Coming Back to Life

Early morning in the desert

Hot tempered elephant

 21.03.2012 Wilderness, Namibia

What a fantastic week! What last week had of nothingness, this has had of fullness. Everyday has presented me with something else, everything as beautiful or interesting in its own way. The spring arrived on Friday around noon, and Wombosi was ready to hit the road 20 minutes later.

First I got to tell about the most touching thing that happened last week in Ongwediva. I had been street musician for one day, and earned 47 Namibian Dollar in more than four hours, which means about one euro the hour. So, I did not get rich by being a street-musician in Namibia, but there was one very sweet incident that happened. While I was playing, three young school-boys who were on their way home from school stopped some meter away from me. They stood there for a long time, maybe twenty or thirty minutes. When they figured they had to go, they started digging in their pockets to find some money. It was evident that these boys did not have too much money. In the end they found some coins and put them together, and one of them came over to me and threw them into the guitar-case. I muttered “thank you”, being in the middle of a song that was all I could do, but it really warmed me to get those coins. Compared to money in general, what they gave was nothing, but compared to what they had I think it was a lot. It is good to see that part of Africa also, and remember it when people stop me, and I think they want to hitch, and then they ask me for cigarettes, and when I say that I don’t have any, they ask for sweets.

Leaving Ongwediva made me very happy and First stop was the Ruacana-fall. There is a dam above the fall, and normally in the rainy-season it should be open and the fall full of water, but because of lack of reins, the dam was locked. This meant little water in the fall, but the possibility to swim in it. That was very refreshing after living a week on some dusty parking-lot.

From Ruacana I went south to Opuwo to hook up with Morne from the tourist-information in Ongwediva, and three Norwegians he guided around northern Namibia. Together we went to a Himba-Village. The Himbas are a people closely related to the Herero-People, but the Himbas have preserved their traditions and way of living uncommonly well. Visiting a Himba-Village with three Norwegin tourists is like going to a zoo, only with humans instead of animals. I tried to keep distance, and be modest and polite, at the same time as I of course had to shoot plenty of pictures. I had after all paid for visiting the village (something I do extremely seldom).

While Morne and the Norwegians returned to Opuwo to find themselves some lodge with a swimming-pool, I decided to stay camped in the village, and that was very good. The Himbas returned to their everyday-life and put away the handicraft they had tried to sell us. I did not really blend in, regarding that I don’t speak a word Himba-Language, and none of the village people spoke any English, and that I look pretty different. I stayed together with them, let them do their things, and did mine. In the evening I entertained them with playing some songs for them, something they seemed to enjoy. The next morning I shot some last pictures, before I headed north to the Epupa-Falls.

The Epupa-Falls were fantastic. Here, there was no shortage of water. I spend that afternoon lying in the shade of a tree on a small island in the falls, reading, smoking pipe or just closing my easy and daydreaming. A soft mist cooled me down occasionally when the wind came my way. Of course I had to take a bath both in the evening and in the morning. When you walk up on the hill from the falls you get a splendid view of the whole falls in the evening light (at least if you do the walk in the evening).

The following day was as close as you’d get to eventless, but on Tuesday I headed into the riverbed of the Hoanib-River to track down desert-elephants. The desert-elephants are thinner than normal elephants, because they have less to eat and to drink, so they tend to look bigger, but are just the same size as the once you find in Etosha. They have much bigger feet, to make it easier for them to walk in the soft desert sand. In the evening I only spotted one Elephant who was a bit boring, but the place I camped was about the most beautiful place you can imagine (see picture of Wombosi). There I read the book “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” by Mark Haddon, and what a book that was. I did not manage to put it away before I had it read through. Thank you very much, Elisabeth, to give me this book.

While the evening-encounter with the desert-elephant was rather boring; the morning-encounter was not. I was driving back, and was already out of the riverbed and on my way towards Sesfontein when I saw an elephant coming towards me on the road. I thought “perfect”, parked the car two meters away from the road, 25 meters away from the elephant and waited. First the elephant waited a long time too, but then he started to continue his walk straight towards me as I had hoped. I thought he would walk straight past me, considering that I had put the car out of his path, but at some point I realized that that might not be happening. When the elephant had reached Wombosi, he turned towards me and took a step forward. He was now about one meter away from me, and I could have reached out and touched him through the open window, something I of course did not do. It did not look too happy, and my heart was starting to beat very fast, so I started the engine, something that surprised the elephant, and made him take half a step back, and Wombosi soared off. Luckily the elephant was too lazy to chase Wombosi in the desert-sand, and continued his slow walk, so when my heart was beating normally again I pulled around and could enjoy him a bit more, this time on safe distance, and with the engine on.

Afterwards I figured how stupid I had been. I don’t have any insurance foe Wombosi here in Namibia, and elephants don’t usually buy third-party insurances either, even if they are a great danger to fellow travelers, so I’m glad nothing happened. An elephant can easily push a car over to the side or all around to the roof. These animals are big.

Today is today, and this will be posted tomorrow, after I have seen the Twyfelfontein (doubtful spring) rock-art. But, Today is today, and the 21^st of March is not any day here in Namibia. Today, 22 years ago in 1990 Namibia gained their independence from South-Africa. I celebrate it by camping in northern Damaraland close to a waterhole, where Zebras, antelopes and Gemsboks (Oryx) have tried their best to entertain me the whole afternoon. Life is good!

22.03.2012 Khorixas, Namibia

Just a small add for today. Twyfelfontein was not really much to write about, but I just wanted to make a remark about the rainy-season, regarding that it is raining heavily now. I’ve been mainly lucky with the rains, and they have been modest and not every day, and the sunsets and sunrises are just much more beautiful in the rainy season. Also, what I really wanted to say is that the night-sky here is absolutely magnificent. Namibia is famous for having one of the clearest night-sky in the world, but when we were here last time (dry season) it disappointed us. Now it is just stunning. The sky is full of stars from horizon to horizon, and due to the new-moon (today), they shine even brighter. 

The Epupa-Falls

Mist

Morning at Epupa

Himba-Girl

Dancing

Himba-Kids

Unmarried Himba-Girl, anyone?

Wombosi

Evening over the Hoanib-River