On day 12, we had to say goodbye to Etosha and head towards Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia.

It’s REALLY starting to get hot, and we had a TON to do when we got to Windhoek, so we unpacked pretty quickly upon arrival at Urban Camp (which is adorable AND has WiFi, if you’re interested), and then we basically called cabs and went into town.

Kris and I really wanted to change our Namibian dollars into Pula for our upcoming entry to Botswana, so we went to a Foreign Exchange, and everyone else headed to main street to peruse the shops.

The ForEx was an adventure because after about half an hour wait for the attendant to come back from a bathroom break, there were no Pula to be had… so we ended up going upstairs to ANOTHER ForEx, which ALSO had no Pula…. so we just changed our Namibian Dollars to Rand and shrugged because… #africa.

We headed back to the campsite, I logged on to do some work, and after about 2 hours of solid computer time, Kris and I did a workout, which we totally smashed. Then we showered, everyone else trickled back in, and we headed out for our dinner reservation at Joe’s Beerhouse, which was about a 1k walk.

EVERYONE had recommended Joe’s, so of course I was excited but also a touch skeptical because could it really be THAT GOOD?

Spoiler Alert: Yes.

We all sat down to look at the menu…but as SOON as someone found the “Bushman Special” about 80% of the table was immediately decided. The Bushman Special was a 5 meat kebab, which included Zebra, Crocodile, Oryx, Kudu and Springbok… all of which are local to Namibia and the majority of which none of us had ever eaten before. Oh, also, did I mention it cost about the equivalent of $15 USD? Yeaaaah.

So we all ordered drinks and food as soon as the waitress came over, and we waited. and waited. and waited….

Essentially I would recommend coming here long before you’re ravenous because we were FAMISHED when the food finally arrived.

However, it was SO worth the wait!

The portions were perfect (not quite American-sized, but generous and filling), the cook was excellent, and of course, everything was DELICIOUS!

Everyone that I’ve spoken to about the meal has asked me to rank the meats, so here’s my order of preference, from least favorite to favorite:

5. Crocodile (I found the cut to be full of bones and just not as moist or flavorful as I would have liked.)

4. Oryx (This may have been preparation error, but this was my driest cut and I just wasn’t feeling it.)

3. Springbok (I LOVED the Springbok but it wasn’t as quality of a cut as the others.)

2. Zebra (So. Yum. The cook was superb, the meat had a gamey flavor but it wasn’t too strong, and everything just came together really nicely.)

1. Kudu (This was the creme-de-la-creme of the entire meal. The meat was just melt in your mouth soft, it was a perfect medium rare, and the flavor was EVERYTHING I wanted.)

At first honestly I wasn’t really sure about eating things like Springbok and Zebra, but I’m SO glad I did! Even Silia, our team vegetarian, had a platter of meat to try it out. She’s a veggie because she doesn’t really like meat, not for moral reasons, so it was SUCH a random meal all around, but we had a great time!

After we finished our meals, a Johanna and I had dessert, aaaannnndddd by the time we were done with that, it was almost 11 so we headed back to Urban Camp so we could get to bed and ready for the next day!