Being the geek that I am and suffering from an extreme case of internet addiction I was really concerned how I was going to be able to get my fix on the road. When my data plan ran out on my phone on leaving South Africa I was in withdrawal for days, missing my news feeds, Facebook updates and email. Stuart tried to get me a fix of mobile net in Lüderitz with a Namibian SIM card, but we never got the data working, although it was very useful for calling camp sites and such.
Getting online in towns has been surprisingly easy, though. The guide book always lists internet cafes, but it's easy to tell if a town is the right size and consistency to be online. Prices vary, and usually there is no wifi, but at least so far we've been able to connect our own Macs to the ethernet cable. It makes a big difference when we can use our own machines to upload and do mail (specially with our anti-Windows bias).
The first time we got online after leaving was in Cape Town, first at the Formula One hotel, and then in the lovely Mugg and Bean coffee shop at the Waterfront, where the cool staff provided me with a power outlet and endless cups of tea and didn't complain when I sat there for four hours. A lot more pleasant than the cramped quarters of the Formula One. Moving on up the coast Stuart managed to locate an internet outlet (can't call it 'cafe' by any stretch of the imagination) hidden away by a closed down restaurant, on the main road, but pretty invisible. We had a frantic one hour session, eager to get on to the camp site, and this has formed our online experiences so far. Always we swoop into a place, bearing three Mac laptops, plug in at least one ethernet cable (we can share one connection with an ad-hoc wifi network) and then it's all upload tracks, blog entries and photos, download updates, emails and podcasts, do backups and get up to date.
Namibia has few big towns, so we knew we would be limited with access, so we were pleased when the owners of the Sandrose Hotel let us log into their own personal wifi. I'm afraid we bashed their bandwidth a bit, It had been a week and there were a lot of photos to put on Flickr and exciting stories to tell on the blog.
The next stop with internet was Swakopmund, where we swooped on to the little wifi cafe in the Adlerpassage, a tiny place with tables out in the mall, who kindly gave us power if we didn't trip up the other customers and let us sit with one can of coke for hours. We returned there three times.
Rundu was a whole different experience. We had just been robbed, and were still a bit jittery, so Rundu felt threatening and crazy. It's a proper border town, which adds to the lawless feel, and it was the first time I was glad someone was watching the car in the car park. Sparks Enterprises was busy with local ladies, but were very glad to give us some ethernet cables (only one of which worked) and power. The morning was very rushed, as Stuart had lots of problems getting online, and we were trying to get out of there quick to go to our next camp site. We were over Rundu.
There is nothing much in the way of towns on the South Road from the Namibia/Botswana border, so Maun was our next online stop. Here every shop and his dog run an internet cafe, or has a few computers shoved in the corner. There was an embarrassment of riches, so we checked all the prices and setups, but didn't think to ask if there were bandwidth limits. So when we had settled down at the counter, ordered a coffee and carrot cake, we discovered that two hours of internet only gave us 40MB of bandwidth. We laugh at 40MB. We eat 40MB for breakfast and then have elevenses. We had a word with the manager, who kindly increased us to 100MB, which surprisingly was enough. So as you can see the map and calendar have been updated, there are blog entries and photos, all for your delectation.
Oh, and the SIM card from Orange set my up with data access (on Edge) automatically. Like magic. So I can get Facebook on my phone.
Enjoy it while it lasts! I will.
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