Opuwo

This weekend René and I drove to Opuwo, the capital of the Kunene region of Namibia. Before we arrived in Opuwo, I was comparing it to Oshakati, since Oshakati (where we live) is the capital of the region we are in. Anyway, Opuwo is much smaller than Oshakati, and much more organized! There is a main road in Opuwo where everything happens and at anytime during the day there are tons of people walking up and down the main road. While the same phenomenon occurs in Oshakati, in Opuwo it is much different because of the Himba. The Himba are a traditional nomadic tribe that live in the Northwest corner of Namibia. Many of them live in smaller villages in Kunene, but quite a few live in Opuwo or at least travel to town. This wiki page is very informative and will provide pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himba
(If you remember that movie from a few years ago called "Babies" one of the babies featured in it was a Himba baby from Opuwo, Namibia.)
René and I were reluctant to take pictures for several reasons, one of which is that it is a bit awkward to take pictures of naked women. The Himba women wear very little clothing and they cover their bodies with a mixture of clay/ochre and fat- so they are red. And they all have the same clay mixture in their hair. It was really interesting to see because it is unlike anything I have ever seen before! I did manage to sneak a few pictures, and they are naturally censored by the truck the ladies were sitting in!

Check the wiki page for better pictures. I was not about to go up and ask naked women if I could take their picture!
These are some young Himba men. The men usually wear these skirts with regular shirts. And they usually have little strips of hair on top of their heads, you can see their hats cover the hair.
We also drove out of town a bit to see some of the villages.


All the dirt and earth in Kunene was so red!! It doesn't come through to well here, but everything was sooo red!!
Opuwo for us was very contradictory. There are obviously people in Opuwo who do not have a lot of money. There is very little water in the whole Kunene region, so little that they turn off the water to the entire city at 8 pm and turn it back on at 5:30 am. Also, Kunene is the only place in Namibia where they advise you not to drink the water. But it was in Opuwo where we saw the nicest lodge we have seen thus far in Namibia! We had sundowners and dinner at the Opuwo Country Hotel on both of the nights we were there.

So, these are a few shots of the inside and outside of the lodge, as well as our sunset and our view from where we ate, a view across Kunene (with the infinity pool in the foreground!). It was nuts!