En route to Swakopmund

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En route to Swakopmund:

En route to Swakopmund we stop first at Sorry Sorry, a village of Herrera. Here in stark contrast to the Himba, the women dress in many layered voluminous skirts, shawls and pancake triangular hats, their unique interpretation of 19th century European ladies dress.

Tourism is the life blood of so many rural communities here, the women smile, welcome us and offer their lovely wares in the form of patchwork purses and beautiful, colorful, detailed dolls in traditional Herrera dress.

On my truck are several women, German, British, Swiss, Russian, American, some more sensitive than others but for the most part generous of spirit and of pocket. At every stop they marvel at the handy work, interacting with smiling, kind, humility, woman to woman, spending liberally, they do the west proud.

Scores of hot dusty kilometers later we break for lunch at Spitzkoppe.

Gigantic granite peaks rise suddenly, dizzyingly from the flat desolate landscape. This is the region of the Bushman rock paintings, the tallest peak here is over 700 million years old and rises 1,784 meters above sea level.

The heat is dry, intense, exhausting. The views are incredible, rock formations millions of years old, smoothed and carved by winds, more like giant mounds of sculpted red clay than thousands of feet of solid granite mountainside. We use fly blown long drop toilets, (whatever) pile back into the truck and press on, Swakopmund lies ahead, rooms, beds, fresh linens, fresh fish, a glass of chilled white wine...oh the simple pleasures that now loom so large!
Hopefully not a mirage!

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Comments

[Phyllis]

Herrera
Fascinating to meet Herrera people. The same ethnic group, I presume, as the Herero, who the Germans colonialists subjected to a policy of extermination when they 'settled' Namibia? Makes me wonder about the origins of the village name 'Sorry Sorry'.

[Pattygoes]

Herrera
Yes Phyllis I couldn't get to the bottom of just why the name Sorry Sorry but I suspect you are right. Just below the surface of all their modern day local culture are horror stories of one type or another. The local people as a whole were brutally treated.