By Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
OTJINENE
It may not as yet be a household name nationally in the tourism industry, but there is equally no way you can deny its existence. For it has already played host to many, local and international visitors, including tourists.
This is the Kaumbangere Rest Camp, situated about four kilometres outside Otjinene on the Windhoek-Otjinene main road. It has been in operation since 2005. It can accommodate up to 11 people sharing in its bungalows, while the camping site can host up to 80 people. Tents are available on notice to those without tents but you are welcome to bring along your own tent.
Campers are assured of hot water and ablution facilities and food, if they so require but are at liberty to bring along their own food as facilities such as braai (grilling) stands are available.
Accommodation for the bungalow guests includes breakfast, while lunch and dinner is optional and available on demand for N$145 per single person a night while a couple pays N$230 a night. Two single people sharing a room do not constitute a couple and each pays the single rate of N$145 a night.
You only need N$45 per night to pitch up your tent and make use of the braaing facilities, hot water and ablution facilities. When they provide you with a tent this ups the fee to N$80 per night. Most importantly, all these come with a touch of top-drawer hospitality from the staff of the rest camp.
“Our guests need not fear about service because hospitality is within our blood,” Katjatenja assures.
The camp also doubles as a tourist attraction, housing historical traditional artifacts as well as other cultural pieces in its cultural centre. This is besides serving as a depository of the Ovaherero history, especially as it relates to their 1904 wars of resistance against German Imperial forces in German South West Africa, as Namibia was then known. The idea is to preserve this history and to transmit it to future generations. In this regard the historical man-made sand mountain where the then commander of the German Imperial forces, General Lothar von Trotha, made the notorious extermination order against the Ovaherero, is being developed into a community if not national monument.
At the helm of this venture, overseeing its day-to-day running is the young busy body, Paheja “Sir Billy” Katjatenja. He is a prot?