I have taken the decision to depart two weeks early from the EHRA project. A decision understood and agreed by all my new friends and colleagues. This is not the end of my new altruistic streak – far from it- but it just feels right to see more of Namibia before I leave.

You can never get enough of elephants, but the project was going to take me back to wall building in a predicted 40 degree temperature and with quite a lot of character changes in the group. In this type of group situation I give it my all, attempting to engage, get to know and learn from everyone that I meet. To do this all over again seemed….. daunting. Would it be like going back to a beloved place in the mountains to find out someone has built a concrete visitor’s centre? Well…you know what I mean.

I now wanted to strike out on my own, have some alone time and hopefully meet more Namibian people, for a different view. I certainly wasn’t taking the easy option.

After saying sad farewells I was back in Swakopmund for 3 days, weekend days, with the best tour operator offering me a 155,000 Nb (6733 gbp) trip for 10 days with seemingly no B,C,D plan. ” Everything is booked up”. ” You will need a private car and driver”. ” Single people pay 80% up-charge”…

Now no one wants to be in Swakopmund for more than two days. Even though reputable books like The Rough Guide, describe it as Namibia’s seaside resort, I’m here to tell you it is not. I think I would prefer to be in Margate. In the rain! At least there you would not expect Clint Eastwood to appear at the end of the street drawing his revolver.

By the fourth morning and despite agents still scurring around to find alternatives I ‘bit the bullet’ and ‘gotta outta town”. Taking a taxi Swakopmund to Windhoek. Had I stayed any longer I would have tipped in to madness.

Although, I would be missing the big dunes in the south of the country I hoped, from Windhoek, to join a tour group going north to Etosha National Park. Then heading back south to Windhoek stop at a nice lodge spending a couple of days on a sunlounger.

Windhoek, the capital, is a nice looking small city. A novelty to see cars and people again, it is green, encircled by mountains and the abundant flashes of purple jacaranda and pink bougainvillea, with a twinge, reminded me of home

It was in a Windhoek hotel, where I stayed for two nights, that I was introduced to Mr Israel.

Me, hello Mr Israel, can I ask you your first name? Him, my first name is Israel. Me ( now not believing), so your full name is Israel Israel? Him , yes. Said with the cheekiest smile that made me instantly like him. Now of course this would not be his real name. He is from the Ovambo tribe and it would be some unfathomable name that I would not be able to say ( more on this later).

It wasn’t lost on me, nor you the reader, that the western name he had chosen makes us miss a heartbeat. Particularly at the moment. I dont know how aware he will be.

Mr Israel would take me on a 7 days self made tour. I was to pay 9000 Nb (390 gbp) for him to drive the 1000 km, in his tour agent’s car, all fuel ( 1 gbp per litre) and his accommodation included. Of course, I knew that I would be paying more than this – and rightly. Minimum wage in Namibia is 1564 Nb per month (68gbp). This lovely man is 43, has a wife, 4 kids and sends money back to his family in a village in the north near the Angolan border.

I would then plan and book my lodges, park drives and park fees for the route. Last week’s thoughts of either spending ( I wouldn’t) 6733 gbp, return home, or fly on to Botswana, have now faded in to distant memory.

I should add a footnote here. For the complete third week of my Namibia trip I was seriously unwell. Without any graphic detail, I only need to say that I ate something in Swakopmund that didn’t agree with me. It is not easy to show your personal strength and savvy when you are trying to fight E-Coli, and your reality is you feel beaten and sapped of all energy.

I’m always pretty dismissive of the first aid kit taking up precious space in your luggage, but boy, this trip, no packet bottle or jar has been left untouched by me or someone else!