I wrote here before about my trip to Namibia, and I was suprised to see how many of you have been to there before. I will be hunting out of Kamanjab, having driven there from Windhoek. I would like to know if you bought any special/unique souveners home from your trip. I would like to bring alot of stuff back, and was wondering what cool things I can expect to find there...insted of the usual carved giraffes and fake spears!! Thanks for your help

Wolfgar,

We found that the most unique things in Namibia were from the northwest and northeast. The Himba are up in the northwest (Kaokoveld and Damaraland), while the bushmen are found in the northeast. If you have time, I'd recommend a side trip for a couple of days to one of these regions to see the differance in culture. They are both very differant to the "regular" Bantu blacks, and some of them (the Himbas) live vitually the same as they did centurys ago. Bear in mind though that the Bushmen have been quite "corrupted" by modern society. There are "tourist villages" where they dress in traditional clothing, but in reality, they don't do this for real much anymore, and in normal villages without turism it's only the very old that wear traditional cloths etc.

Himba woman:


Himba Women:


Himba girl outside family hut:


Himba girl and boy inside family hut:




Bushmen near Tsumkwe on the border to Botswana:




Bushmen playing a bushman game next to our car:


Bushman woman making necklaces:

Its funny to see a Landrover with an advertisement "Artic Trucks" in the middle of the Namib.

If you buy crafts from the Himba be careful as they have a coating or dust cover of the red substance they coat their bodies and clothing with. This by the way is a mixture of red dust (crushed red rock from the area), animial fat and animial dung. This coating just comes from handeling of the item. In Opuwo I saw the Himba interacting with other natives (non-Himba) in the town. Another interesting sight is Epupa falls on the Namabian/Angola border. This is a very long and slow trip. It would be a 16 to 18 hr round trip from Kamanjab. Any one interested in making the trip should take provisions i e food and drinks. You will not find much on the route or at Epupa falls. When we got to the falls we found a lodge and restaurant and inquired about drink and were told only for staying guests. We begged for a beer and finally they sold us each one at "this is twice our regular price".

D.O.J. is of course right about watching out for the red color. You will notice that the men don't have this stuff smeared on them. For the most part. The thing is that if you do see a male Himba with a lot f red on his body, it is proof that he has had sex within the last couple of days. I'm not kidding. The men do onthe otherhand wear a special necklace that is smeared with another fatty substance. This has special herbs in it, and as the fat melts against the mans skin, it will give off a slightly perfumed smell to make him more attractive to women. Kind of like westerners using aftershave etc.

We were told by Himbas that the red substance is made of Ochre (red dirt), rancid butter (from the cows they tradtionally keep) and ash.

You'll see that the himba women wear a kind of leather "crown" on their heads. This, as all the womans cloths is smeared with the red substance. While driving up to Epupa, we gave a ride to a Himba couple where the man (with quite a lot of red on him! ) sat on our roofrack, and the wife sat in our front passenger seat. My wife had to sit on the cubbybox between the front seats. First after dropping them off a bit south of Epupa did we notice that the ceiling above the passenger seat was covered in red! This "souvenir" took quite a while to wash off once we got home some months later...

While in the Kaokoveld region near Epupa we were able to aquire a Himba womans old skirt, crown, belt and some other small things such as the little container made of horn that they keep the red stuff in. We're still trying to figure out how to display this stuff since the red substance has a noticable odour... A airtight, sealed glass case is most likely the only way.

The suggestion about bringing food/water to Epupa is good advice, although we did go to the local "store" to buy some basics like corn meal and crackers. Travel up in Kaokoveld should only be done if you're reasonably self sufficient. Especially regarding fuel.

Another group that you'll see in Opuwo is the Herero people, where the woman wear unusual hats and dresses styled from old colonial times. Seeing the Himba, Herero and other people mix together in Opuwo is a bit like the bar scene in that old Star Wars film. The one were all kind of differant aliens were drinking together!

