Brandberg White Lady Lodge Damaraland

... move from one home to another several times a year to seek grazing for their goats and cattle. Men, women and children wear body adornments made from iron and shell beads. A himba women spends as much as three hours a day on her toilette. First she bathes, then she anoints herself with her own individually prepared mixture not only protects her skin from the harsh desert sun, but also keeps insects away and prevents her body hair from falling out. She uses ...

... the desert elephants and the sundown. Neil and Paul did see elephant tracks near to our part of the camp, and the lodge does warn that elephants can be dangerous. Plenty of birdlife around here and Neil and Paul were busy taking photos. Actually saw another meerkats, a young one in the garden by the restaurant. Plenty of expansion work going on here too, the chalets look lovely ...

... get back out) to climb one of the outcrops and view some San Bushman paintings. From there we continued into the local village and then in the afternoon took another walk to climb one of the other hills although decided half way was enough in the baking sun and given the sheer rock faces. The two evenings were spent sitting around the campfire toasting marshmallows and listening to Ingwe's (one of our guides) tales of life in ...

... Himba visit in the morning. Many orphans and children born to the village. Men can have several wives (5 cows dowry for each), so there are about a dozen women and 5-6 men. Lots of children running around, all eager to shake our hands and give the traditional Himba greeting. They're also eager for anything we were willing to give them. Kristin started handing out raspberry candies and was nearly mobbed. She tried to pass them out evenly, one piece per child, but many ...

"We drive inland through the Damaraland region with its vast and rugged terrain. Its mountain ranges are intercepted by wide gravel plains, which run into sandy, vegetated riverbeds and hot, dry valleys. We visit the Twyfelfontein area for walks to the bushmen paintings/ rock engravings as well as the Organ Pipes." 468 km/290 miles driving

... to, we went to the car park. Only, our bus wasn't there. Our guide and assistant weren't anywhere to be seen. Slightly puzzled we all huddled under the only shade we could find and pondered more and more bizarre explainations of where they could have got to and what we should do now. After about half an hour of waiting, we spotted our bus speedily bumping down the road. Apparently we'd had two flats, and as we'd used a spare tyre the other day, we only had one more spare, so they ...

... shoot some landscapes ... can't wait to process the panoramics!! ... As we drive towards the Brandberg mountain range, the highest in Namibia, we stop off at a roadside Africrap stall ... I find a pregnant doll with a matching breast feeding doll ... handmade by Himba ... I had to buy them for a present ... just who would want such a present ? Later we arrive at the Brandberg White Lady camp ... after a drive through a stunning landscape that I won't even ...

What can we say. It felt wonderful to finally arrive at Beth's second home. The town has grown, cleaned up, and just seems better now. We met some of Beth's students in town. Two of them actually came up to her in the supermarket and said "Miss Collins?" One them was the smallest boy in school and is now Erik's height. It is amazing for Beth to see how they have grown up. Beth was able ...

... that there was an attempted robbery and shooting dead of one of the campers at Spitzkopfe 5 years ago, it started to explain why we had seen anybody else camping there that night! Also, with hindsight of the bushcraft we have ow learnt, we were probably more like to have been killed by a bush than any animal (and that spider did turn out to be totally harmless to humans!) Pretty weird little collection of shacks & small houses near Spitzkopfe, a pretty impoverished community ...

... to date. All the water in the camp came from underground and like a lot of places in the area there was a windmill pump that bought it up from and underground reservoir. After breakfast we wandered down to the farmhouse to see the Cheetahs. It's amazing how these guys just treat them as pets and I think everyone was amazed at how we could interact with them and how everyone could just stroke them ...