A Peak In Time.

Rock on.

Spitzkoppe, Namibia – We tumble over rough roads like rocks being panned for gold.

A few ramshackle homes – scrap metal, folded like origami – dot the still-barren landscape. Nearby, a makeshift table cobbled together from a couple spare tires offers a selection of handicrafts to visitors to Spitzkoppe – described as Namibia’s Matterhorn. Additional tin trinkets twinkle from the branches of pale scrub.

We are the only dusty speck on the road for miles.

Shady rays attempt to force their way through the clouds, lighting one side of the jagged rock, which, ages before, chewed its way from the earth during a volcanic eruption. Despite the years, its teeth remain prominent, albeit dulled.

The ochre-coloured hills stand 1,700 metres above sea level and 700 metres above ground. Tucked within them are caves nomadic tribes inhabited between two and four thousand years ago. On their walls, the remains of red pictograms – painted with blood, ostrich egg yolk and red and yellow ochre – which depict giraffe and rhinoceros pointing the way to local water sources.

What have I told you about writing on the walls, Jimmy!

Others show people transforming into animals, as represented at ancient ceremonies. Tucked below stands a white zebra, painted with milk bush – an endemic poisonous plant also used to tip arrows. According to legend, even the smoke from burning it is fatal.

Rhinoceros, however, find it particularly tasty.

The drawings were only discovered 50 years ago, and, somehow, you can still walk right up to them.

It’s art with a purpose. Unlike most other, it’s also timeless.