The impressive mountains in the far North of Kunene dwarf two himba walking home from a visit to a neighbouring village.
Early morning fog coming in from the Ocean gives the peculiar stone landscape of the Khumib area a fairytale-like atmosphere. The much needed moist is sucked up by the plants that manage to survive in this arid and scorching hot area.
The extreme afternoon heat in the desert creates a mirage called heat haze or heat shimmer, almost dissolving a family of mountain zebra's into their rocky background. Heat haze is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects, that may seem to melt. It is very common in the desert.
The mummified carcass of a brown hyena that died close to the Atlantic Ocean, probably on its way to hunt for baby seals. Brown hyena's living inland are known to walk as much as 20 to 30 kilometres a night to catch prey to feed their pups.
The carcass of an oryx or gemsbok at the plains North of the Hoanib River. The animal was most probably killed by lion or spotted hye; the white droppings on the stoare from vultures that fed on it. The bone, skull and other bone parts will eventually be crushed and eaten by spotted hyena's.
The feet of a 6 or 7 year old girl in a village close to Opuwo.
A chacma baboon at dusk, looking for a place to spend the night. The chacma baboon often sleeps in large groups on high rocks, cliffs or in trees at night to avoid predators. The animal has a wide variety of social behaviors, including a dominance hierarchy, collective foraging, adoption of young by females, and friendship pairings.
A young Himba girl in Orupembe. Hairstyle and jewelry play a significant role among the OvaHimba, indicating age and social status within their community. Young girls have two braided plaits extending forward towards the face, often parallel to their eyes, the form of wear showing the patrilineal clan they belong to. The style remains during preadolescence until puberty.
A deserted Himba hut built of mud, dung and branches. Living a semi-nomadic life following their cattle, the Himba may not visit the same area for years. These days it is necessary for them to lock their domed huts because tourists visiting the area started taking objects from these huts, thinking the owners had simply abandoned them.
An Angolan giraffe in the Hoanib riverbed during a long drought in the area. All rivers here except the Kunene are ephemeral ; they will only flow for one or two days after intense rain, and this may not happen for years in a row. It is even more rare for a flowing river to make it all the way to the ocean. The riverbeds attract a lot of wildlife because they provide shelter, food and sometimes even water. But this, in turn, also attracts predators.
Like other animals, the giraffe have adapted to the dry environment in Kunene. If water is easily available they will drink, but they don’t actually need to and can obtain all the moisture they need from their food. They can often be seen browsing early in the morning when there is still dew to be found on the leaves. These giraffes are also lighter in colour than most other giraffes and turn even more light during droughts, which is most likely an adaptation to better blend into the desert-scape in which they live.
A desert adapted elephant in the Hoanib riverbed. These elephants - now restricted to a few area's in Mali and Namibia - have developed certain adaptations for desert life and have relatively broader feet, longer legs and smaller bodies than other African bush elephants. Adult elephants can survive without water for up to three days at a time and may walk up to 70 kilometers at night to find water.
A Himba man in a tiny settlement next to the Khumib riverbed. Most settlements like this are located close to locations where there is water, either from manmade holes in the ground or from natural wells.
A Himba woman is cutting branches to build a hut. These domed huts are simply built with a few bent saplings in the ground, bound together with palm leaves or fabric and covered by one or two blankets. The wooden structure stays behind when the inhabitants move on, making it extremely easy for other people that visit the area to build a shelter.
Karirii-he lives with a few young children and a couple of goats in a tiny settlement just outside the Hoarusib riverbed. She is not a Himba but a Herero. The Himba are closely related to the Herero and speak the same language; they used to belong to the same tribe until the modern Herero left the area which is now called Kaokoland at the end of the 19th century.
The people that stayed behind are now called the Himba and stuck to their old traditions much more than the Herero did. The typical Herero dress that Karirii-he wears is an adaptation of the Victorian-styled dress of the German settlers.
A Himba chief in colourful skirt and jacket smokes a cigarette rolled from a piece of newspaper. The OvaHimba have a very different perception of colors and use four colour names. Zuzu stands for dark shades of blue, red, green and purple; vapa is white and some shades of yellow; buru is some shades of green and blue; and dambu is some other shades of green, red and brown.
