Henk Dop: Namibia Trip Report 2005

Opuwo, Ruacana, Hippo Pools, Ehomba Mountain, Swartbooisdrift, Kunene

Friday 6 May, Opuwo - Ruacana (Hippo Pools Campsite); 181 km

Another early rise, with Opuwo already very much alive at 0730. We continue on the C43, soon to turn into the D3700, but remaining in an excellent condition. There's a roadblock of Ovahimba cattle, a gently rolling Mopane woodland landscape with the Steilwandberge to our left, a Martial Eagle in a tree by the side of the road.

We turn right on the D3701, with the Ehomba Mountain to our right this straight road is a true see-saw as it goes up and down through a continuous succession of minor valleys. Then there's a detour through the riverbed in one of such, a bridge probably having collapsed, and we're besieged by Ovahimba children, running alongside the car, and aggressively calling for 'Swietie, swietie!'. All friendly gestures of refusal are to no avail, and I end up telling them to piss off in no uncertain terms.

It really is amazing how these supposedly 'unspoilt' people (whatever that may mean) seem to have the capacity, or simply the lack of defence, to fall victim to the more obnoxious effects of visitors who probably do indeed dole out their candy by the handful in order to get their cherished photo's of the 'authentic' or 'primitive' natives. Whatever the case may be, and probably needless to say, we left the Kaokoveld without any shots of Ovahimba, and without parting with even a single piece of candy.

We reach Swartbooisdrift at the Kunene at 1015. There's a lot of water in the river, we look out over the endless Mopane forests and Angola. We stop at the Dorsland memorial, this is where the Dorsland trekkers finally moved back down again from Angola into the South-African administered SWA (see: http://dorsland.jislaaik.com), an epic journey marked by the memorial as well as several graves of 'trekkers' and descendants who chose to be buried here.

The remaining 48 km on the track along the Kunene River are a true delight. The track is pretty much OK, a challenging drive but not really difficult, and the average of about 20 km/h gives us just enough of an impression that we're making acceptable progress. There are fine views of the river and the almost sheer white mountains to our right, Ovahimba villages grow Sorghum and Millet in the floodplains. However, the 'Swietie, swietie!' continues to haunt us, to the point where we start to consider taking out the kattie and delivering the desired candy in this no doubt unexpected manner.

Coming close to Hippo Pools there's a steep hill to climb, with a herd of cattle in the process of coming down, so we do that in low gear, and then descend equally steeply into the valley of the Kunene again with the Ruacana Falls and the NamPower dam and facilities there in the distance. We reach Hippo Pools at 1230, I have a NACOBTA booking here, obviously we're several days early but that's no problem at all. We settle into the large and shady site nr. 4, not too close to the River and its accompanying insects. Never mind about the Hippo's - those are history.

The fridge is once again not working, so we'll just have to accept doing without it for a few days: by the time we get to Etosha, we should be able to run it on 220V. It's suffocatingly hot as we go through our options for the four days that we're now running ahead of schedule. I check the distance to Grootfontein and Roy's Camp, which should be do-able. Marike and Maarten immediately agree that this favourite spot would be a good option for a couple of nights, after which we could enter Etosha a couple of days earlier than foreseen.

So, we have a plan, but I now realize that it's Friday afternoon, and NWR will be closing down for the weekend, so if we want to book those extra nights in Etosha at Namutoni, as we would prefer, we need to try and do so right now. There's a public phone at the camp's office, but they don't sell phone cards. I'm directed to a nearby shop some 2 km on the way to Ruacana, and Maarten and I take the car there. The shop doubles as a bar, a merry gathering is celebrating an early happy hour with huge quantities of beer.

Inside the shop, which carries a neatly laid out and incredible assortment of goods including sickles, bicycle pedals and what have you, a timid lady helps us to a phone card and a cold Coke for Maarten. As we step out of the shop, where we've clearly been the first foreigner to enter in many months, the merry company loudly swaggers into their bakkie (pick-up truck) while two dogs copulate in the dust.

It takes some time to get through to NWR, fortunately the camp manager's wife offers me the use of her phone in the shade (Namibian phone cards are account-based, so you can use them from any phone). It then takes more time to make my intentions clear, but it all works out fine and we should be OK. Marike and I try to do some birding along the waterfront, but it's simply way too hot and humid in the Kunene valley. The early sunset behind the mountains brings relief, mosquitoes remain absent, and we prepare a potjiekos from the 'Cabanossi' (salami-style) dried sausages that we bought in Lüderitz.