We had been recommended a stay at Spitzkuppe, a collection of imposing rock formations puncturing the otherwise flat (completely flat) Namibian landscape. We had a lot of fun climbing the boulders and taking photographs of the odd shapes that nature had created. After which, we set about finding a camping pitch to give us a suitably isolated location from which we could enjoy stargazing the night sky.

Within half an hour of setting up camp, we were approached by a bushman (i.e. a man, who lives in the bush) selling gemstones. As is quite normal for locals touting their wares, he was drunk. But where on earth did he come from? Politely, we all declined his persistent offer for stones and off he trotted. Only a few dozen footsteps away, he turned around and came back with an altogether different tactic.

“If you give me some food, then everything will be OK tonight” he offered.

Was this a plea for his wellbeing, phrased in questionable English, or, rather more tersely, a threat towards us? In that moment, we realised how isolation had turned against us. Quick-thinking Jasmin gave the man some freeze-dried food in an attempt to quell him. “I need money”, came the next response and we firmly indicated that we would not give him any money. Off he trotted again.

We all glanced at each other trying to assess the risk of staying-put versus moving to another pitch, under the relative safety of the overland truck groups with their twenty tents. I made the unpopular decision to move camp; in my brain it wasn’t worth the risk staying. So we packed-up and backtracked to a previous pitch, inhabited by a couple of overland groups who kindly let us share their area. On speaking to the tour leader, it turns out that she had been approached by a [different] bushman also.

The park’s, no-doubt hastily thrown-together “security team” became aware of the incidents and paid us a visit to get a better description of our annoyer. I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of them; quite probably a bunch of vigilanties from the local village brandeshing whatever they could find to look somewhat official. Of the five, one had a pair of handcuffs and a headtorch, two were armed with wooden batons and the remaining two would presumably administer a sound shoeing upon finding the nuisance bushmen. (The photograph of the security team is the last one in the gallery below — notice the headtorch-handcuff man’s thumbs-up expression in eager anticipation of finding the troublemakers.)

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