Epupa Falls: the water of the tribe of mud

For: Javier Brandoli (text and photos)
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Land of baobab and tribes of the past. A postcard from Africa with everyone traveling in the stomach. We're headed to the Epupa Falls, the north, near the border with Angola. A place of difficult access and roads foreshortened. The landscape changes: the mysterious mirror left behind a desert of dust and stones infinite ocean and hits him. After ten days of road for Namibia; after the passage of Grand Fish River Canyon, of large dunes, Cape Cross, Skeleton Coast we a waterfall striking for its beauty and by the people around you. This is a spectacular country and this a unique setting.

The meeting with the tribes

In one control passage of food from there across the country (control which does not extend FMD) I look out the window and watch two women Himba. It is impossible not to stare at their naked bodies covered with a kind of clay that were painted ocher-colored skin and makes your hair look of clay. This is the first time we see the indigenous rebels who did not accept the impositions of the former German colony and kept their ancestral customs. (Acting in this way will cost many deaths in the hardest times of repression Germanic). Just watch a woman in front herere. In the past two races were nearly sisters, herere but did accept the Catholic religion and decided to dress and leave the field to go and live in cities. The costumes of women are really striking: colored clothing and a kind of cloth cap (form would be similar to a cap). There, in just three minutes that lasted the policing understand that the trip turned fascinating landscapes and empty south to Namibia with northern names. It is easy to understand why, Skeleton Coast since leaving the horizon has been changing gradually to green, to the land that enables life. As if it were a signal have appeared baobab, we all dream of that tree with the book of The Little Prince and part of the continent's deepest beliefs. There are many legends, but when I watch them decide to stay with one that says that a tree was so beautiful that the gods, when angry with men, decided to plant it upside down. Hence it appears that the roots are looming on the trunk.

Opuwo is city, therefore, Hérères area who come to us to sell fruit, bebida or Collares. One could spend hours taking pictures of each costume or wearing the dress they.

That night, after a long journey bumpy and dusty road, we stopped to sleep at a campsite that I recommend to all who wish to climb to Epupa: el Ongongo Camp. The possibility of bathing in a pond, whose water flows from a waterfall, forming a natural pool under the African night sky up for all the hours of travel.

The next morning, early, continued our route. We stopped at Opuwo, the last town before reaching there Epupa. Here you take the traveler to buy food and drink in a supermarket, remove or change money in a bank and, even, acceder to an Internet cafe. All these shops are in a square, next to the gas station that turns away from the chaotic market that I recommend go slowly. Stalls would fly in a gust of wind, of dry dust covered the ground up, where meat is sold blood dripping hanging from a branch. Then, I look at the internet café scene that seems impossible: Himba woman, with a child of no more than two years, using one of the old computers. Topless, with its original appearance and surfing the net. How great is the scene. But, Opuwo is city, therefore, Hérères area who come to us to sell fruit, bebida or Collares. One could spend hours taking pictures of each costume or wearing the dress they.

The roar of the water

After the stop, the truck resumes the march. We scattered on the road, the brush, Himba villages different: a fence and a group of homes and some poultry around the sacred fire. All are equal. The sun is strong and life is reduced to a cow or goat group hovering on the roads. Under some shade a shepherd watches Himba nothing to alter its ancient calm.

Two hours later we see in the distance a water stain in a row. We have come to the domains of the Kunene River, it almost a natural border with Angola.

We stayed at a campground that stretches along the river. We arrived early, in the afternoon, and we are fortunate to be able to plant the shops in the area closest to the falls, near the bar-restaurant with a wooden floor and from which there is a nice view of the watercourse. No more than a mile can hear the roar of water tumbling through a breach of the land to guess the distance. We went camping and fast we take a path on the right and leads to the falls. It crosses a small market where they sell handicrafts and souvenirs Himba for tourists and comes to a small natural pools where children play and, even, we see women washing clothes and hanging them in the sun (one way they can make a living washing clothes is for tourists, I assure you that after crossing this country need to sand. The money is split between the community). The pools are glued to the big jump and you can swim there under a jet of wild water that falls on your head or quieter tubs. The first picture is stunning, beautiful: some baobab hang almost Kunene rocks and is precipitated by a fall 20 meters. We sat down to contemplate the unexpected nature postcard that offers the feeling of almost lost among the current violent. But, weigh on beauty, this is not the best postcard offering the falls.

The first picture is stunning, beautiful: some baobab hang almost Kunene rocks and is precipitated by a fall 20 meters.

