Monday, May 2, 2011

Just when we thought it was over...

Nine days of off road.  We've done this before.  Smooth sailing?
Has it ever been from day one?  No.
Isn't this why we come here? Yes

We head out just before day break, lunch truck packed with the usual ingredients, a few bikes on the roof, ready to set up the mid ride refuel for the one hundred and twelfth time since Cairo.  Exciting day?  Well of coarse.  Western Namibia is currently experiencing a 70 year record in rain fall.  The desert is green and the roads are rivers.  Our Lunch truck; a custom 4x4 beast, but not exactly a great swimmer.

No need to ask what happened, but lets just say Lunch was set up a little earlier than planned that day.  After 45 minutes or so of digging, and rock placing, we had successfully plowed through 1 of 10 washed out sections of road.  Riding my bike into camp from that point on was a day of glorious victory where the bicycle was clearly the more amphibious option over any large cumbersome gas powered beast.  All 100 of us, plowing down the steep descents, through the rivers, the mud trenches, rock piles and back up the other side, just to do it all over again.  Every km coming across another pile of stuck 4x4's and land cruisers, as all our riders fly past a top speed.  ha ha!  we win!

Now we have a day at Sossusvlei.  Dramatic storm clouds blowing about, bursts of intense sun peaking through.  Grass so white it's glows in the sideways sun, steep, jagged mountains, with valleys deep and rocky peaks.  Laying in the middle of the plains, listening to the waste high grass blow by overhead, as the feathery wisps of seed pods take flight.   Scorpions and snakes rustling near by, and somewhere out there the great predators stalk their prey.  Oh no, it's not over yet.

No comments:

Post a Comment