Thursday, February 7, 2008

23: Windhoek

Windhoek is the biggest city and at the same time the capital of Namibia. Still, it feels very provincial even though around 230'000 people live there (which is more than 10% of whole Namibian population!). The city is very clean and well organized, which makes it very atypical for Africa (or even Namibia). All buildings in the city seem to be freshly renovated, but their architectural style strongly resembles the one of the German colonial era (which is probably not surprising as Namibia used to be a German colony).

In the center of Windhoek (on Post Street Mall) you can find a very impressive "Gibeon Meteorite Fountain", which is build from 33 meteorites ranging in weight from 195kg to 555kg. Gibeon is the name of the Namibian village, where both the biggest recorded meteorite and the most extensive meteorite shower on earth occurred (link).

Here are few photos of Windhoek's Gibeon Meteorite Fountain: