Whenever we are in Switzerland, the new, beautiful and expensive cars catch our eyes. Most in the price segment of + CHF 100,000.–. And many of them in dark colors; most of them in elegant black as if they were driving for a funeral home…
The first thing you notice in Namibia are the many 4x4s on the road. Most of them have the Toyota logo (!); and the vast majority are white. (No one here would think of buying a black car that would heat up even more under the Namibian sun!). If people in Switzerland (rightly) make fun of the many 4×4 SUVs and ask themselves what they are used for, then the situation in Namibia is completely different.
Namibia’s road system covers almost 49,000 km; 40 % of which is asphalted. The rest are gravel, salt or sand tracks. (The Swiss Road network covers 84,868 kilometers and of these, 84,000 km are probably asphalted!) So, it makes little sense to drive an 8-cylinder 4×4 with 350 hp and equipped with all the gadgets in Switzerland.
The situation in Namibia is completely different. If you leave the few asphalt roads, it is a great advantage if you can switch to four-wheel drive. Like we did, for example, over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day when we drove to the Erongo Mountains. We camped there for two nights under a star-studded sky and sat around the campfire. Under a tree stood a white Toyota, 6-cylinder diesel, with 131 hp and 450,000 km on the clock, which has seen more of the world than all the expensive cars that drive in Switzerland…
PS: If you want to know more about Namibia’s road system, read here.