Erik,

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

Erick, when I hunted with Vaughan most of our staff were Herero. I don't know if you saw any of the Tahimba (spelling) but the women of this tribe wore western clothes but were also topless, like the Himba. Erik where did you find the store? The only thing we found in Opuwa was a restaurant and they had only flavored water, passion fruit man it was bad. As I recall I drank it in two slugs because after the first I only wanted to taste it once more.

Erik,

Beautiful photos!

Die Ou Jagter,

When you reach Epupa falls (coming from the south, vs coming along the trail from the east along the river), you will find the small "campsite" straight ahead. If you then turn right (east) and walk about 300 meters there is a small "shop" up on the hill on the south hand side. They have sugar, meile meal and some other dry goods.

In Opuwo there is a bread store the locals use that sells fresh bread (if you're earliy enough before it gets sold out). It was pretty good stuff, even though there was only one type. My wife and I were used to living on various crackers, so any fresh bread was good in our opinion at the time.

When heading back south from Epupa Falls, one can decide to continue west thru Van Zyls Pass. A very scenic route that will take you down into Marienfluss, Hartmanns Valley and the most desolate regions of Kaokoveld. Very beautiful, and our favorite part of Namibia. However, enough fuel, water and food is needed as the next fuelstop if going this way is down in Sesfontein after several days of driving. Fuel consumption is high, as a lot of this route is strictly offroad.

It takes a bit of work to get around in Kaokoveld, but it's worth it IMO.

A few more picture of northwestern Namibia:

Epupa Falls, with Angola in the backround:


The trail to get to Van Zyls Pass. Quite tiring when driving like this few a couple of days...



Strange "Fairy circles" in Marienfluss. No one know what made these circles, nor why nothing grows in them.


Down in Damaraland, with big open spaces:

Erik, I know what you mean those roads look like the "roads" we used while checking Leopard baits for 14 days. That is a good picture from the overlook point above the falls. I asume you did a good bit of camping on your own, did you use a guide for any of your journey?

Die Ou Jagter,

We were basically camping on our own for a year in 20 african countrys. As we only had the 2 front seats, guides were not an option in general, although in a couple of historical towns in north africa we did get someone to show us around. We were also forced to bring heavily armed soldiers/police along with us up on the roofrack in a few dangerous areas. Otherwise, besides meeting the odd local here and there who we got to know, and perhaps stayed with for a night, we were on our own with no help, which was a challenge both when it came to navigation, safety, language and numerous other things. Big african citys were actually the most challenging for us, as street maps were often non-existant, and finding a place to sleep and park safely (with our very limited budget) was often difficult. Lets just say that we had the "pleasure" of sleeping in the backyards of several african brothels and other not so nice establishments in some citys. Thus, being out in the bush or desert was much easier since the was no problem finding a place to sleep. However, in some northern countrys we had to be careful where we hid during the night due to banditry and unrest. Niger, Chad and Darfur in western Sudan come to mind as problematic sometimes. But it was all worth it, and I'd still do it all over again! And hopefully we will do so in the near future when our kid is old enough to join us.

This is what "home" looked like when we stopped for the night to camp. This picture is from the Central Kalahari in Botswana:


Typical dinner in the bush. This is on X-mas eve in Darfur eating the last of our pasta. Thereafter it was mostly dry crackers and water for some days (although we always had emergency rations for a couple of weeks that we never dipped into since they we for emergencys only):

There is an indoor mall on the main street across the street from the supreme court building, and there was a woman there selling dolls in traditional clothing. They were about $1.50 USD, and absolutely beautiful. I bought her entire supply and gave them as gifts to secretaries in our office (after my wife got her choice!) I have found dolls to be wonderful souvenirs of our trips. I also picked up some bushman bows, arrows and quivers; bead-work pouches; and snuff containers. These really show off well on my "museum" wall of my trophy room. Kudude

In the industrial district on the north edge of Windhoek we went to a tannery that has 'hair off' game skins for good prices. I got a kudu hide for about $70. Nearby is also a shoe maker that makes great boots from seal skins. Let me know if you plan to visit and I'll look in my files for names and addresses. Bob