The Fall (part 1)

The village of Epupa, in the north west of Namibia, exists of a few houses, huts and a shop where some daily groceries are being sold. In a hut next to the store we find Jacob, a stately man of over sixty years old who originates from Angola. He sells Portuguese rolls out of a large flour bag, which was white a long time ago. In our not to fluent Portuguese we order ten rolls and walk, deeply bent, out of his dark earthen hut. That night we go to sleep very early, despite the nightcap Saskia and Hans from Sneek offer us: Peter’s backache forces him to lie down.

The next morning we cash our rain-check and chat for an hour or two. It’s always nice to meet fresh people from the Netherlands, to hear the latest news from our home-country and exchange travel experiences. When Peter visits the village later in the day, to do our daily groceries between goats, cows and half naked Himba-women, he sees an empty bakkie (pick-up). He tries his luck and is rewarded: the same afternoon we can hitch a ride over the difficult road to Opuwo. At half past three we’re ready to undertake the journey. We turn out to be not the only people to catch a ride: a cow, a pastor, a blind drunk Himba-man and an old man are joining the party as well. We squeeze ourselves in and on the car and two hours after the originally agreed upon time we depart for Okongwati, while the setting sun mystifies springbok, guinea fowl and the koppies on the way. In Okongwati we sleep in our tent, which we pitch behind the driver’s shop.

We have to rise early: at five thirty, it’s still pitch dark, we disassemble our tent and two hours later we arrive in Opuwo. This lift has saved us cycling for three days on a bad road we already know.

Opuwo doesn’t have a lot to offer except for the Himba and the next day we cycle on, without outside help. The road to Sesfontein leads through the mountain range of the Schwarze Kuppen and the Fahle Kuppen. If the trees and shrubs wouldn’t grow here, we could be cycling on the moon. Here again Namibia turns out to be a tremendously dry and rough country; it’s incredible that plants manage to grow between the bare rocks and in the bone-dry sand. The last Himba-villages are being followed by those of the Damara-tribe. A sudden explosion of baobab-trees returns us to the familiar mopane-woodland. After exactly one hundred kilometres we pitch our tent near to a dry riverbed. Hundreds of for the naked eye invisible tiny grass thorns give us four punctured tires, so we don’t have to be bored at the campfire tonight.

After a peaceful night under a million star sky we carry bicycles and luggage to the road, at a safe distance from the small, but very sharp thorns. Despite all precautions Peter has to mend a puncture after five kilometres; every African thorn seems to have our tyres for their sole destination in life.

(The following is Peter’s account of events.)
It’s half past eight in the morning.
We start a beautiful descent and cycle with some speed past a small Damara-village. Two short up hills later the next descent follows, where we can give our legs some rest. The descent starts steep (15%) and then gets easier in a faint bend to the right. Having arrived at the bottom I look around, as always, to see where Karin is. My heart stops beating when I instead of Karin see a big cloud of dust. Fear closes my throat when I cycle back up the slope, as fast as I can. When the dust slowly settles, I see her, lying dead still next to her bicycle, on the road. Filled with panic I start shouting: “Karin, stand up! Wake up, nooo!” I think she’s dead, there’s no other possibility. “Karin, stand up!” My heart and lungs seem to burst out of their cavity from straining and shouting. Just before I reach her she moves her head and I see she’s completely covered in blood. Then her head is down again and I am standing next to her. A grey mist of dust covers her clothes and body which makes the situation even more unreal. My brains refuse to accept that an accident has happened. I am dreaming, a nightmare of the worst kind. No, I have to force myself to stay in reality.

Carefully I put her upright and ask where it hurts. From two deep wounds on the top of her head blood gushes over her face, her right eye is completely shut; nose and mouth are filled with gravel and stones. She is awake, but does not react to my questions. Nauseating waves of fear, panic and sorrow hit me, while I wash the biggest wounds with water. Her right leg and arm are dirty from bottom to top and I see big cuts. Karin seems to come around a little bit and I rinse her mouth so she can drink.

I begin to realise the abhorrence of the situation more and more; we’re in the country with relatively the least inhabitants in the world, in a desert area where the nearest village is over thirty kilometres away. There is no traffic, everything is dead quiet.

Karin starts asking incoherent questions, about what’s happened and where we are. I apply bandages around her head to stop the bleeding and dress the deepest wounds on her upper arm. I drape our aluminium foil emergency-blanket around her. Despite the temperature of 25 degrees Celsius she’s cold. Every minute I force her to drink a sip of water, against her will. I studied nursing twenty five years ago and strangely enough the basic rules of first aid surface in my head one by one: drinking to avoid shock, keep warm, check for broken bones, a stabile position, clean and dress the worst wounds.

Slowly my panic ebbs away and is taken over by feelings of powerlessness and impatience. Half an hour has passed and no car has come by, nothing but dead silence… silence that feels fearful and threatening now. Karin has to be brought to a doctor or hospital!

For the first in a long time I start praying…

(read on in part 2 of ‘The Fall’ about the continuation of this tragic event)