Andrew and I booked a direct flight to Walvis Bay, Namibia, from Cape Town, South Africa. As U.S. citizens, we needed tourist visas; Namibia offers visas on arrival or online. If Andrew was planning this trip, he would have applied online with plenty of time to spare. Since I was planning the trip, we would be purchasing our visas on arrival.
Luckily the plane was small and the flight was only about half full, so the lines when we landed weren’t bad. The airport in Walvis Bay was tiny and didn’t have any gates. Our plane pulled up near the building, they rolled a staircase over to the door, and we disembarked and walked across the tarmac to enter the airport.
They had 2 immigration lines as soon as we entered. As far as we could tell, they divided us into those who needed to purchase visas and those who didn’t, rather than Namibians vs. foreigners. Andrew and I were the first people in the need-to-buy-a-visa line, and I’m glad we were. It took at least five minutes for the process and we watched almost everyone else on our plane get processed through the other line and disappear from sight. There were three other groups in line behind us, and I could feel their restlessness increasing the longer we stood at the counter with the silent immigration officer ever-so-slowly typing things into her computer. Finally she pulled out the credit-card reader and we paid $180 for our 2, 90-day tourist visas.
One the plus side for us, English is the national language in Namibia (although it is one of more than 10 languages spoken in the country and not the one most people speak at home). But that means the immigration process was all conducted in English.
We only had carry-on bags, so we walked past the baggage claim and waited in a short line to put our backpacks through a scanner for the customs check. Then we met the driver of the shuttle Andrew pre-booked in the arrivals hall and were at our hotel in Walvis Bay in fewer than 30 minutes. It was an easy process, but I suppose Andrew might have been right about wanting to buy the visas online in advance. But if you’re like me and you just don’t feel like it, try to be the first in line.
