Not As Crazy As You Might Think

Bushmen at Fiume Bush Camp demonstrate their hunting technique. Photo by Joe Yogerst.

If you’ve seen the classic African film The Gods Must Be Crazy, you already know that Namibia’s San or Bushmen people have quite a well-honed sense of humor. You can experience the comical side of life in the bush firsthand at Fiume Bush Camp in northern Namibia.

Located about an hour outside of Grootfontein, the remote camp includes both wildlife experiences and a chance to hang out with genuine Bushmen. Visitors stay overnight in comfortable safari tents with full bathrooms and hot-water showers, eat three meals in an open-air dining area and gather around a roaring campfire at night.

The camp and the tribal encounter were created by Jörn Gressmann, a German-Namibian who spent much of his childhood playing with local Bushmen kids and learning their traditions. “I knew fluent San [the Bushmen language] before I learned how to speak English,” he laughs.

The day-long Bushmen experience kicks off with a walk in the bush with N!ani and other hunters who demonstrate how they catch their prey, harvest bush food and start cooking fires from scratch. Humor is an intrinsic part of their presentation, the bush equivalent of hilarious comedy routines in which hand signals and body language are much more expressive than mere language.

The experience continues in the afternoon with a village session, during which Bushmen show how they make everything from bows and arrows to gorgeous ostrich-egg necklaces. There’s a chance to test your skill at hitting a target with a freshly made arrow, followed by Bushmen-style dances and games that you are free to join in. After dinner, visitors return to the Bushmen camp for dancing and songs around a campfire . . . as the moon rises over the Namibian wilderness.

African Profile Safaris can arrange a minimum two-night stay at Fiume Bush Camp, as well as private flights from Windhoek and road transfer from Grootfontein Airport.