Route: Otjihaa Pass - Puros
Distance: 198km
The night was spent pretty tentless I believe, not sure, since I went down first, see the sleeping bag in the middle of the river. Everyone else had to find comfort further to the edge of the riverbed...from the typical snoring complaint!
Some of the most polution free sunrises you would find on the planet:
Only two had the courage to venter into the riverbed's thick sand, the others found cover upstairs:
And upstairs had visitors very early that morning:
This is pretty much how all the roads looked to and down the Otjihaa Pass:
It is always more assuring to use the front and two side brakes!
This is and South-Western view from the top of the Otjihaa-Pass
Maverick was riding on a flat tire and thought it would be good to spend some extra time next to wheels, just to encourage them to treat him good:
The coolest plants hang out here, surviving on as little water as possible:
In the middle of this flat area the road splits, and if you did not have a GPS, it would be just as good as throwing a dice when it comes to picking which side:
Maverick and Lootch spend some time here taking pictures, but actually also to replace bad tube on the GS, while the front ones are sitting at the next split. They were sitting so still that the snakes felt at liberty to crawl out of their holes...no pictures of that though, and sitting still was officially over!
The road started to hit the more flat parts of the valleys and we managed to get the speed up a bit. Lunch was at a point where the road left the river and Uncle H had to be called back from his quest to only ride in the river.
Some of the bikes, if not all, took the chance to refill. My blue horse was already 17 clicks in reserve at this point.
Leaving the river was not improving the road off course, but soon after this we joined the road coming from the North and the flat plains allowed us to ride next the road again. Here is a shot just before joining the road from Rooi Drom to Orupembe:
At joining the "big road" there are plenty of nothing:
Then, as you approach a waterpoint of some sort, you need to be careful of the local people's extended family:
The was almost turning nicer, but still two tracks:
At the top of the road, which we guess was the center of the city of Orupembe was the "million (Namibia) dollar" police station:
We looked back at the incoming support vehicles:
And they have one windmill to un-thirst about 500 animals, 30 people and 2 police officers:
View to the West just as the road makes plenty of curves leaving town:
Now for the road from Orupembe South...we did not want to get stuck in the riverbeds with the elephants, so opted for the marked road going South South West from Orupembe to Puros, which was marked corrugated on all the maps that we could get our hands on, but it should have been marked "YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH BADLY -" or "DO YOU REALLY FEEL LIKE SHAKING YOUR LIVER LOOSE - " or "HOW MANY PARTS CAN YOUR BIKE SHED - " CORRUGATED!!!
You can even see the mirage on film in the back:
We all hoped this was staged:
Lets call this a "Bike party in the middle of nowhere":
Even four wheels do some work on your back and but, this driver had enough of his white beast:
Yes, we have to go all the way down there and around those mountains, ouch:
More views of nothing else than pure beauty:
Loosing your number plate is called "stream-lining" around here!
And if your horse is streamlined, you should stand over it like this:
Where the big riverbeds through the desert cross the roads, it is quite a change of scenery, plus the danger of dust holes:
Where do you think we should ride?
A couple of miles north of Puros, the moutains surrounding the Huaruseb river was just amazingly pretty:
Finally we could see the end of the day's suffering down there:
A happy-the-day-is-over-KTM-man:
The busy life in a camp:
Please sleep nice and still in this formation, even if you are inspected by an elephant tonight, pretty please?
Bikes are not food are they?
And if you have more HORSE power, you defend yourself against an ELEPHANT by yourself, ok, we'll leave you with some purple padding:
We survived, even tribal counseling!
