about as she mentioned she was
headed to Europe for a few weeks as
the weather here was “crap”. What
was she complaining about? The
weather here was perfect, especially
for riding.
Forecasts the day before we were
set to depart suggested the weather
was to be around 32 degrees and
windy. We were a little slow getting
away and found ourselves riding
right into a sandstorm. The sand
blew for around an hour, yet the wind
remained all day. We should’ve left
earlier.
Tourist shops and cafes greeted us
in Outjo, not surprising as this is the
turn off to the Etosha National Park, a
place to encounter the Himba people.
After lunch we left and stopped
further down the road in a town
called Kamanjab which boasts very
important rock carvings dating back
1000 years; a site of extreme signifi-
cance for Namibians.
The following day we rode to the
town of Opuwo, the gateway to the
northern end of Namibia and home
to the Himba people and to a certain
degree the Herero.
The Himba dress so differently
from any Africans we’d seen so far,
especially the women with their
dreadlocked hair, caked in ochre
coloured mud and happy to walk
around topless with great beaded
necklaces. It’s hard to get a photo
of these people as it usually means
handing over some sort of tip.
The Herero women are very
colourfully dressed in great flowing
skirts and wear a square head piece.
It’s amazing to see these people
wandering the streets together and
dressed totally different to each other.
We stayed in a very nice place
overlooking the town of Opuwo and
spent a few days just walking around
the town and relaxing. Paid tours
will take you to Himba and Herero
villages, an opportunity for photos
but we were interested.
While at dinner we ran into a guy
TRAVERSE
95
who had just ridden from Switzer-
land, down the west coast of Africa
and was on his way to Cape Town
on a DRZ400. Amazingly, he hadn’t
needed to lay a spanner on the bike
despite distances he had covered.
It was time to leave and so we head-
ed for the town of Ruancana which
lies alongside the border with Angola
and is famous for the waterfalls that
sit right on the border. We had about
200 kilometres to cover and knew that
it wouldn’t take too long even allow-
ing for donkeys, cattle and goats on
the road.
Our accommodation came early,
providing time to ride out to the falls,
the flow of which can be controlled
by the Angolan owned reservoir
upstream, resulting in a tiny trickle
during our visit. Other times it can be
bursting over the edges. It’s all about
the timing I suppose.
I secretly asked the manager of our
Ruancana hotel if the chef could cook
us a traditional Namibian meal as a
surprise for Marina as I didn’t know
the ingredients. That night we sat
down to beef stew, mashed spinach,
pap which is like a maize porridge
and tripe.
The meal was littered with grit. It
seemed obvious that wind had blown
sand into the kitchen during prepa-
ration. Eating the tripe, it seemed to
have a grassy taste; the unfortunate
animals last meal.
My stomach complained the
following day as we left for Etosha Na-
tional Park. I couldn’t eat lunch and
even had to make an emergency stop
at a petrol station where Marina got
talking to a gentleman who said he
imported goods from Australia. Un-
believable, I thought as he opened his
van to shows the many boxes of air
freshener direct from Sydney. And I
thought he was having us on.
It became an uneventful ride into
Etosha where we’d decided to stay
three nights so as to do some game
drives.
The Etosha National Park is