Pfffft.
After being offline for 3 weeks our first goal after leaving the Kgalagadi NP was to find an internet connection. Mariental seemed the closest location possible so we started asking around immediately and there seemed to be two options.
1) The telecom shop
2) A newly opened independent internet café that everybody had heard about, but nobody really knew where it exactly was
Always in for a challenge, we decided to look for the independent shop first. And after asking around in town (at our accommodation, at the filling station, at the spar supermarket, at Mariental’s top range hotel and even the butchery) we finally found the right courtyard, only to stand in front of the closed doors!
Next we decided to try out the Telecom shop. This was a whole lot easier to find and the lady at the counter happily sold us a 50N$ voucher for their Wi-Fi. After 30 minutes of trying we still couldn’t connect to the internet and our list of possible solutions ran out.
When we asked to use the other available pc that was connected to the landline we realized that the Telecom network itself had a problem and the Telecom employees started calling in their IT support. It then turned out that the whole network was down and they were working on a solution.
Hmmm. As our two available options in Mariental were not working we decided to drive to the next town en-route. This was Maltahöhe, approximately 120 km away.
We arrived in Maltahöhe around 2 pm and first tried the local Telecom shop again. But due to renovations they did not have their internet set up at the moment. Next stop was the local hotel that had a big sign promising free Wi-Fi but also here there was no connection available. New owners had taken over and were still waiting for Telecom to setup their connection….
But the hotel manager knew of one other place that offered internet. The Woestijnkombuis, a filling station café on the main road, a place we would never have looked at twice for a Wi-Fi. We got back in the car and drove up to the Woestijnkombuis and were finally able to download our emails! Yippie!
From Maltahöhe we continued towards Sesriem as our overnight destination was the Betesda Lodge. A Christian retreat that advertises with their free Wi-Fi. But with our internet luck we happened to arrive in the middle of a powerful thunderstorm. At the moment there is no power and therefore…… no internet! So we are currently sitting in the lobby, writing this text as a preparation for the next connection opportunity =D
This is Africa!
Travelling Patsy 
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