Following the river, up a small slope, perspective taking will leap. Each step seems to have the best perspective but always, 20 meters after, there is a better. The surprise is when the 300 finds a meter upstream in front of it a kind of choline by which water flows in different courses. An island of land, surrounded by two languages ​​of the river, formed by small jumps at the whim of the rocks. Back, that begins to sunset, can see the distant mountains of gold and has a full view of the Epupa until the water is lost to the west at a rate that is infested with crocodiles. Night falls on us.

The Himba bar

After dinner (omelette and oxtail, Dinner that night was playing Spanish), Xavier, el Guia de Kananga, invites me to drink a beer in a special. Out of only two camping and hotel there at Epupa, the left, and after walking a mile across the football field, there is a small bar next to the Himba village. A grocer sold the remains of the world and in which there pool, an old jukebox and a bar. No tourists go there, who prefer to stay in the shelter of its hotels, but it is a curious place to mingle with the locals. There you can see kids dressed in authentic Western drinking and Himba, naked, to which alcohol devours them. We asked some local beers and left the, to the door, where ve have a couple more, with clay and naked skins, ask snuff, alcohol or a conversation impossible in your language. They have a small row, result of excess and one woman decides to go to bed and send him to the sofa African version, which is neither more nor less than the open. The old, dazed and ethyl, undertakes road to the bush.

Give some qualms always find these places, full of charm and authenticity in which one has the feeling that soon will also be contaminated, but it is a perfect choice to end the night. Yes, you should go with respect, without subjugating, as the Himba have a strong sense of ethnic.

In the morning we decided to walk the runway slope in an east. A huge crocodile sun numbs a small island. It looks like a statue immovable. Some people leave the group to do a rafting, not complicated, and others decided to investigate some farms, wildlife and vegetation of the surrounding. We make time for the second-largest silver deposit of Epupa, Visiting a Himba village. I said that this was an area of ​​nature and people.

The village

To enter one of the villages of the "tribe of clay" must comply with the ritual of taking gifts. Do not give them money, if they are offered rice, oil ... In our case, I joined the list of presents a blanket, Blue colorful, of which the chief took a fancy and his third wife.

Entering, the old leader meets with the ritual of sitting those present and give his approval for us to move through a place that has rules ancestral. There is obviously a tourist spot in all the paraphernalia, but in any other town in which we would enter, without the intermediation of a guide, standards would be similar. Ie, nothing is false, is a business that both parties know.

The village, in living just over 20 People, in the middle of nowhere, far from any urban center, with a pen, fire and the sacred stone and several huts (three of them live the old chief with his three wives. Spend two days in each house and one day just resting). The stone and the sacred fire are the subject of ancestor worship inviolable. They warn that it is forbidden to cross the imaginary line between the two. The truth is that when the games begin with the cute kids, the visit in which the guide means their lives or walks alone through the town, full of excrement of their few cows and goats, sacred prohibition is forgotten repeatedly (not easy to monitor an imaginary line).

The world in which the boys were broken teeth at puberty; where women wash with incense; of polygamy, of rituals by a fire under the starlight only ... live as are, free

Then, in the end, Himba women and some young men show their crafts and beadwork, although it should be noted that not trying to sell anything, only teach your merchandise. We're, just a long visit to an unknown world. The world in which the boys were broken teeth at puberty; where women wash with incense; of polygamy, of rituals by a fire under the starlight only ... live as are, free, with its own rules and, yes, some Western customs that have come into their lives and that can ruin your ancient independence as alcohol abuse.

Returning to the Epupa Falls is a football match organized between local and worldwide. A field in which the goals are two clubs with a bar made with a thread hanging from rusty cans serves as meeting place. Of course, by the middle of the field can pass a cow or a man on a donkey. On the local computer some play without shoes in a land of stones and pebbles. Bottom line, draw five.

The last sunset at Epupa again be unforgettable. The golden wood of the baobab hanging from a cliff, pouring water gushing from the rocks, some children playing with the great leap with their bodies full of dry powder, noise, overnight. And in the dark cataracts are also fascinating. I checked when I went to the restaurant-bar owned Angolan adopted a little girl found abandoned and now, and increased, acts as the local owner-, inviting me to sit and listen to nature. There, from the top of the wooden platform at the bar, the sky is lit, water slides and guess the shadows and the feeling is absolutely free.

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Comments (2)

  • Carmen Linares

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    The photo of the waterfall is spectacular. It certainly seems a special place. Of the Himba have just seen a television documentary and I thought of another world. Congratulations

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