Outjo this world

Outjo: 8 December 2001

We're having trouble remembering what day it is out here in paradise - we stopped here yesterday with the intention of going into town today to try and sort out papers to take Tigger into Zambia but woke up to find that today is Saturday - and what are the chances of finding anyone at the Zambian Veterinary Services on a Saturday?
That's exactly what we thought! So we spent the day - surprise, surprise - repacking the truck once again. We're getting close to the optimum now but may have to reorganise things when we go into Zambia in order to create a hidey-hole for mutt.
Apparently you have to have an import permit to take a dog into Zambia, and finding anyone who can actually help isn't the easiest of things. In Swakopmund we did manage to track down what the requirements are and to get a number for the vet services in Lusaka but that didn't even bother to ring, let alone get answered.
After leaving Swakopmund (was it only three days ago?), we headed north towards Henties Bay along a salt road - I have no idea why it is called a salt road or how they make them but it drives like a tar road and looks like a gravel road. From there we turned inland towards Uis.
It's about 100 km to the tiny town and for most of the distance you are driving across what looks like gravel plains with nothing on them and very few features. In the far distance, you can see mountains but the distances are deceptive - we had a good view of the northern side of Spitzkoppe, even though it was about 45 km south of us.
The Brandberg, for which we were headed, were clearly visible for most of the trip. At Uis we turned left and went straight into the Brandberg along a road so corrugated it could have been used as a mold for corrugated iron sheeting. We camped that night in the parking area at the start of the walk up to the White Lady of Brandberg.
Tigger and Lisa were a little nervous at what might be lurking out in the darkness (Who? Me? Nervous? Pah!!!!), especially after we'd seen a pair of eyes glowing back at us in the light of our torch. We were in bed really early but only after using our mega-"see-things-you-never-dreamed-of-out-in-darkest-Africa" spotlight (ta, Jack and Mone!) to light up the vicinity while we took turns to squat - avoiding as many of the prickly bushes as possible.
We finally got it right to get up at the crack of something, in this case it was sunrise, and by 7 am we were ready for the 45 minute stroll up to the overhang where the White Lady resides. First, though, we had to negotiate the services of a guide. I've always been rather suspicious of self-appointed guides out in the bundu as they tend to be friendly and eager but their knowledge of their environment leaves a lot to be desired.
This time I was pleasantly surprised, with Xamseb ("From the Lion") turning out to be wonderful companion who know the countryside we moved through and made the walk a real educational experience. He could name - in his own language, our language, Afrikaans and Scientific terms - most of the plants we passed. He also told us their medicinal uses and could identify they birds we asked about.
Lisa may have been justified in her nervousness the previous evening, as the Brandberg play host, says Xamseb, to jackal, brown hyena (damn, I would have liked to see one of those close up!) and leopard - which feed largely off the fat, juicy dassies which have lived in the area forever, if you believe the white faeces stains on the rocks.
Xamseb, it emerged, is quite the environmental entrepreneur, having studied environmental issues in Windhoek and spent three years there (he describes cities as prisons - no matter how hard you work, you're always trapped by the need to continue working to pay for things. The idea struck a whole symphony for me!). He moved back to his village near the Brandberg and got together a group of volunteers, offering their guiding services to visitors to the White Lady site. Over the past three years, the group has grown to 20-odd guides working at different locations near the Brandberg, has cleaned up the tourist routes and ensured that everyone uses a single route rather than leave tracks all over the countryside, obtained government backing and approval and persuaded the EU to fund posters and office supplies for the project.
By the time we reached the White Lady's overhang, we knew it wasn't really a lady but was the son of, and apprentice to, a shaman and is part of a scene depicting the shaman's dreams. The overhang was first reported around the world by an artist by the name of Maack in 1917, who correctly identified it as a man, but his part in the whole story has been overshadowed by the Abbe Breuil (spelling is probably way out!), a European anthropologist who knew little about African anthropology, who pronounced on the matter after World War II and decided the white figure was female (despite the evidence of a whopping great dick sticking out the front of the figure. Go figure!). The name has stuck (no pun intended).
Christmas came early this year - once back at the truck we gave Xamseb a small tip (something I'm not known for doing) of N$10 and in return he gave us a couple of crystals from the stand where they sell them to tourists! If you're going to see the White Lady, take some Bob Marley and play it for the guides while you're getting ready - they really enjoy him!
The trip to the Burnt Mountain took us three-quarters of the way around the Brandberg and included a stop - at the side of a regional road nowhere near a nature reserve - to watch a herd of elephants. I was fighting corrugations and Lisa had been writing her diary when she looked up and said, lekker nonchalant-like: "There's an elephant". When I looked, I needed to take a second look because the scene was too surreal: an elephant drinking from a round farm reservoir like a horse from a trough. We stopped and watched him take a dust bath and then moved on to watch the rest of the herd, including at least one youngster, browsing along the riverbed. As we pulled away, a foreigner in a rented 4x4 came storming past, blind to our attempts to alert him to the special sight. Sod probably went home complaining that there are no elephants left in Africa!
Having visited the Burnt Mountain, we don't think it's worth a visit unless you can get your hands on a tame geologist to explain what you're seeing. If we'd though the rest of Namibia had few plants growing anywhere, Burnt Mountain has almost nothing on it but it is a magnificent orange colour - somebody clearly had a heavy hand with the paprika bottle when they served up this dish.
We also, finally, got to see some Welwitschia mirabilis plants, which only grow in the desert areas of Namibia with some specimens still living 1500 years down the line. They were growing in relative abundance and were flowering. Each low, ground-hugging plant has only two leaves which grow at a glacial rate and eventually the leaves are split into what appears to be multiple leaves by the wind.
We gave the petrified forest a miss, it being 36 degrees with a thermo-fan oven wind blowing, and headed straight for Khorixas, realising we were getting close to "big town" areas when the tar road started 2 km outside town. Bought beer, cigarettes and diesel and headed for our overnight stop in Outjo, 130 km west. Since starting this, Lisa has discovered that one bag of beans, when soaked properly, is enough to feed us for several nights, keep several Mexican restaurants happy for a night or give the whole of Ethiopia a meal. I guess it's going to be a windy night.
Tigger also brought to ground a mongoose, having seen it approaching some of the bungalows and given chase. She "cornered" it under a wooden platform and by the time I arrived it was purring its disgust and anger while she pranced around trying to work out where it was - her sense of smell is not the best.
You only realise how small the creatures are when you see them up close and I watched this one for about 10 minutes while it sat uncertainly under the protection of the deck. Tigger was desperate to get at it and, apart from the dangers of rabies, I was tempted to let her get near it so that she'd discover just how sharp the creature's teeth are and leave them alone in the future.
We spent a large part of last night chatting to a German couple (there are lots of them touring southern Africa) with whom we've been crossing paths since we arrived in Namibia - we saw them at Hobas, at Luderitz, down at Sossusvlei, on the road through the Namib, in Swakopmund and they were here when we arrived last night. We'll probably see them in Etosha tomorrow.
We've also watched the German group in the hired Britz camper van primping themselves after a hot, dusty day - him blow drying his (rapidly receding) hair, her brushing the dust off her rucsac and all of them trying to work out how all the features of the camper van work.
It's a 4 am start tomorrow, in order to make it to Etosha (110 km up the road) by sunrise. We've decided against trying to camp inside the park with Tigger and will instead just spend a day watching the animals. If it's really spectacular we'll go back in for a second day.
Now, I'm off to watch another spectacular sunset.