Our Best Hobbies

You may have gathered by now that Hubby and I had a good time in Namibia. It was a trip filled fabulous firsts and wonderful second chances. From having what he described as “the best calamari ever” while I enjoyed a huge pot of amazing muscles (I’m now officially an addict), at the Raft in Walvis Bay to shopping trips that made our credit card companies proud, we had an all around enjoyable time.

When we last visited Windhoek in 2001, I saw a beautiful hand crafted wooden Nativity scene that I loved. Only I didn’t buy it at the time. Whether my restraint was due to the amount I already bought that day at the Craft Centre or Hubby’s pointing out that we already had (an ugly) crèche at home, I’m not sure. What I do know, is that I’ve regretted it ever since. But no longer! A return trip to the capital gave me an opportunity to track down elusive memory.

I would have been very happy with my fairly inexpensive purchase since it was the main item on my “’Gotta Have It” list but I think we all know that the shopping didn’t end there.

Although the popular “Tusk” t-shirt shop in Swakopmund has almost doubled the prices of its wares Hubby still managed to leave Namibia with two new shirts: a garishly orange golf shirt from the Desert Explorers, and a lovely Namibian rugby jersey to add to his already large collection of national sport shirts. He also purchased yet another pair of “vellies” or “Swakupmunders” the famous locally made kudu leather shoes. (Before anyone worries about animal rights, don’t forget that Hubby had Kudu for dinner on Thursday night, so using the leather for a new pair of shoes was his really him being circle of life friendly!)

So I had a wooden Nativity scene, and Hubby had two shirts and a new pair shoes. I obviously needed to get shopping before his purchases managed to eclipse mine. I weighed my options between a new carpet/wall hanging that Hubby liked and the chance to purchase another necklace and restore my status as “the necklace whore.” I decided that I could live with blank walls.

We were in the jewelry store for at least 45 minutes trying on different necklaces to see which we liked best. We narrowed our choices down to three – one with a lovely blue stone, one with a mahogany pendant, and this one. It was then that I was again reminded that my plumpness could occasionally come in handy because where a skinny woman would have looked silly wearing the slightly chunky necklace I eventually chose, it looks great on me!

But all these purchases meant only one thing: that our budget was shot and our vacation was over. It was time to return north to Kenya. As we drove back to toward the Windhoek airport we reminisced about our brief Namibian holiday… and started planning our next return.