Brandberg Mountain / Spitzkoppe, Namibia

We depart the Etosha region and head south-west. No more driving for game now, but we should still see plenty of animals over the coming weeks. This is Africa, after all.

We are going to get a chance to meet some locals today; people from the Herero and Himba tribes.

We first stop off at a Herero market on the side of a lonely road. The stall owners are dressed in their traditional clothing which mimics that of first English colonists. Big Victorian style dresses and headwear. Other than this, the Herero people have remained fairly traditional, living remotely in their small villages.

We buy some curios; they are quite skilled with sewing machines and produce dolls and pillows etc. We ask the ladies for some photos. Their children are much more obliging with big teethy grins and photo-bombs. Very friendly and fun.

We continue down the baron, dusty road. There are more small makeshift market stalls setup on the side of the road sporadically. The children and adults wave at our truck, desperate for us to stop. They hold their goods up with one hand and their hand out in a begging fashion with the other. We wish we could stop at them all, but we can't.

Later in the day we stop at a Himba market. This tribe had remained completely traditional, refusing to accept the invasion of European culture. They cover their body with a mixture of clay and red ochre for hygiene and sun protection. They wear minimal clothes and they drive a hard bargain in terms of their goods and wanting payment for photos.

Jeff buys an expertly crafted bracelet made from cow. He quickly realises that it is not leather and is in fact plastic from a PVC tube. How cultural.

We play with a couple of the kids. One let's us get a close up photo of his awesome Mohawk.

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We say goodbye and head to our camp which is nearby under the shadows of Brandberg Mountain; the highest in Namibia.
The town is small and ghostly. The place we are staying is good though. Huge pool and a bar with resident African Grey Parrots for company. We go for a wander around the town and watch the sun dip behind the mountain. We head back for dinner and an early night.

Day 2

The region we have entered is becoming mountainous. A nice change from the featureless, flat landscapes of the past few days.

We are aiming for another recognizable mountain, Spitzkoppe, famous for its ancient rock-paintings.

The mountain is supported by a community (or visa-versa) which has an orphanage and some other good initiatives. Money made from the tourism industry, for example entry to see the rock-paintings, is distributed amongst the community.

The water they have is pumped from an underground bore. It is quite brackish, and no good for drinking. They did once have a desalination system, but it has broken and takes too much electricity to run, so they use the African Ferrari (donkey) to travel 10kms to fetch clean water. In summer, rockpools are filled on the mountains which also goes a long way.

Upon arrival we get out of the truck and wait for our tour guide. We spot meerkats slinking around nervously. We chase them. They stop and look at us and then chase us! They were extremely tame, very keen for pats and a photo-shoot. We oblige. The park has 2 females that have been brought here and raised by humans. There was a 3rd male that was hit by a car :(

Onto the main attraction we go. Lazarus, our guide begins with an introduction to his native language with 4 different clicks. We click along. 3 of them are doable, the 4th - not possible, not even for our Zimbabwean guide who has the other 3 clicks in his native tongue!

Lazarus takes us around the rocks and tells us of their history (I wont bore you here), our shoes scratching away on the sandy ground which did in fact used to be the ocean floor a few million years ago.

The rock-paintings are in surprisingly good condition. They are 2000-4000 years old and depict animals such as lions, rhinos, zebra and giraffe with great clarify. They point in the direction of water for the benefit of others.

The theme of water being a precious resource appears more and more as the climate moves to arid and desert. For example, the San people used to store water in ostrich eggs and bury them for the future.

We are shown a perfume tree and a poisonous plant that was traditionally used on the point of arrows to bring large animals down. Some humans have been known to bring themselves down with it as they unknowingly use it for firewood. Rhinos are the only animal able to eat it. They clear up a spot of indigestion with it. Ain't no thing.

We power down a truck-side lunch and pack up, keen to get to Swakopmund which we have all made big plans for.