{"id":1920,"date":"2011-10-22T09:58:25","date_gmt":"2011-10-22T09:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws:81\/wordpress\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2011-10-22T10:00:45","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T10:00:45","slug":"namibia-apple-moose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/?p=1920","title":{"rendered":"Namibia – Apple Moose"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were already breaking rule number one of driving in Africa: don\u2019t drive at night.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d taken a wrong turning and had had a flat tyre, so were behind schedule. But we needed to get to Solitaire. According to our petrol station map, it was the only place for a few hundred miles with fuel and a place to stay.<\/p>\n

At last we started to see lights in the distance \u2013 that must be Solitaire. Distances in the desert are deceptive though, and what we thought would be a few minutes drive ended up being still half an hour away. As we got closer, our hearts sank as this was clearly not a big place and we desperately hoped there really would be fuel and a place to stay.<\/p>\n

Solitaire was a \u2018one pump, one building\u2019 dusty town in the middle of the desert. On the veranda, we were greeted by Moose, a gruff, pot-bellied, ginger-bearded man wearing a kilt and a beret with a pom pom. He showed us to a round hut at the back with a corrugated tin roof. Inside were two metal framed beds, mismatched in height. At least we had a place to stay tonight. He kindly rustled us up a stew and rice meal with some apple pie for dessert.<\/p>\n

It rained at night. We were in the middle of the desert and it was raining. And we heard every drop on that tin roof.<\/p>\n

The next morning Moose asks if we want to take a shower as he needs to \u2018fire up the donkey\u2019. Puzzled by this impending act of animal cruelty, we decline, saying we need to hit the road. Not before a hearty breakfast though, as well as filling up with fuel and a photo of the cactus plants growing in an old bath tub.<\/p>\n

That was twelve years ago\u2026. and many people have since spoken to us or written about their equally surreal experiences of arriving in this tiny place in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n

On our current trip, we have a 4×4 rather than the Ford Fiesta of our earlier one, and we also have a large reserve tank of fuel. Solitaire is on our route though from Walvis Bay to the dunes at Sossusvlei, and it would be a shame not to stop by.<\/p>\n

Solitaire is unrecognisable from 12 years ago. Once a tiny dot on the map, it now has a\u00a0 lodge, a campsite, a general store, and a proper fuel station. Importantly though, it also has Moose\u2019s Desert Bakery, which has become a popular pit-stop for tour busses and independent travellers alike, all making a pilgrimage to try Moose\u2019s now famous apple strudel, about which many paragraphs have been written in articles and guide books. The apple strudel is still delicious, though I can sense the baker\u2019s frustration as people by-pass the other delights that look equally fabulous and show off his broader baking skills.<\/p>\n

From the corner of his eye, Ven glimpses Moose. A bit worried that his fame may mean that he doesn\u2019t talk to tourists any more, I hesitantly introduce myself and explain that we had been here many years ago. Thankfully Moose has a big smile for us and is more than happy to chat. The property hadn\u2019t been making money so his family sold the farm to the lodge developers. They opened a bakery as part of the deal, selling Moose\u2019s apple strudel to the masses. Moose is frustrated though that giving the lodge the recipe that he slowly made legendary amongst travellers hasn\u2019t been more lucrative for him personally. He admits he\u2019s not a businessman, and had no way of knowing how Solitaire would develop and how his strudel\u2019s fame would spread! He\u2019s effectively just an employee there now, though there\u2019s clearly a trickle of people who make a pilgrimage to see him and not just to eat apple pie.<\/p>\n

We were sad that Solitaire has lost that \u2018town in the middle of nowhere\u2019 feel, but really happy to chat to Moose. He clearly enjoys cooking and we had a lovely conversation about Indian spices. I promised to email him my tandoori chicken recipe, though I suspect that I won\u2019t get the top secret strudel recipe in return.<\/p>\n

We now also know that if he offers to \u2018fire up the donkey\u2019, we should accept, as we\u2019ll get hot water for our shower, heated up by putting a few logs in the burner.<\/p>\n

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We were already breaking rule number one of driving in Africa: don\u2019t drive at night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-namibia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1922,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/1922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movinghouse.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}