Day 9: Epupa to Etanga to Camp Wild

Our plan for today was to drive back to Opuwo, fill up the supplies and fuel and then drive to Etanga in the west of Opuwa in the Himba land. We stopped at Opuwo as planned, filled fuel and bought supplies. By afternoon we started our drive towards Etanga. The road was designated as ‘D’ which is a dirt road and therefore was not so fast moving. Still the gravel D roads in Namibia are really in good shape when compared to the dirt roads in other countries. We passed many Himba villages all the way and around 3:30 we reached Etanga. We planned to camp at a camp site that was marked in our map, but we couldn’t find it all there. Probably it doesn’t exist anymore, as it can happen in this part of the world. Since we still had couple of hours before sunset we decided to drive towards Orupembe, which is further west, in the direction of Purros village. Finding a drivable track was difficult and also it was marked a proper 4x4 track. So the going was again really slow with sometimes mountainous, rocky and sandy terrain all the way. It was bit of an adventurous drive, really slow moving and in parts the speed was on an average between 10-30 km/h. We also passed some Himba villages on the way.

By evening we were still about 30 km away from Orupembe and the light was going down. So we decided to camp wild on the side of the track and setup the camp before it was completely dark. We parked our car behind a rock, to avoid unwanted attraction, and setup the camp there. There was absolutely no one around, just us and the unbeatable African skies, with stars extending up to the horizon. What a view!!