Before leaving Opown we were forunate enough to meet a lovely chap named Chris Wildblood. He's a wildlife photographer that has spent the last year up in Northern Namibia photographing desert elephants, lions, leopards, crocs and a lot of other interesting things. We managed to get some advice from him about the area we are heading in to and about the infamous Van Zyls Pass. His words of advice included, 'the road before is so tough, you'll think you have done it before you reach it'. Sounded like a challenge to us (well Ric more than me actually).
After a good chat with Chris we headed North up to Epupa along a track which was actually pretty easy going. There hasn't been much rain up here so the roads are still in good shape - good news for us but probably less good news for the people that live here. Along the way we were flagged down by a number of people wanting a lift - I'm not sure what most of them would have done had we not stopped, probably walked the 50km to the next village! One particularly smart man stopped us and somehow managed to squeeze his 7ft body in to the back seat - quite the contorsionist! Another local Himba chap insisted on sitting on the roof, one can only imagine, clinging on for dear life as we sped along.
We reached Epupa just after lunch and decided to head to a local Himba village to 'meet the natives'. Given that neither Ric or I speak Himba or know a single thing about the culture we thought it prudent to take an intrepreter. 'Radar', a half Herero / half Himba chap that lives in Epupa agreed to take us. He advised us that we would need to take some gifts to give to the chief in order to be invited in to the village. So laiden with maize, an axe we have been carrying (and never used) since Egypt and a Ukulele (also never used and a gift from our lovely friend Tim - sorry, we did intend to learn!) we set off.
Unfortunately when we arrived the chief was out 'on business' in Epupa and all the other men were away tending to the cattle. It was no great loss though as we spent a couple of fine hours hanging out with the chiefs wives and his numerous children. The Himba are probably one of the few remaining tribes in the world still living how they did hundreds of years ago. They aren't as remote as they used to be anymore, with many villages situated next to encrouching towns, but fortunately for us this didn't seem to be the case with the particular village we visited.
I must say, they seemed very pleased - but a little baffled - with Tim's ukulele. If you ever happen to visit this part of Northern Namibia and find a group of Himba singing around the campfire along to the 'twang twang' sounds of a small little guitar, that will be our legacy. Hopefully they dont just use it for firewood!
We also met some lovely people at the campsite in Epupa, including a French couple who live in Bordeaux and shape surf boards - living what appears to be mine and Dickies ideal life - along with a South African family, also planning to do the Van Zyls pass. After imposing ourselves on everyone else around the camp we got to bed at the reasonably early time of 10 in preparation for the big drive up to the pass.
So this morning we set off with much anticipation. We know the road is bad. We've been told the road is bad. But you never quite know how bad until you're on it. Turns out it was fine for around 100km, then bloody awful. We bumped along for 6 hrs not getting very far and meeting some pretty steep and rocky roads. I had to get out of the car at points to guide Dickie along - and also because I felt safer there! We managed it okay though and made camp at the top of the Van Zyls Pass. Tomorrow we do the worst bit - 20km down a very very steep and rockie pass. Hope Monty holds out okay!