Luxury is obviously comparative...

Knowing I was going to be living in very basic surroundings for four weeks on the project, I had booked what I had been told was a luxury room at a hotel in Windhoek the night before my journey to Swakopmund. On the phone I had clearly specified a large double bed, walk in shower and small bottles of nice smelly things in the bathroom. A good restaurant, if not attached to the hotel, then had to be available in the immediate vicinity. I had been assured I was booked into a luxury room by the local company I had contacted and so as we approached Windhoek and the surroundings became more familiar and the kilometres on the signs fell from triple figures into double figures and then finally to less than twenty, I leaned back in my seat and day dreamed about my long bath full of fragrant bubbles, the fluffy bathrobe which I would slip into and the glass of chilled champagne I would raise to my lips before flicking through the ‘at your fingertips’ DVD choices on the 42” plasma. I knew where I was staying also had a back packers hostel but I had been assured that the guesthouse (that’s when warning bells should have begun to ring) where I was to be staying was part of the same complex but housed the ‘luxury’ end of the accommodation. Dropped off with my bags outside the reinforced gate, I looked up and down the heavy duty metal fencing, saw the security lighting and triple dead locks on the gate and put my head in my hands. The girl at reception brought my attention to the Ten House Rules printed on a board three feet high on the wall. As I read them I realised that another elusion was being cruelly shattered and I followed her, disconsolately dragging my bags behind me past the bar, the tiny swimming pool with water similarly racked with algae like that at the farm and then through a gateway past a tent-site measuring no more then 15 feet by 15 feet packed with tents and to a little thatched outside area that had table and chairs, a sofa and a bookcase at which I perked up slightly. When we reached the door of my room I noticed it was called Giraffe. And by God, on opening that door my nostrils were assailed by an odour that smelt like giraffe and I wished they hadn’t gone quite so far in making it authentic. I looked around the room and took in the concrete floor, the chipped paintwork and door-less wardrobe and I thought that maybe it was luxury compared to the backpackers hostel. But try as I might to be positive really I just felt like lying down and giving up. I’d spent four weeks paying a lot of money and spent a lot of time doing things for other people. Right now I wanted somewhere with a mini bar, a pair of complimentary towelling slippers, a turndown service and a view that wasn’t a brick wall. But it was late afternoon, Kat, Stu and I had arranged to meet for dinner at 6.30pm and after the four hour journey I smelt so high even I could tell I needed a shower. So I accepted my lot, closed the door and with a sigh unzipped my suitcase and pulled out my dress which I had carefully and lovingly laid on top ready to pull out for my night of glitz and schutzpah in Windhoek.

A sign on the shower sternly told me that I should use it for five minutes maximum but right now I was in no mood for more rules so I decided to deal with the water police if and when they turned up. It was a good shower and I stayed in it rotating myself first one way then the other while streams of water bounced off the top of my head and hit the walls at a variety of angles. At last, pummelled into a more positive frame of mind I started to look forward to my first restaurant meal for nearly two weeks. As you have probably picked up, the food has not been a memorable part of the holiday and its lack of ‘lite’ options combined with my new Smartie addiction, made me wonder just how tight my dress was going to be. In my imagination I was going to end up looking more like Jabba the Hut in drag than Princess Lea. No fairy godmother magically appeared in answer to my fervent wish to lose half a stone right there and then and so I stepped out of the shower telling myself it really couldn’t be that bad before catching sight of myself in a three quarter length mirror. I glanced behind me just to make sure that Ugly Betty wasn’t sharing a room with me. I wrapped myself tightly in a towel, stood tall, held in my stomach and went off in search of a corset.

Thirty minutes later I’d decided I’d brushed up reasonably well all things considered. Straight hair, lots of lip gloss and a very forgiving dress all combined to cover up the bits no one else had to see and I hummed happily to myself as I poddled around the room doing a little tidy up before I went out. I shut my valuables in the safe (NOTHING must be left out of ANY value another sign announced), picked up my bag and went to grab my room keys from the bedside table only to find they were not where I had been sure I had put them. I checked the door and it was locked which also came as a surprise as I didn’t remember locking it either. I re-checked the room, my bag, the safe, my suitcase and then ever more strange and obscure places where I knew the keys really couldn’t be but somehow I felt compelled to check in my increasing panic. I checked the door again in the hope that I had been mistaken and that it hadn’t really been locked but nope, the deadlock was clearly slipped. I had the thought for just a second that maybe I had left the keys on the outside of the door and someone, thinking it worth a joke, had locked it from the outside. I sat on the bed and thought about my options. I could bang on the door and shout Help at the top of my voice but that would be highly embarrassing and to be honest I didn’t want to bring my predicament to everybody’s attention and to be open to (well deserved admittedly) ridicule at the bar later. I realised the only thing I could do to retain personal control over the situation was to use the only alternative exit. I would have to climb out of the window. Now luckily I was on the ground floor which meant the plan was in with a chance of working but complicated somewhat by the fact that the window only had one 18 inch panel that opened and which stood about 4 feet off the floor. I had a dress on, I had on sparkly sandals and my hair was straight and glossy. I was not attired nor prepared for kamikaze escape routes. But faced with an inelegant exit through a small glass panel and hostel and guesthouse-wide ridicule which I was sure I would get if I had to bang on the door until someone came, there wasn’t a choice. The window escape route had it. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to go before I was due to be picked up so no time to change into something more suitable for this kind of escapade. I was going to have to do it as I was. Grasping the bottom end of the now open pane, hiking my right foot up onto the narrow window ledge I levered myself up hunching myself to fit under the pelmet above me. I assessed the situation from this new perspective. Somehow I had to get one leg through the window pane and down the other side to the outside sill which I figured I would only just be able to touch with my toes. From there I would have to grasp one side of the open window and while holding on tightly somehow twist my body in such a way that would allow me to retrieve my remaining leg all without overbalancing and possible falling out and injuring myself. That would be even more embarrassing. Once on the outside of the window I could then jump the three feet or so down into the shrubbery which held god knows what beneath its leafy canopy. Time was ticking by and I knew that Lara Croft wouldn’t be dithering about like this so I grasped the rim of the window with resolve and hoiked myself up.

The receptionist looked at me like I was a complete t**t, which in actual fact I was. The look didn’t go away even as I explained my quandary and she handed over the spare keys to my room in silence. As I walked away with as much dignity as I could muster, picking twigs and leaves from my hair as I did so and just checking the hem of my dress in case it had got stuck in my knickers, I heard her tittering in the background and I knew any street cred I’d mustered was shot. But, no one else had to know and I now had a set of keys to my room ............... which exactly matched the set I found in the bottom of my bag when I looked through it properly. The moral of the story? Use the eyes god gave you and always take a room on the ground floor, just in case.

Comments

[Ruthie]

Hey Lorraine

What a brilliant picture you paint. Enjoy the 'luxury' of your last week.

Ruthie x