Namibia - northwest

The aquarium chattered excitably following our safari extravaganza, as we ventured into northwestern Namibia which over the next 2/3 days would take in the; Petrified Forest, Twyfelfontein and the Brandberg (Fire Mountain – 2573m). However, our first stop was an afternoon visit to a Himba village.

The Himba still largely eschew the modern world and they maintain their distinctive traditional dress of multilayered goat-leather mini skirts and ochre-and-mud-encrusted iron, leather and shell jewellery (yes they are pretty much naked!). Their skin is smeared with a mixture of butter, ash and ochre which helps it stay smooth and keep them youthful looking. They also plaster their plaited hair with the same mixture and the effect is similar to revellers at Glastonbury and Woodstock during heavy rainfall.

Whilst the Himba village, we later discovered, was set up with the knowledge of increased tourism access, it was still a worthwhile excursion. The Himba still go about their daily lives much as they would if they were in their normal location in the Caprivi strip (nr the Angolan border).

We brought the adult Himba fruit and vegetables and the children inflatable footballs, which they were delighted at, despite Andy immediately kicking one of the balls unceremoniously on to a spiny Acacia tree. We witnessed the skinning of a goat and shared some snuff as well as watch the women bathe in a herbal perfume which involves squatting over an incense burner and letting the aromas…well waft up.

Whilst some of the group wrestled with their conscience of wandering around a village basically designed as a tourist attraction, it was on the whole still an eye-opener. Particularly as the males in the tour group all suffered tension in their upper vertebrae as they desperately stared the Himba women in the eye.

Later on in the evening, some of the group got bladdered on wine and tried to climb a nearby hill, which resulted in minor cuts and bruises for Andy. He went to hang on to a tree to give him some leverage getting up the rocks when suddenly the branch broke and Andy disappeared into a sizeable and thorny hole. At the time Andy thought it was Table Mountain but in the cold light of day it was smaller than Brown Willy. He was so plastered that once he’d actually made it to the top he was too scared to look at the view and just sat and rocked, eyes covered.

The next day, once Andy had picked thorns out of his lips and cleaned the blood off his trousers, we all piled into the aquarium and headed for the Petrified Forest, which are basically trees that have turned into rock. These tree trunks are up to 34m long and are thought to be around 260 million years old. The landscape in this part of Namibia is semi-arid and desert mountains span the horizon.

Following the Petrified Forest, our next stop was Twyfelfontein which hosts one of the most extensive galleries of rock art in Africa, but this is no Tate Modern. It is situated in a grassy valley and means ‘doubtful spring’, after the insufficient water supply from the natural source. The approx. 6000-year-old drawings are etched on to the top layer of sandstone and mainly depict animals that were hunted in the area. Whilst archaeologists have no doubt used poetic licence with their interpretations of the rock art depicting warriors celebrating the might of the animal kingdom, there are some delightful childlike sketches of birds and goats. For those who remember our wedding invite, the pictures were vastly superior, even though scratched into the unforgiving medium of rock.

Our final jaunt in northwestern Namibia was a brief scurry up the lower slopes of the Brandberg to view the famous White Lady of the Brandberg. The mountain is truly stunning and the granite is a rich ochre colour. The White Lady is about 40cm high and like most rock art it reflects people’s relationship with nature. The majority are realistic portrayals of hunters, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, lions and antelopes in rich red, yellow, brown and ochre. Other common themes include the roles of men and women and natural medicine. The latter includes examples of trance dancing and spiritual healing which people believed helped them control climate and disease.

Although the earliest works have long faded, flaked and eroded the dry climate and sheltered granite overhangs have preserved many of the paintings. However, the continual survival of the White Lady has not been helped by some idiot tourists in the past trying to throw Coca-Cola over it and in turn speed up the caustic effects of erosion.

After a tiring but fulfilling day, we set up camp and grabbed an early night before heading into the Central Namib Desert, which stretches more than 2000km along the coast. Much of this vast, dry plain is covered by enormous dunes, which roll back from the sea towards inland gravel plains. This would also be the part of the tour where six of the group would throw themselves out of an airplane at 10,000ft.