I spend part of the morning taking photographs of the riverbed itself, the way it has cracked and split so that in place it looks like neatly arranged shards of pottery. Incredibly there is even the occasional flower glowing bright yellow or pink despite the barren landscape. On one bank I come across an abandoned manyatta, just like the one my African mother-in-law lives in: small and round with walls of cow dung. But apart from two wild donkeys, which have obviously escaped their owners, there’s no sign of life.
We weren’t wrong about the giraffe tracks though. Shortly after we leave the riverbed to trek along a less strenuous sandy track we find ourselves only a few hundred metres from a family group of four giraffes. We immediately turn the camels’ heads away so that they don’t see them, and hurry by as fast as we can. But we find ourselves regularly coming across herds of zebra, gazelles and oryx.
The very next evening, however, something weird happens. We’re sitting out in the evening sun waiting for the sun to set. The noise of the crickets is deafening and the birds are performing their regular evening concert. Then all of a sudden it is deathly still. Both birds and crickets have gone quiet. All of a sudden everything feels different. I sense this weird feeling inside me and start looking all around. The expedition leader just laughs. Then suddenly the air comes alive and for a few seconds the earth beneath my feet literally moves. It’s an earthquake, a small one, but out in the desert it’s quite surreal. It takes the animals a long time to get over it. Me too. I spend half the night lying in my tent hoping there isn’t an aftershock.
By now we’re not too far from Purros. The Atlantic Ocean is no longer far away. All that lies between us and the coast is fifty kilometres of desert and a small mountain range. Already it’s much cooler; the evenings are cold and there’s a dampness in the air. One morning we wake up to find ourselves in a mist. Under these circumstances I decide I’d rather not start out on my own, but the expedition leader tells me not to worry: all I have to do is follow the tyre tracks and when they leave the riverbed I should do so too and take the road that runs along the bank. That doesn’t sound too difficult so I set off as normal, not least because we have fifteen kilometres to cover on the sand, which I find really difficult, and in any case I’d freeze if I stood around waiting for the men to load up the camels.
Walking in a fog is spooky. Sometimes it lifts a bit and gives me a clearer view, but at other times I can barely make out the track to follow. I start out slowly, still a bit spooked by the fog. There has to be a village of some sort around here, even though I can hardly imagine how the half-naked Himba get by in such cold and damp conditions. After a few kilometres the track diverges from the riverbed and before long I come across a village. It’s still very early and I have no idea whether or not the settlement is actually inhabited, so I call out ‘Moro’ to announce my presence.
There’s no response. I can just about see the corral around the village, and the houses, which are square instead of round and almost big enough to stand up in. They don’t have any doors so I glance into one, but all there is to see are a few rusty tin cans and a few pots around an extinguished fire. It all looks rather uninhabited, even deserted. The corral is made of thick thorn bushes, not thin twigs as elsewhere, and there’s a secondary barrier in the middle, which is obviously a pen for the animals. I’m particularly surprised to see just how many campfires have been lit at some time, an entire circle of them each a few metres from the next. It looks as if they’ve been lit to fend off wild animals. I can’t help wondering if elephants have tried to come through, or if there are lions in the area.
The cold’s beginning to seep into my bones so I march on. It can’t be long now before the men catch up with me. The track begins to lead uphill, which is rather disconcerting, as I thought it ran alongside the river. There’s a fierce wind and I’m starting to freeze. I stop and wait for twenty minutes but nobody shows up. I call out, but there’s no answer. Then suddenly the fog lifts and I can see the greenery nearly a kilometre away and start to panic, realising I must have veered away from the riverbed too early. I run back as fast as I can towards the river, using the emergency whistle in my backpack, but the wind carries the sound in the opposite direction. When I get back to the riverbed, I find my own tracks but also those of the camels, indicating that my companions have already passed by. I’ve got no idea how far they’ve gone by now and I find myself weeping tears of anger, disappointment and pure terror. I’ve almost never felt quite so alone. Then all of a sudden the pair of them appear out of the fog. They’d turned back to look for me.
As the day goes on, the fog begins to lift and before long everything is back to normal: blue sky, hot sun and dry earth. Everywhere around us there are abundant signs of life, from funny little round bushes growing out of the sand to little white flowers with overlarge leaves growing amid the stones. At one point a chameleon jumps out in front of me, and stops dead, his eyes alone moving, swivelling in his head.
But gradually the golden grass and the beautiful flowers make way to stone wilderness, flanked by bare, sandstone-coloured mountain ranges. The stony ground beneath our feet is hard, and there’s been no fresh grass for the camels for a while now, so they have to eat the food we brought with us. The route on to Purros is among the hardest we have encountered: just stony desert with tracks that undulate like a washboard straight ahead as far as the eye can see. There’s no way we can find a place to stop here: there’s no shade and the stones are too heavy to move to find somewhere to sit. I’m beginning to find the trek too much for me.
