Day 42 – 47: Swakopmund

Monday morning we got up early for quite a long day; unfortunately the truck didn’t start – we had been having some problems with dodgy diesel. Somehow water was getting into mixed in with it, either at the pump or in the tanks. Either way, we didn’t leave until about 9-ish, without the advantage of having a lie-in.

First up we went a short way down the road to visit a traditional Himbe tribe. These people cover their bodies in ochre and talk with a clicking sound. The ochre is part of a cleaning ritual – they cannot affort to use any precious water to clean with so they use the ochre and scented smoke to clean themselves with. We did the whole thing about sitting in the main hut while somebody explains this and visited a few families, taking lots of pictures with the fascinated kids… personally I find all this sort of stuff a little uncomfortable – gawping at people for entertainment. I know they are being paid for it but it just seems a bit exploitative, like they are some show-tribe that is set up for tourists to look at. Anyway, that is probably just me. Gem and everybody else were fascinated by it all.

Late afternoon we arrived at our next destination, high in the Brandberg mountains. It was about 4.30 and we went on a bit of a hike up to see some rock painting. It was really nice to be able to get out and have a decent walk – especially in the early evening (relative) cool. The painting themselves were not all that special but the setting was lovely and very dramatic. We set up a bush camp that night. After being in the tent for so long we didn’t really relish a night of bush camping but it was really lovely where we were, very spacious and we really were miles from anywhere.

The next morning we got up early (again) to make our way to Swakopmund, stopping off at cape cross to see a seal colony – thousands upon thousands of very smelly seals on a rock. Increasingly the terrain looked more desert-like as we approached Swakopmund. Now this town is very odd. It is a kind of german-themed seaside resort, at the end of the desert. Namibia is a former German colony (or at least West Africa was) so it is still populated by German holiday makers, german speaking black-africans, beer-halls and bakeries. It has also tried to turn itself into an adrenaline-centre, similar to Vic Falls so we spent 4 nights here while people did stuff like sandboarding and sky-diving. We weren’t too bothered by this as it wasn’t really what we came to africa to do (and hadn’t budgeted for it) but Gem did go quadbiking one day but apart from that we just wandered about and relaxed for a few days, which was really quite enjoyable. It might have been germand restaurants but we did get to eat some cool (and delicious) food, such as Zebra and Oryx.

Unfortunately, Swakopmund was where our camera was nicked. I say nicked, but really lost would be a better discription. We went out for dinner and left the bag on the back of the chair. Only realising the next morning, we went back to the restaurant to find that the bag had been returned but then of course the camera was not in it… We went to the police station to get a crime report and were basically laughed at – which we thought was fair enough – but eventually got our statement for the insurance. Just a good job this happened when we had a few days to sort this out (and in a fairly civilised Town)

NB: Somebody has some more photos of the quadbiking, so we will try and get hold of them and post them here…