We’ve been to a few places and done a bit of stuff, but nothing prepared us for our visit to Opuwo. We stayed in the campground at the Opuwo Country Lodge last night. It’s set on a hill above town, with great 360 degree views. The reception-restaurant-gift-shop building has the largest thatched roof in the southern hemisphere. The campground was nicely laid out and it was good to be away from the wind and dust of the last few days.
The eye-popping stuff started this morning when we went to get fuel and some food. The retail area of Opuwo is a seething hub of people. Local Himba women with their plaited hair covered in ochre mixed with butter, wearing a short skirt made of hide, some jewellery and not much else. One tried to sell me some jewellery, and I stood behind another young Himba woman in the supermarket. They walk barefoot and their feet must be tough – there are loads of thorny bushes, prickles and other sharp objects all around.
At the other end of the scale were the Herero women dressed like Mammy from Gone with the Wind – voluminous colonial-style dresses with long skirts, crinolines, petticoats, shawls and horn-shaped headgear made from the same fabric as the dresses. Some of the women wore a variation of the dress, but made of patchwork. And then there were the men – Himba men wearing a fabric loincloth at the front, with a hide cloth covering their bottoms. There were some dapper older dudes wearing trousers, long-sleeved shirts, buttoned-up cardigans and carrying walking canes, and even a young guy with a bow tie.
It was an amazing parade of humanity and while we were buying fuel I commented to Greg that I felt like I’d landed on Tatooine, or some other distant planet far, far away. Adding to the entertainment were cows wandering across the street, locals selling stuff by the side of the road, people trying to hitch a ride or just sitting waiting.
We’ve had a few days of wind and dust, but now we’re camped on grass by the Kunene River in the far north of Namibia. Angola is on the other side of the river. When I was being shown to the campsite, I asked if there were crocodiles in the river …. ‘only on the Angola side’. Er. right. It’s not a very wide river, so those crocs might just sneak over this side. We’ve done 2 tyres in the last couple of days. One also has bent rims, but Greg and a fellow camper were able to plug the other one, so we do still have a spare (we started with 2 spares).
We’ve been as far north, and as far west as we’ll travel on this trip. Now we’ll head east to the Caprivi Strip – a weird, narrow strip of Namibian land in the north east, between Botswana to the south and Angola & Zambia to the north.
A drive through Opuwo
Just wrote a comment and lost the lot how dime can one get .can I just say what a great way to shop just image en what they must look like on Sundays as for the roads looks like they are only just the camp sites look good so I guess they must get a fair bit of use all looks very dry but as it is the end of their summer the pictures you put up of real people doing real things was good I do think that when travail this great world of ours it is much about the people theme song is good but must be more from these great country’s you are visiting go well.
Its not the end of summer, its the end of Winter. We are still in the Southern hemisphere. Namibia gets what little rain it does in summer.
A great experience this . Going to the supermarket will never seem the same again . I wonder what these people think of the tourists!!! .Great pictures Greg . x
Oh, you’re so right Margaret! The young woman in front of me was trying to purchase a container of Nivea for Men moisturising cream, but didn’t have enough money. I wonder if they have numeracy skills. The white container was covered in red hand prints from where her henna-covered hands had been holding it. I thought that maybe she was going to use it instead of butter to mix with henna for her hair. I could so easily have just made up the difference in price so she could have bought it, but thought that probably wasn’t the right thing to do. Earlier when we had been buying fuel, another young Himba woman had stood near me, looking at one of the attendants. She didn’t try to ask me for anything, but the attendant eventually gave her NAM$10 (about AUD$1) and she walked away.
I think tourists are probably as much a source of wonder for them, as they are for us. We stopped for morning tea a while up the road and 2 young men wandered up and sat watching us and looking at the stuff in our car. For people who live in tiny window-less huts or little flimsy tents, some of the things we carry must look ridiculous!