Time Out in Africa: Part 13
Created | Updated Apr 21, 2004
This trip stems from a promise that El (my better half) and I had made to ourselves - when her exams were over we would take off for a while, travel the world, have a little fun. The aim was to do a wide variety of stuff – some touristy things, some mountains, see some friends and family. Most of this journal dates from notes I took in the evening - I have allowed hindsight to creep in in some places though...
Day 47 Windhoek to Ojirongwe Cheetah Park - Boerish
El is having difficulty sleeping and is awake even earlier than the 6AM alarm. Somewhat blurry eyed we meet the seven other backpackers that like ourselves have booked in for a six day tour of northern Namibia. We also meet what proves to be the best tourist guide of the trip, Lucky. We will be spending most of the next few days in a modified Landcruiser, fairly comfortable until you start spending 8 hours a day in it.
The guy who runs the cheetah park could fairly be termed an oaf. His disdain for the tourists through whom he makes his living is evident, and, as we find out later, his approach to his staff is not a lot better. In words of one syllable he explains that we shouldn't wear sunglasses, shouldn't look the cheetahs in the eye, shouldn't spill their pint etc, etc. The ones we see first have been born in captivity and are fairly docile. We do the standard photo thing with them, like you would with a Buckingham Palace guard. Those that are captured in the wild though, are much more agressive. They stalk the trucks, hiss and arch, ready to pounce.
The show is well rehearsed. The farmer throws out the meat to the cats, while keeping them at bay with a cattle prod. Comically two cheetahs both go for the same piece at one point, pulling on it while trying to get the other to back down. After the show we eat dinner and visit the campsite bar. It's a monument to rural Afrikaner culture, a typology of breasts on the wall, flags of rugby playing nations, the usual sophisticated stuff. It does have cold beer however. I try a little German with a couple of the German girls and sort of make myself understood.
Day 48 Cheetah Park to Opuwo
More truck to start the day – we're heading north so it's getting hotter. After lunch we visit a local Himba market. It's Sunday and there doesn't seem to be anything to do except drink, which appears to be a popular activity for the men and older women. The whole place has a dispirited air about it, with some leery characters and a pervasive smell of rotting goat meat. We cut it short and drive out to the 'traditional' village about 20 minutes away. The atmosphere here is more relaxed. We give gifts to the chief, a jolly type, who has his photo taken with the girls and asks me how many wives I want? El replies for me.
We shake hands with the girls and get our hands thoroughly covered in the red clay with which they daub themselves. Judging by the number of children per woman, contraception seems to be more or less unused. As we are about to have some local customs explained to us a girl in our group feels sick. Various people suggest various courses of action but in the end she recovers on her own with a bit of rest.
As the evening wears on about 30 Himba wander over to our camp. They're intrigued by the proportion of women to men (7-2) and wonder where the husbands are? The women dance and sing – for us or because they feel like it? Difficult to tell. They sell some artifacts and a few stay on to share our meal.
The conversation turns to the difference between Himba and the San, the 'Bushmen'. One of the girls in the group has come from 6 months work in a school for them, so has some interesting experiences to relate. The Himba local guide tells us that they sometimes see the San when they come to ask for milk for their babies. Otherwise they keep well clear of inhabited areas. No-one seems very optimistic for the future of the San. Like other nomadic cultures with no notion of posession, it's not easy for them to fit into a world where everything belongs to someone and nothing is free. Uneducated, with no foreign languages, it is difficult to make tourism work for them.
We also learn a terrific Afrikaans term, 'dikbak'. This essentially means to be in a monumental sulk. Unlike in the west though, where some idiot is guaranteed to say 'cheer up it might never happen', the San respect the right to be dikbak for a day, and leave the sulker to get over it.
Day 49 – Opuwo to Palmwag
The morning's entertainment is provided by the appearance of a largish burrowing scorpion from underneath one of the groundsheets. It's not really supposed to be out in the winter, so it's a little dozy. It makes a beeline for the fire and is quite aggressive when we try and persuade it to go somewhere else. Unfortunately its existence comes to an end when the local guide spots it, and despite our protestations, squashes it flat. I suppose that when your kids are walking around barefoot it is difficult to see a scorpion as an important and useful part of the ecosystem. And so endeth the second lesson on the difficulties of reconciling traditional lifestyles and wildlife conservation.
The truck turns west towards the coast, and on we go until the lunch spot, a waterfall with a shaded pool to swim in. We get 20 minutes peace and quiet before a dozen loud South Africans arrive. Evening finds us game driving but there's not a lot around – springbok, a few kudu and oryx. Nice campsite though with some marked trails that would have been good to explore if we had time.
