Final 24

Back at the Chameleon Guesthouse on Wednesday afternoon I find myself in a room called Kudu and I have my first double bed of the holiday. An image of Langkwai is still sitting gently at the back of my mind and I decide that I am not going to do any writing today but instead am going to lounge in the sunshine, read a novel and just chill. I’m tired after the journey and a slightly disturbed night so decide to stretch out on the bed for a minute or so but find myself drifting off into sleep. When I wake up its 5 o’clock and the sun has gone down but I feel perky and refreshed and stand under the shower keeping to the five minute rule this time, because I don’t feel quite so grumpy as last time. I dress in something vaguely clean trying not to disturb my packing too much because I can’t believe I’ve actually fitted everything into my suitcase and that it still closes. I wander to the bar and then into the TV lounge where the plasma is showing Mutiny on the Bounty. There are beaches, palm trees, crystal clear seas and coconut shells full of something I’m sure must be Mai Tais. If I’m not mistaken a handsome young waiter can just be glimpsed in the background distributing cold towels, with a smile, to the crew. I put Tahiti on my list. I’ve booked a cab to take me to Luigi and the Fish, a restaurant in town only about 5 minutes drive away. I’ve been there a couple of times before and know how to get there from the Chameleon so I am surprised when the taxi driver turns the opposite way out of the road. I give him the benefit of the doubt but we start to speed off to the other end of town and I know we are going in the wrong direction. He pulls up in a dark lay-by outside a closed restaurant called La Marmite. I tell him this is the wrong one and he says this is where I said I wanted to be brought which I know I didn’t, so I repeat again, ‘Luigi and the Fish’. He swings the car around and takes us at speed through a series of dark back streets and I am just deciding that at the next traffic lights I am going to get out of the car when we pass a sign saying Klein Windhoek and I start to recognise where we are. When I get out of the car outside Luigi’s I give him a hundred dollar note and he tells me he doesn’t have change for the fare which is fifty. He tells me to pay him both fares on the way back but I don’t intend to get back in his cab again so I ask him to wait and I go into the restaurant and get them to break the hundred. I tear up the card he has given me with his number on. The meal at Luigis is bad. I’ve chosen Schnitzel because it is down on the menu as a speciality but when it arrives (too quickly) it is rubbery and tasteless. The waitress asks if everything is alright and I tell her the schnitzel is rubbery and tasteless and she says oh dear. When she clears my plate which is almost intact and presents my bill she asks if I’d like a doggy bag so I know she is working on autopilot. They call me a cab and when I get outside I find the same guy waiting for me.

Back at the hostel bar I sit drinking a Windhoek Lager and watching Happy Feet on the overhead TV. At ten o’clock this is turned off mid film and so I make my way to bed. It is my last ever night in Windhoek.