Then all of a sudden a car comes up and the expedition leader stops it to ask if they’ll give me a lift as far as Purros. He and Lucas will catch up with me twenty-four kilometres further on. Considering we’ve already been walking for six hours, I accept the offer without the slightest hesitation. I doubt I’m going to be missing much, and I don’t envy my male companions – or the camels – for a second.
The people in the car are an elderly English couple who are good company and very kind hosts. Given that all my luggage is packed on one of the camels, they take me to the campsite and lend me a towel, shower gel and something to eat. We have a good old chat and they’re amazed what I’ve done, especially when they see the state of my feet. The woman in particular is horrified and gives me some medicinal cream and some normal plasters which stay on better.
Once again the campsite is simple but nice. Each pitch has a place to make a fire, running water, a shower and basic toilet. The English couple offer me a cup of tea but just as we’re about to drink it, my male companions arrive with the camels after what must have been a real forced march. We’re delighted to accept the English couple’s invitation to join them for dinner.
We stay in the camp for three days. There are signs that point out we are in the middle of a wilderness and that elephants and other wild animals might wander into the campsite. We’re ordered not to leave any fruit or other foodstuffs lying around in our tents, even though the guards tell us they don’t think there are any elephants around. They haven’t been here for several weeks and are almost certainly up near the Hoarusib River, which might have water flowing now. That’s where we’re headed for next.
The village of Purros sits in the middle of a desert surrounded by mountains that continually change colour. The landscape is beautiful and, as we’re here for a few days, I ask to go and see the village, which is four kilometres away. Lucas and the expedition leader are busy talking to a Japanese guy who came here specially to see the desert elephants and has been waiting in vain for five days, so I set out on my own. The track splits in two just before it reaches the riverbed, and I decide to take the shady path and cross over a bit further on. The trees here are enormous and there are lots of strange root formations, which make great photographic subjects.
I’m busy taking a photograph of one of them when I look up and find myself face to face with a huge tusked elephant quietly munching on a tree. My heart leaps. I take a quick bit of video a
nd three photographs before running back to the campsite. I can’t wait to share my experience. There’s a big grin all over my face: for the first time I’ve come face to face with a desert elephant without a fence between me and him or a car to escape in.
But the campsite is empty. They’ve all gone off to Purros and from the tracks in the sand I can tell they’ve already crossed the riverbed. I’m not brave enough to go back to take another look at the behemoth I came across so instead I set off to Purros myself. The village is run down and not exactly charming. The only reason people come here is to see the elephants. There’s a little runway outside town for tourists who choose to fly in rather than make the strenuous journey in a 4x4.
There’s no sign of the others so I make short work of my visit and head back. I’m not far from where I was when I came across the elephant when I spot a couple of giraffes peering out from a bush on the other side of the river. It’s simply amazing to be able to see so many animals living in the wild just while wandering along on foot.
Later that evening I show the others the photographs and the video that I took that day and the Japanese man can’t believe his bad luck. That same evening he books himself on to a guided jeep tour and finally manages to see some elephants down on the riverbed.
The camels are rested, have at last had some water and God knows how many kilos of some sort of bean-like fodder. It’s time for us to be off again. We need to stick together as we walk along the Hoarusib as there might be lions here and I’d rather not be their breakfast. It would appear that the scent of the camels puts them off.
The riverbed is incredibly wide and it’s not hard to imagine floods of water rushing by in the rainy season. There are bushes several metres high along the banks. A few trees grow out of the river and we come across roots protruding from the bed. The sun takes its time rising and gives a soft red and gold glow to everything. We stop on some high ground to look back at Purros and at the tall hedge of palm trees ahead of us. That’s where the first water is to be found in the riverbed at present, even if initially it’s just a trickle. But gradually it gets wider and we leave the track and walk alongside this famous river. There are tyre tracks to follow which makes the route easier as otherwise the sand is too fine and deep and would pour into our walking shoes, turning the insoles into sandpaper.
We keep coming across evidence of elephants using the same route: either huge oval footprints or giant heaps of dung. They look dry, suggesting that the animal passed by several days ago. Now there is an increasing flow of water reflecting the palms along the banks. There are more plants growing around and in the water, which makes it harder to know just how far away the elephants are. But before long we come across some fresh dung and more footprints. It feels weird to know there are elephants somewhere nearby but not to be able to see them. Lucas says he’s not too comfortable with it either, and that only makes me more nervous. Our expedition leader is driving the camels on while checking his GPS to make sure we don’t go the wrong way in this wide and wandering waterway.
All of a sudden I can smell the elephants, and my heart is pounding. The two men seem on edge too. Only the camels keep on plodding along calmly. Now and then we spot a grey elephant’s head either on the right behind the bushes or on the left behind us. It’s really exciting to see them, but it would be nice if they weren’t quite so close.
I have to work hard to keep up with the men. Lucas keeps turning round to wave to me to come closer. But no matter how much I try, I just can’t walk any faster on this sand. If I tried any harder, I’d be exhausted in no time. We’re just coming round a huge patch of bushes when all of a sudden we hear a loud snort, and immediately change direction. Then, just a couple of hundred metres away, I spot a mother elephant with two little ones. It’s a charming sight but we can’t linger because we have to put some distance between her and us. It’s a bit of an adrenalin buzz, but at the same time I can’t help thinking we must be mad to do this with no more protection than a couple of camels.
