The demonic theft

The bang must have been overwhelming and ear deafening, but there's no one to tell the tale. We're sitting on top of the Hoba-meteorite, the largest meteorite of the world: an almost perfect square piece of iron, also containing some nickel, cobalt, zinc and copper. The over sixty ton weighing space projectile made the Namibian earth tremble and shake about 80.000 years ago. What can you actually do at a meteorite's site? Not much, and within ten minutes we're on our bicycles again en route to the west of Namibia .

Tsumeb is the first town in Namibia with an affordable internet-cafe, unfortunately with a very slow connection. Off-line we type our latest stories and bide our time until we meet with a computer that has some more kilobytes per second. On the beautiful and clean campsite in Tsumeb we're being entertained by dozens of banded mongooses, who search the terrain for leftovers from the tourists.

On our way to Otavi we visit Tsumeb's Open Air Museum , where the ten most important Namibian tribes built their homesteads. The guide of Bushmen-descent speaks perfect English and showers us with useful information; from now on we can immediately tell what tribe lives in the huts alongside the road.

Between herds of wildebeest, roan and sable and after having climbed Namibia 's first mountain pass without a real effort, we arrive in Otavi quite early, thanks to a following wind. Did Tsumeb turn out to be a compulsory stop for tourists on their way to Etosha, Otavi clearly is not. The silent village offers no more than a cornflower-factory, a railway, a Spar and some bars. The campsite is actually closed due to renovations, but we get permission to pitch our tent.

The 123 kilometre straight road to Otjiwarongo leads us right through endless bone-dry bush again, of which we have seen thousands of kilometres already. It's becoming boring, this part of Namibia . Luckily there are some nice villages with amenities on the road; otherwise we might be forced to accept the ride a truck driver offers. Otjiwarongo is such a nice place, a lively village with a lot of shops. It becomes even more attractive after we've met Lorraine , the manager of the hostel of the Edugate Academy. She invites us to stay at the hostel for a couple of days. We meet Frikkie, the headmaster and have a lively discussion with the boarding children at night, about our journey and life in general. We stay for three days, in our own room, with use of kitchen and computer. The virus-infected computer from the lousy internet café in Grootfontein ruined our stiffies: all the lists and stories we stored on them are unreadable. For seven months we have been carrying a couple of memory-cards from the camera's with us, now we have the ‘great idea' of using them to store the stories and photographs. Are we finally rid of those delicate stiffies. For two days we work like donkeys until the computers of the Edugate Academy are red-hot and our work is finished.

The north-easterly wind blows us to Outjo, where Camp Setenghi turns out to be closed for public three years ago. Despite this, owner Wilma gives us a stone bungalow for the night. From the high rocks, in the shape of cauliflower-ears, we have a view over fifteen kilometres of valley and the Fransfontein Mountains , while the sun sets at the horizon.

We stop over at the mission post of Otjikondo, where a policeman of Herero-descent pours us fresh water. Following centuries old traditions, he takes the first sip, to prove us that the water is not poisoned. The day was quite boring up until now, the road long and straight and the bush didn't change much either.

Then we cycle the last stretch to Kamanjab and life becomes exciting again: two giraffes run ahead of us, a herd of springbok runs and jumps across the road, we disturb kudu, a steenbok and a lazy grazing gemsbok. A still living, but badly wounded hare lies in the middle of the road and waits for the merciful wheel of one of the few four wheel drives. Between upright standing rock-fingers and dozens of koppies with rock hyrax watching their surroundings, we arrive in Kamanjab, completely unknowing what awaits us here the coming weeks.

We pitch our tent at the beautifully designed and quite remote bush campsite ‘Oppie Koppie' of Rik Clauwaert, a story-spitting Belgian with German connections who found his paradise in Kamanjab , Namibia , after a life of travelling.

The next morning Peter sits close by the little bird-pool, camera ready to shoot, and manages to record a Melba finch and a couple of Agapornis on his SD-card. I go to the toilet and when I return at the tent a couple of minutes later, I notice something strange: the tent is open. Taking a closer look I almost get a heart-attack: somebody broke into our tent and stole my steering-bag. I shout for Peter and he comes running my way, I'm completely destitute. Peter runs to the nearest koppie and sees a black man in blue overalls and a small bag under his arm run into the wide bushveld. I warn Rik and his help Kain. The men start chasing the thief while I remain at the tent, completely in tears. Two minutes, more didn't the thief need to crawl under the electrified fence and collect his trophy. Peter is furious, in blind anger he runs through bushes, jumps over rocks, climbs on hills, injures his arms, legs and face on the hundreds of thorny bushes that are in his path. Kain is an experienced tracker; he finds the thief's footsteps and follows them to the road. The police are alarmed and they block the road to the local township with four men carrying guns, whilst following Kain's clues.

Three hours later, with bleeding nose and lips and scratched arms and legs Peter returns to me. Empty-handed. The bag, with camera, binoculars, address book, sunglasses, eight rechargeable batteries and some other things is gone. Comfortless we lick our wounds.

May the thief burn in hell.