A sick child in a hut next to the Hoarusib riverbed. Although the Namibian government tries to get some basic healthcare deep into this remote region, for many people a visit to the doctor is simply not an option. The only way to get some decent medical care is a visiti to the town of Opuwo, which may take up to 4 days or even more, depending on your luck in finding a vehicle that happens to go there.
Mountain zebra against the backdrop of the barren landscape of Palmwag.
A fork-marked sandsnake
Drinking at one of the few permanent waterholes in the desert is a matter of survival for most animals. But it is also a dangerous activity, because predators know that prey animals will eventually turn up wherever there is water to be found. That means that periods of long droughts are bad news for grazers like zebra and springbok, but good news for predators such as lion and hyena.
This mountain zebra was ambushed by lion at the Gai-As waterhole. Archeological finds indicate that this waterhole was visited by humans as long ago as the later stone age, many thousands of years ago.
A few young herdsboys stand at a goat killed only minutes earlier by a leopard. The animal was close to giving labor and didn't stay close enough to the rest of the herd. The risk of such an attack is always imminent in this region; many herdsmen use dogs to prevent this from happening and at night both goats and cows are being kept in corals in the village.
A woman in Okandjombo resting in the shade of a hut.
Himba women apply a paste of butter, fat, and red ochre known as otjize to their skin and hair and wear beaded anklets, supposedly to protect their legs from venomous animal bites. Both men and women wear large numbers of necklaces, arm bracelets, sometimes almost like sleeves, made from ostrich eggshell beads, grass, cloth, copper as well as PVC pipe.
The Peace Bar in Etanga. Alcohol is readily available in most towns and villages these days.
An older Himba woman in a small restaurant in Opuwo, the main town of Kaokoland and the center for any Himba wanting to trade something.
Himba women are traditionally not allowed to use water for washing. This probably dates back to the great droughts where water was scarce and only men were allowed access to water for washing purposes. Apart from applying red ochre on their skin, women take a daily smoke bath in order to maintain personal hygiene.
A young mother and her baby in Marienfluss, Northern Kaokoland. Most of the villages and settlements in remote Kaokoland are predominantly female. The men are often out of town with the cattle or even living in larger towns. Many women stay permanently in their traditional villages, conducting their daily activities without the involvement of men. That means many of them raise their children without fathers, but with the support of other women.
A woman in Marienfluss shows the passport photographs she had made in Opuwo for her identity card. In many ways Namibia is a surprisingly organised country. Every citizen that reaches the age of sixty is entitled to a monthly old age grant and these are distributed in cash to the remotest corners of the country.
On top of the women’s head in the picture is the Himba crown or Erembe. This crown is made of cow or goat leather and is placed on the head when a girl reaches puberty.
Himba women gathering in a small restaurant in Opuwo, the commercial center for all Himba. A few years ago the town was not much more than a few dusty streets; these days there is asphalted roads, traffic lights, ATM's and well-stocked supermarkets.
A himba boy collects all young goats early morning to put them in a corral during the day, before he sets out with the herd. The smaller animals would be easy prey for predators like hyena, leopard and even jackal.
Traditional outfits are slowly being replaced by modern, Western clothing. As Himba children go to school, their attitudes towards traditional dress and gender roles are often challenged.
A young girl in Otapi village, just South of the Kunene river and the border with Angola.
The vast space of remote Hartmann's Valley makes a single oryx look like nothing more than a little dot in the landscape. Hartmann is often described as a moonscape and is unpopulated, apart from the far Northern section where it ends in the Kunene River that forms the border with Angola.
The dune belt is the edge of the Skeleton Coast; a rocky, sandy and very unhospitable strip of land approximately 40 kilometers wide that separates the area where the Himba live from the Atlantic Ocean. Most Himba have never in their lives seen the ocean.
A black rhino in Palmwag. Kunene has the world's largest free-roaming population of black rhino. Here, the animals live in an unfenced wilderness, not restricted to a specific park or reserve.
Critically endangered, but unaware of the enormous threat looming over their future.
You could say the exact same thing of the people living here.