15th Aug. Purros, Damaraland.
Last night, before we left the campsite and Marienflus, I cooked up a meal of eland steaks for the four of us. We had bought 4 fillets a couple of weeks earlier at a farm butchery whom we had bought some off 2 yrs ago. Talk about returning customers complaining of their earlier purchase, at that time one fillet was so tender, the other was so tough we had to throw it away. I mentioned it to the bloke there who happened to be as wide as he was tall, he said we must have been given an old beast. Didn’t give us a discount though. Anyhow, these fillets were very tender, Max and Moira were slow eaters but we polished the 12 fillet steaks off with ease.
We traveled some 220kms south today retracing or steps over some horrible roads once more until we got to Orupembe which consists of a shop, windmill, 250 drinking cattle, a couple of herdsmen and a new police station. The road improved after that and reached Purros later in the afternoon. In places there were no vegetation yet you come upon ostriches, springbok and gemsbok in good condition. All of these birds and animals don’t need water; they get enough moisture from the plants they eat.
The town of Purros consists again of one shop and 50-70 one room huts scattered over a large area. The bush campsite was a few kms out of town with signs warning of food left attracting elephants. The village is a good base to view the desert elephants of which there are 69 in the area. Also a pride of lions to keep the balance. That afternoon we went with a guide, Theiunis, he with the 5 children and a girl friend at 34, and found 6 of the creatures at a spring in the river bed. There are 69 in the area. They are such beautiful creatures to watch and if anyone wants to know a bit more about them the book ‘The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony is a great book to read. An older male was showing a younger bloke how to fight with pseudo rushes and tusk jabs. The older female is usually the matriarch who runs the herd, the younger males are accepted until they reach maturity then leave to join bachelor herds.
A word about the camp sites in Namibia. The one here at Purros is typical; run by a community council each site has a braai (BBQ), sink, tap and usually shared ablution block. This one has one per site. In Australia the owners would have squeezed into the one site: 2 tents, 2 motorhomes and three caravans at least. The one we had at Etosha NP was big enough to build a small house in. Power is often supplied at no extra cost. They had planned to build a swimming pool at this one, it even says in the Lonely Planet that there is one, but realized thirsty elephants and relaxing tourists would be a disastrous mix. Elephants are very determined and do anything to get to water.
The toilets & showers are also quite novel. There are hardly ever any doors on the units, just a couple of corners for privacy. We usually leave our shoes at the entrance to let people know. The walls are made from stakes or rush and lucky to reach 1.8 meters tall. Often there in no roof apart from the branches of a tree. The first time I showered in one the tree happened to be an acacia with sharp thorns, when I lifted my arms to take my shirt off I received nasty cuts on my arms. I soon learnt.