Then I spot another elephant standing on a little hillock under a palm tree. It occurs to me, as we hurry on away from him, that he might be the alpha male. We turn the next corner and quite unexpectedly come across a group of people fetching water from the river. Almost immediately they all climb up on to the riverbank and begin banging their metal cups together in warning. I’m wondering if all this fuss is just because of our camels, when all of a sudden the expedition guide calls out to me, ‘Corinne, watch out, there’s a bull elephant making straight towards us. We need to get out of the riverbed and get the camels to safety. Run for it.’
I look up and immediately see a huge elephant coming towards me, picking up speed. He may be some two hundred metres away still, but he looks like he can cross that distance in no time. I need to get out of the car tracks to change direction, but as soon as I do, I find I can hardly move. I lean as hard as I can on my trekking sticks and manage to drag myself metre by metre towards the riverbank and the safety of the trees. Behind me I can hear people hurling stones at the elephant, who has already spread his ears wide in an attacking posture. I’m spluttering and can hardly move. The camels are already out of sight behind the trees by the time I finally get myself out of the sand and can move at any speed. I glance back and see that the elephant has changed direction and is heading straight for the little hill. The people standing there are banging stones against their metal cups, making a huge din. Just as I reach the relative safety of the trees, I notice a Herero woman standing on another little hill waving at me, presumably urging me on. But to me it seems eerily spooky, as if she were a scarecrow.
At last I’m back with my companions, who are every bit as worked up as I am, particularly Lucas. Sitting round the campfire later he tells me that was the first time he’d seen an elephant close up. He’d never particularly wanted to, not least because he’d lost his father to an elephant attack.
For the next stage of the trek we keep to the riverbank in the hope that we see any wild animals sooner from there. But even here we keep coming across elephant footprints and dung piles. Now and again I spot ape tracks that look just like the marks from human hands and feet. We continue for a few hours and then decide to pitch camp. It’s the most nerve-racking night of the whole trip for me. The next day Lucas tells me he didn’t get a wink of sleep either. Our expedition leader was the only one to snore all through the night.
In the morning I notice that once again the landscape has changed completely. It’s much hillier now and there is yellow grass everywhere. We regularly come across springboks leaping across the trail. It’s great fun watching them, especially when they take enormous leaps into the air. And yet again the trail leads us along a riverbed, although this one is much narrower which means the water is deeper. Eventually we find ourselves in what is almost a canyon with red stone walls rising on either side, sometimes in extraordinary shapes. Every now and then a white tree clings to the rocks, and from time to time we come across tall palm trees that look as if they’ve been deliberately planted there. It’s much cooler here, but the camels don’t particularly like it because the water is flowing faster and the sand is wet and damp. We keep having to push and pull them to keep them on the move. The expedition leader decides we’re going to have to change our route because the water is too fast-flowing here for us to continue. That means a detour of another eighty kilometres and going back along part of the route we’ve already covered. But you can’t fight nature.
The new route means we have to cross hilly country on the edges of the Etendeka mountain range, but as an experienced hill walker I’m more than happy with that. It also means we come across mountain zebras, just a small family group, but the male is a particularly impressive specimen. I’ve never seen a zebra with such a thick, flowing mane. They’re in general much darker in colour than the zebras you find on the steppe lands. They’re also a lot more wary. One glance at us and they’re off, at a gallop.
The land here is stony and barren. It’s
been days since we’ve come across any people. Every now and then we come across abandoned huts or a tree with obvious human markings on it. I would like to come across a few more of the jolly Himba women. We pitch camp under one of the huge trees that seem to be common around here. I climb up a nearby hill to appreciate what a pretty picture our little campsite makes, with its green canopy standing out in this sparse landscape, the white Iglu tents underneath and a smoking fire with a black cooking pot hanging over it.
We have to retrace our steps through the foggy stretch and go right past the place where I got lost. It all looks a lot less scary now as the fog has mostly gone, as has the biting wind. We spend two days walking along the Khumib riverbed and then take the track that leads to Opuwo. Once again I start out early on my own to enjoy the dawn and the silence, broken only by the birdsong that greets the morning. We’ve still got one hundred and fifty kilometres to go by the time we come across a Himba village again. I realise we’re near because I spot a lad with a large herd of brown and white goats. Shortly afterwards I come across three huts that look just like manyattas, but in fact are built mostly out of leather. Given that the Himba are mostly nomadic shepherds, I reckon these are only temporary structures. There’s smoke coming from one of the huts and a few goat kids running around.
A little further on I spot a bigger, proper village and hang on for my companions to catch up with the camels, because I love seeing the way the Himba react to these unfamiliar animals. I’m not disappointed: six Himba women come running up to us, their naked breasts bouncing up and down. When they see the camels they stop and stare while Lucas chats to them. We don’t see any men, though, and when I think about it I’m amazed at how few men we come across at all.