shop selling MTC prepaid SIMs, the dominant network, and the process is simple enough, just a passport and a few minutes. The woman behind the counter, who tells me her name is Nangula, also sells airtime and data bundles, and she recommends a daily bundle that costs about twenty Namibian dollars, a little over a dollar. I thank her and step back into the sun, feeling the phone buzz with a connection to the world again, though I'm not sure I need it yet.
The real paperwork starts at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security. I need a work or residence permit, and the queue is long, but the woman at the desk is patient and explains the process slowly, as if she's used to people who are overwhelmed. She tells me that once I have the permit, I need a tax number from NamRA, and then I can open a bank account. Without the permit, the banks won't even look at me, she says. It's a lesson in patience, and the queue gives me time to think about the city outside, its German colonial layer in the architecture and the cafés, the annual Oktoberfest, the way history is written into the pavement.
I take a lunch break at Joe's Beerhouse, a Windhoek institution that's been around for decades, all wooden beams and long tables. I order the game plate, which comes with kudu and oryx, and a Windhoek Lager, brewed under the German purity law, and it's cold and sharp, and the cost is about fifty Namibian dollars for the beer, around two and a half US. The whole meal is maybe two hundred and fifty dollars, and I think about how the city's signature tastes are this beer and the kapana street-grilled meat that I'm planning to try in Katutura. But for now, this is enough, the warmth of the room and the sound of people talking in a mix of English and Afrikaans and Oshiwambo.
After lunch, I walk to the Bank Windhoek branch on Independence Avenue, the Capricorn branch, to open an account. I have my permit, my passport, a proof of address from the guesthouse, and an initial deposit of a hundred Namibian dollars, about five and a half dollars, which is the minimum for a basic account. The process takes an hour, and the manager, a Mr. van der Merwe, is efficient and friendly. He tells me that the big four banks are FNB, Bank Windhoek, Standard Bank, and Nedbank, and that basic accounts are designed for people like me, starting out. He also mentions that rents in the city are rising sharply, and that housing is the biggest cost pressure for residents. A modest one-bedroom flat in a place like Khomasdal will set you back between forty-five hundred and seventy-five hundred Namibian dollars a month, around three hundred and thirty US. I file that information away.
In the late afternoon, I take a taxi to Katutura. The driver, a young man named Petrus, tells me about the history as we go, how the township was created by forced removals in the 1960s, how the name means 'the place where we do not want to live', and how it's now the vibrant heart of the city. We pull up at the Oshetu Community Open Market, also known as the Old Single Quarters, and the smell of grilled meat hits me immediately. Kapana, the seller calls out, and I join the queue at one of the stalls. The woman in front of me orders a small portion, wrapped in paper, and it costs about twenty Namibian dollars, a little over a dollar. I do the same, and the vendor hands me a paper cone of spiced beef strips, hot and smoky, with a side of salsa and a piece of vetkoek. It's the best thing I've eaten in days.
I eat standing with the other customers, listening to the chatter around me, the sound of music from a stall selling phone cases, the laughter of children. The sky is turning orange-pink, and the market is coming alive with the evening crowd. I buy a coffee from Shema Coffee in the city on my way back, about forty Namibian dollars, around two dollars, and I walk through the Parliament Gardens as the light fades. The Christuskirche is silhouetted against the dusk, and I think about all the layers of this place, the German garrison town, the apartheid-era removals, the independence in 1990, the new president, a woman, in 2025. It's a lot to hold.
My last task of the day is a rental car. I've arranged to pick one up from a place near the guesthouse, a small operation that rents Suzuki Swifts and Corollas, and the rate is about five hundred Namibian dollars a day, around twenty-seven US, with insurance. The agent, a man named Frans, hands me the keys and a map, and he gives me a quick lesson in Namibian driving etiquette. 'The distances are long,' he says, 'and the gravel roads are unforgiving. Always carry water, always check your spare tire, and never drive at night on gravel.' I nod, feeling the weight of the responsibility. The car is a small white hatchback, and I plan to drive it to Sossusvlei and Etosha in the coming weeks, but for now, it's just for the city.
Back at the guesthouse, I sit on the veranda with a cup of rooibos tea, watching the stars come out. The night air is cool, about eleven degrees, and I can hear the distant sound of a dog barking. I think about the MTC Kasi Vibe festival that's happening at Brakwater Recreational Park, fifteen kilometres north, with its music stages and market stalls, and the Inotila Reggae Fest at the Show Grounds tonight, but I'm too tired to go. I make a note to check the Bank Windhoek Red Run road race tomorrow morning, which will take over the city's streets, and the Tour de Windhoek cycling race later in the month. There's a rhythm to this city, and I'm beginning to catch it.
I turn on my phone and look at the map of Namibia, the long spine of the country, the Skeleton Coast to the west, the great Etosha pan to the north, Damaraland with its ancient rock art. The distances are vast, and the roads are few. But I have two years, and I have a car, and I have a permit that says I belong here, at least for a while. I close my eyes and listen to the quiet hum of the city, and I think about how a country is not a place you visit, but a place you learn to live in, one day, one paperwork, one meal at a time. Moro, I whisper to the night, and the word feels right, a greeting, a beginning.
Tomorrow, I'll drive into the city and open a bank account, and the day after, I'll start planning the first trip along the west coast. But tonight, I'm here, in Windhoek, and the winter stars are bright, and the air is dry and cool, and the year stretches out ahead of me like a gravel road into the distance. It's going to take a while to feel like home, but I've started. That's the first step, and it's enough.