In the river

For today, I had booked a guided day trip through the very remote areas of the Damaraland, which would take me along the Ombonde river, on a 4x4 track, basically all the way back to Palmwag, where I've been the night before. Jürgen, the owner of the farm I was staying at, took me on the drive. Going through the beautiful landscapes, he didn't only explain me all there was about the trees and animals we saw, but also about live in Namibia and about him farm. I really learned a lot on this trip. We went on a quite small road towards north west, where we soon had to pass the veterinary fence again. Apparently they are expecting heaps of tourists passing through that track in the next years, as they are currently building a huge control point there (bigger than the one at Palmwag). After the fence, then soon came to the river, in which we then went, and continued driving in the river. But river in Namibia usually means only riverbed, there is hardly ever any water in it. As was expected, this was also the case today. So we drove in the riverbed, sometimes quite sandy, sometimes quite high walls on the side, lots of big trees in and at the edge of the river. We saw lots and lots of birds, quite a few springbock and oryx. They were usually quite scared of us, and tried to leave the river as soon as posdible. We came along a quite beautiful canyon, and only after almost 100 km in the riverbed, there started an area, where there actually was a little water in the river. Then we left the riverbed, but still continued following the river through the wilderness. Finally, we reached the main road again, a little bit north of Palmwag, and started our return trip along the same route I had taken yesterday. But in areas like this, taking the same road twice doesn't get boring. We passed another desert elephant (much closer than the day before), lots of giraffes, and a few kudu, also quite close. As it was quite a long way we went today (mire than 500 km), we didn't make it back to the lodge before dark, and dinner was already waiting.