Tok Tokki of Damaraland

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Tok Tokki of Damaraland

December 9th, 2008

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The silence of the Grootberg-Plateau is magic an endless view into the Clip River Valley with table-mountains left and right. In the warm light of the morning sun the slops are shimmering once reddish, once yellow, then ocre coloured or white like snow. It is really breathtaking at first.

This is Damaraland, 1700m above sea level, an area where you will find almost no literature about, located around the Brandberg, Namibia s highest mountain with 2573m high, leading down to the Huab-River and towards the West, bordering on the Skeleton Coast.

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Whoever is travelling here, needs both: a reliable vehicle and guide. The guides (mostly of German origin) will show you the scarced Welwitschia mirabilis plant, or the typical African wildlife. Damaras are one of the oldest ethnias of Namibia. They mostly still live in intact villages, as they have nearly no chance to find jobs. Would it not be for the pilot-project Grootberg-Lodge
Namibia Government has realized, that eco-friendly tourism is a success and can help not only wildlife, but also people. It can create jobs which enable the locals to actually stay within their environment, and the money helps the families.
Dominic from South Africa and Simonetta from Rome have established the first Luxury but Eco friendly Lodge consisting of 11 pretty chalets on this plateau, 7 further to follow in the surrounding landscape. Investment came not only from their own pockets, but also from the European Community.
Men and women from the region helped with construction and were trained to become guides, cooks, drivers and waiters. We are proud of our jobs says Crosley. As soon as I have saved enough money, I can marry at last! Some of the communitiy’s money has already flowed into infrastructure school was renovated And books bought; in 10 years time, so the plan right now the Lodge should be managed complety by Damaras.
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The employees have a happy attitude if it was a good day they will sing in the kitchen, dance with the guest in the Lounge, they tell about the tribal culture. The Lodge is led as environmental-protective as possible, just the design is not exactly eco! It is exclusive, inviting and warm. Food is mostly served on the veranda, where also the discussions and chats after dinner take place, with a free view on the watering-place where you ll see Onyx, Kudus, antilopes and zebras. During the rainy season you ll even see some lone elephant coming up the the plateau.

It is so beautiful, there is only the food to be mentioned: a true boorish Curry (Boboti) and a addictive making Rock-Shandy red like the earth of Africa, just to mention a few. The guide Chris is adamant to show you the little five of Africa rather than the big five . Like the beatle Tok-Tokki, making a handstand. The White Lady the dancing spider. The cheeky desert-chameleon, and the sneaky Sidewinder-snake and the coloured gecko.
If you have childred (or remained a child yourself) you ll enjoy taking a ride down the sand-dunes on sledges . Passing the salt-piste of Swakop we ride towards the largest seal-colony in Africa Cape Cross, at mile 108, where you ll have action pure: around 100 000 seals are fighting for space on the tight and rocky peaks showing out of the boiling Atlanctic white foamed ocean tide, pushing the babies around, biting each other in open fight or is it just play who knows – something for nature film-lovers.
After this you ll have a lovely candle-light dinner on a lonely Lodge on the sea-shore watching the Namibian sky with its millions of stars one of the most stunning features of Africa those clear night skies, you think you can actually pick your stars.
The tour goes on to see a morbid ships-graveyard along the Skeleton-Coast , the 500km long stretch of coast reaching up to Angola around 400 wrecked ships can be seen here the waves licking on them golden sand dunes visible ashore.
Some decades ago I was camping there with a group from Windhoek and we celebrated New Years Eve there. We lit a magnesium-firework and the landscape looked exactly delighting like Kitzbuehel in new fallen virgin snow just as white. Howling jackals later at night who feasted on the scraps of our braii-vleis (grilled meat) brought us quickly back to African shores and reality, but I ve spent many years in Namibia and never heard of a human actually being hurt by jackals. And on this trip we met a couple of geologists in their lonesome tent somewhere in Kaokoland, which we crossed when we came to Skeleton-coast from inland (Outjo), and we invited them to our Silvester-party. To supplement our dwindling meat-supply, we had cought around 150 catfish by night using a flahslight and handlines not very sportive, we knew, but we were in a hurry. We smoked them in an old barrel which we filled with oakwood sawdust (we had brought a few kilos of that along for smoking fish, along with a bag full of lemon), for around 2 days and it was absolutely delicious.
And one of them told us the best kept secret of the Damaras and please note – while he was still completely sober: the geologists working for one of the big mining companies in Canada, were prospecting in Namibia then still called Southwest-Africa with little success. They found traces of this and that mineral, but nothing spectacular and they actually felt put under pressure by their bosses.
Then, one of their Damara-guides told them the story of the valley of the women . Women expecting babies they did not really want for whatever reason went into this valley all alone, to perform some rituals, and after 3-10 weeks they came back to the village and the pregnancy had always ended by then. And of course, their guide contributed this to witchcraft in connection with a certain location etc.
But our two geologists knew better than to believe in witchcraft: equipped with Geiger-counters they visited the valley of the women which was absolutely empty just the usual sand dunes of the desert but they measured radio-active presence on their instruments which explained why those women had lost their embryos – and shortly afterwards our friends – they could claim their success to their bosses: locating the greatest uranium-mining area in Southern Africa.

They did not mention if they shared their bonus with their guide (actually I m quite sure they did) but fact is: besides the DeBeers diamond mining, uranium mining is today one of the few income streams of Namibia until there is a substantial degree of growth in Eco-tourism.
However, if you plan your Wildlife Tour Package you can do so without peril even when pregnant because if there were truly another radio-active area in Damaraland, our keen geologists would have found and exploited it by now! The best kept secrets of African travel I let on above happened some 50 years ago, and for Africa this is antique history indeed as there is little documented of their older culture.
If you d like to read more untold historical vacation stories, eco tours and secret travel adventures, check back here regularly.