In
the morning while having tea, one Himba boy came to our campsite out of
nowhere. He didn’t come near, but was standing around 500 m away from our tent
and started shouting at us. Both Bru and I didn’t understand a word of what he
was shouting. We were calling out loud asking him to come near us. His tone didn’t
sound friendly and we felt like he didn’t like us camping there. So we decided
to leave the place. We finished our tea and packed our tents and left the place
for good.
On
the way to Orupembe we came across a large baobab tree. Baobab, the iconic tree
of the African savannah is also called the ‘tree of life’. It grows upto a
height of 25 m and the tree itself can be several thousand years old. From the
size of it, it was definitely more than 100 years old. We stopped there and had
our breakfast under its shades. It was really a nice place. After about an hour
of staying under the shade we started our drive towards Orupembe. The landscape
changed dramatically from bushland to vast plains with small small mountains in
between. As we crossed Orupembe we realised that it is just a small village
with few huts distributed in the plains and of no vegetation around. I even
wondered whether there is any camping place here.
Later
we came across the mysterious ‘lone man’ of Kaokoland. In the last years there
have been many sightings of life-size rock sculptures around in these remote
wild west regions of Namibia. They are created with masterful artistry and a
deep sense of place, that it gives the impression of having sprung up from the
earth. They take on different poses and are made from the rock existing in the
area and they blend in perfectly with their surroundings. No one knows for sure
who made these stone structures of humans around these uninhabited places.
Though we read about it before our journey, we were not expecting to see it, as
finding it is like searching for a needle in a haystack in these vast
landscape. So it was quite surprising to see it and we both felt happy to see
these lonely people :-)
The
drive ahead was through the Namib desert, 100’s of kms along the deserted
plains. It is pretty strange to have proper roads/tracks in these places and
that too with road signs! The desert colour changed a lot from arid dry
landscape, to yellowish sands to dark red sand, all within a couple of hours.
Absolutely stunning, if you neglect the heat! As we approached Purros the
mountains were surrounded by more and more sand.
The
Purros village is situated in loose sandy regions. We stopped at the Purros
community camp run by the Himba community. There were a lot of ellie dungs
around, clearly showing the presence of desert ellies. The camp ground was
beautiful, properly blended with nature. The campsites/toilets were hidden
under short trees covered with leaves. It was a beautiful spot, but also very
windy with fine sand flying around. At night after a barbeque and beer, it was
time for night photography.
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