Camp at Ugab Wilderness Camp

Camp at Palmwag (we planned to camp at Warmquelle but played it safe with the time)

Ugab River campsite

in the riverbed. The Brandberg is in the background. This was a great camp and we would have liked to spend more time here. There were no other campers within earshot.

Himba girl

Above Epupa Falls on the Kunene River we ran across this beautiful Himba girl. The Himba are a pastoral, Herero-speaking people clinging to their traditions. They live on both sides of the river, commuting between Angola and Namibia and seemingly ignoring national boundaries.

Epupa Falls and daughter Leigh

Camping at Omuranga Camp above the falls was the absolute highlight of our safari. This is a spiritual place.

Camp for 2 nights at Omuranga Camp, Epupa Falls

Omuranga Bar & Leigh

The river shunts past but a metre or two from one's tent. A croc lurks on the island in midstream. A community-run camp is located adjacent, but closer to the falls. Both camps are beautiful, small and well operated.

Epupa Falls

The camps are located under the Makalali palms just above the falls. A proposed hydro-electric dam threatens to submerge this beautiful place, and with it the ancestral lands of the Himba, not to mention their way of life.

To help stop the government and the West's dam building consortia in this unnecessary venture, visit the IRN's site.

Epupa Falls - large image, but take a look

I love this photo - it speaks of Africa. An untamed river threatens to dislodge some baobabs from their tenuous perches. Well, not quite untamed. The Ruacana Hydro-electric Dam, some 50km upstream in Angola, cycles the water level by half a metre each day. So why would one need another such dam here?

Peace pipe

A fascinating use for a heavy machine-gun cartridge. This old Himba woman was looking for tobacco. At least the South African military left something useful behind. Twenty-four years ago our unit spent a couple of weeks doing patrols near Opuwo, the regional capital.

Camp for 3 nights at Namutoni

Overnight at Windhoek and Springbok on the way back to Stellenbosch.

Kunene sunset

taken from the deck at Kunene River Lodge. Marion and I have resolved to return for a whitewater rafting adventure.

Fort Namutoni, Etosha National Park

Namutoni, the site of a colonial German fort, is the easternmost restcamp in the park. Although Etosha is large, it's easy to spot game, especially in the dry winter, because they converge on the few waterholes along the pan's shores. There's little bush and the landscape is flat.