Driving from Henties to Spitzkoppe, I reflected on all the intriguing diamond smuggling stories we’d heard about along the whole West Coast from South Africa right up into Namibia. Now the road took us away from immigrants on street corners offering you diamonds wrapped in old tissue paper and the bars filled with manne who either knew at least one person who made it big from smokkeling diamonds or they themselves had some dealings in the blink klippies, “maar ons praat nie uit nie”, is a well used expression. More inland, the pigeons were safe to fly around without worrying about being shot out of the sky by a member of the pigeon security team since homing pigeons were sometimes used to smokkel diamonds in bags tied around their necks, sending the smugglers secret stash out of the secure mining areas.
Back on the desert road, gravelly sand stretched all around us meeting the horizon. We stopped in the desert overnight. We walked to rocky outcrops and soaked up the desert stillness which is occasionally broken by the sound of a lonely bird in a lonely bush calling to anyone to hear its distant chirp in the desert sun. We saw a variety of lizardy reptiles, painted in exotic colours, sunning themselves on the rocks. No fences or power lines to be seen. The occasional irritating beer bottle left to lie in the baking sun was the only evidence of man. Not even Bear Grill would be able to survive out here.
We stopped at Klein Spitzkoppe mountains where semi precious stones are excavated out of the mountains. A cluster of poor people sell beautiful crystals for next to nothing, in fact favouring food in exchange for their collected stones. I couldn’t resist a crystal or 2 which cost us a little pap, sugar, veggies and rice. We walked around the mountains and picked up a few more crystals ourselves. I’ll dam well have to turn them all into jewellery or shove them up my bum like the diamond smokkelars but they are going back with me across the border.
Driving on to little towns, all having a Oma or a Otja in their name, and marked on the map with a reasonably significant white dot, we were to hoping to replace our burst tyre (we do have a second spare) and fill up our 2nd gas bottle. Ha, no such luck. You could only buy the odd groceries or a fuse or a pipe fitting etc at the general dealer and of course there’s ALWAYS a Pep Stores making sure everyone in the bundus has enough underwear and hankies. We chatted to an old man standing in his shop doorway. He told us that he moved to Usakos in 1954, as an apprentice, when the railway siding station was booming, having its own workshops, carpentry and stores. He said that in those days, some people lived in tents or in garages and I definitely don’t think he made it up. When the railway station died mid 90’s, so did employment opportunities and the town now barely survives on a bit of road works thereabouts and caracal sheep farming. He gave us the lowdown on farming as well, saying that his friend, who had since moved to Cape Town, farmed on 60 000 hectare with 17 000 caracal sheep. Caracal newborn lambs are slaughtered within a day for their pelts. Shame. My eye caught the antique looking wooden cupboards in the shop which were mostly bare but he proudly told us they had been custom made for the shop in 1922 when it first opened its doors for trade and that the shop had stayed in the same family ever since. I imagined people coming into the shop, women in sweeping dresses and bonnets to buy a pound of sugar and men in breeches and braces to buy a pound of nails.
Then we moved on. We had travelled the last 800km on good gravel roads but we were driving into the rainy area so decided to get onto tar roads for safety. Tar roads here are nothing like home, no cats eyes, street lights or yellow lane for pulling over. Just a narrow tarmac stretching northwards, like the old N1 from Cape Town to Transvaal with a fuel garage at a dorpie if you are lucky. Surprisingly the vegetation had changed to thick lush green grass, loads of acacia thorn trees, too thick to see the wild life we were passing, except an occasional family of warthogs running a fence line, stacks of raptors circling the skies and thunder rumbling in the distance.
We had been well warned to stay off gravel roads during rain but the prospect of seeing dinosaur footprints about 30 km down a dirt road was too alluring. The sandy road seemed reasonably dry and firm so we risked it. We negotiated the first pool across the road rather well and patted ourselves on the back saying we really shouldn’t underestimate our truck. Right now I’m sitting in the truck where we spent the whole day and night stuck in the mud. The only clowns to the left or jokers to the right is us, stuck in the middle of the mud. Yesterday we dug, packed braai wood and our rubber conveyor belts and dug some more. The back wheel spat the conveyor belt out and the front tyre dug itself deeper. Theo dug some more. Eventually we gave up and ate massive mushrooms, bought from a woman on the roadside that morning and hoped the road would dry out during the night. Thunder and lightening crashed through the night and it rained and rained and rained some more. This morning the left front wheel is submerged in a mud pool. Theo and a Herero farmer, who pitched up on foot early this morning after also getting stuck 10 km back, have taken the bike down and gone in search of someone to tow us out. Mmm, I wonder if you get 4x4 military tanks with a winch around here.
I’ll see what the day brings. The only footprints out here are Theo’s, squelched in the mud. The dinosaur footprints will have to wait for another day.
Manne - men
Smokkeling - smuggling
blink klippies – shiny stones – word used to describe diamonds
maar ons praat nie uit nie – mums the word
dorpie - village
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