Negotiating A Bar Sale In Namibia: A Night Out In Swakopmund 🇳🇦
Intro
The plan for Namibia was simple: I was going to spend 5 days exploring the country, riding ATVs through sand dunes, seeing some of the big five up north, and enjoying what this surreal country has to offer. However, that’s not quite how it turned out.
As someone who is very go-with-the-flow, the people I met at Ankerplatz while eating Springbok pizza invited me out for a Saturday night to experience what Swakopmund had to offer. As a 22-year-old guy, why not?
The Experience
Heading out from Hotel Pension, my friend Rasmus was waiting to take me over to the first stop for the day: the beer garden. Beer Garden is one of the best bars in town and, honestly, one of the more fun places I’ve been. If you are looking to grab a pint, watch some sports, and play some pool, this is the spot.
So, while we did all of those things, something else happened. I became a middleman in a negotiation 😅. I noticed that the owner of the bar and his friend were getting into a disagreement surrounding the sale of the beer garden. The owner (who was drunk) came over to me and asked for his input into the deal they were trying to strike.
The buyer wanted to pay 2 million local currency
The owner wouldn’t go below 5 million
The primary motivation is the reason that “Beer Garden” has built a reputation in town
So, for the next 45 minutes, I attempted to negotiate a deal between the buyer and seller. Of course, to no avail.
Honestly, to me, this is what Africa is all about. Where else can a random tourist walk into a local bar and start middlemanning a sale of the bar 😂. It was absolutely hilarious from every angle, and everyone there was just fantastic people.
Oh yeah, we ate local food as well. This specific dish came from my friend's tribe.
The Bar Fight
Moving on: it was time to get into a bar fight 😂 (no, I didn’t fight; someone tried to fight me). Here is the story:
We decided to move on from the beer garden around 9 pm, and my friend took me to a local spot where he was friends with the owner. We grabbed a couple of drinks and then headed out to the main nightclub in town: Club Salt.
Seeing as it was off-season (no pictures of this visit), it wasn’t too busy. However, the club will sometimes book decently sized artists and pack this place to the brim.
Okay, okay, the story you want: the bar fight. When we got there, there happened to be a beer pong tournament going on. As someone who is still in college, this is right up my alley. We joined in and began cooking, making it to the semi-finals (yeah, we were cooking until the semis when we came up against some local “frat boys” (no other way to put it).
The game began, we went down to the point it was 6-1 until I made a bounce shot off the table and another cup. 3-1. Me and my mate made both of our shots and soon enough it was 1-1, what a comeback! Then it happened: he made his shot, meaning we had one shot at redemption. They started laughing at us and everything until I stepped back and drained a 20-foot fadeaway shot 🤣. People hate it when you are silent, and he came over to try and fight me. However, I knew this was just bait to get me to fight him, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause an issue in a foreign place.
I digress, as when the game finished (we lost) we headed home and I went to bed.
The End 🤣.
Final Thoughts
If you happen to be heading out to Swakopmund, there are a couple of things to be aware of. Much like in South Africa, there is similar segregation from what I saw. Beer Garden (which has no caucasian people) was infinitely more fun than Salt (which only had caucasian people). However, going out in Swakopmund was a fun time, and I still remember it to this day. The look on that guy's face when I made redemption 🤣.
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