Opuwo Country Hotel Kaokoland

... made our way to Epembe, biting the dust of a truck loaded high with Coca-Cola products. At Epembe we branched off as we headed towards Swatbooisdrift. Fortunately we now had <br>the road to ourselves. Near the junction to Swartbooisdrift I got my first sight of the milky-green Kunene river that snaked its way between Namibia and Angola. It was now late afternoon and we were hot, dusty and tired and we looking forward to arriving at our ...

... latter 2 are open but quiet as it's the afternoon).<br><br>TIP: Ask for the local school kids to come and demonstrate their dances to you. This is an after-school type programme. (it does cost a little money but nothing unreasonable). You WILL get involved whether you want to or not. It's lots of fun!

... to get there and was definitely worth the drive. It is similar to Vic Falls in that the river just falls over a great big crack in the ground! This is still the Kunene River which is the same one which flows past our camp. This side of the Falls is Namibian and the other side is Angola. It is low water at the moment, but even so the Falls are still pretty spectacular. The water comes over in four or five different places and when there is a lot of water it must be spectacular. <br><br ...

... Off again!<br><br>13.11<br><br>Stopped! Gary's tyre.<br><br>We got to Opuwo at about 11am, filled with fuel and amazingly there was a Continental tyre place next to the BP station! Gary bought two new tyres and had them fitted onto his trailer. Its one of these which now seems to have a slow puncture and we&#8217;ve only done 20km &#8211; Grumpy shirt for Gary??!<br><br>Opuwo is described as a ...

... attached to his car battery and they have just cut a bolt which was too long! Is there nothing that can&#8217;t be done out here!!?? As I said we are in the middle of nowhere, there is grass as far as you can see and just the mountains in the far distance &#8211; yet they have just used an angle grinder!!!<br><br>12.28<br><br>Still not a person or vehicle in sight but Krista is now trying to phone the rental company on the sat phone, but none of the numbers seem to be working. We ...

... let&#8217;s hope this is not the start of bad luck!!<br><br>We drove across the desert and the sand became blacker and there were a lot more stones. We saw lots and lots of gemsbok but not a lot else. The roads weren&#8217;t too bad, although there was some corrugation at times. The areas were vast &#8211; huge desert valleys surrounded by mountains. We took the 4WD track to Orupenbe, which was marked on my map, but then we turned north into the ...

... ele tracks, but unfortunately no animals.<br><br>Gary is now out of the mud and we are about to set off again!<br><br>Later<br><br>The valley we drove through this afternoon was lovely &#8211; it was very different from the other one mainly because this one still had the river flowing through it! We had no idea what was going to happen when we first started driving &#8211; how deep would it be, would we get stuck? As it was it was a beautiful drive. We ...

... it was like talc, all you had to do was put your foot down and the dust would puff up, so you can imagine what it was like driving through it! We drove through a very beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and had to negotiate some very soft sand.<br><br>One problem we have at the moment is my window will go down, but not back up. The trouble is I keep forgetting and open my window to take photos, of course then Dave has to close it again from the front ...

So after finding "Heppa" and her mother, we decided to go to a Himba Village just a few kilometers along the river bed.  I so wanted to try to find the actual village I stayed at 10 years ago, but it was probably 20 or so kilometers and it was already dark, and I have to say I was quite tired from the long drive up.<br><br>We arrived at the village and I met the chiefs wife, as he was away somewhere.  We gave her the presents, and I said I wanted ...

I didn't think I&#8217;d manage to squeeze in another blog entry before I got back to Arizona, but I&#8217;m in Etosha Park, waiting for the fire to burn down and turn into coals so I can "braai" my meat! And of course enjoying a delishioso G&amp;T. OMG, what a day it was yesterday and today&#8230;&#8230;..<br><br>I left the CCF late, around 10:30AM for a very long drive to Opuo. So I motored along about as fast as my Toyota 4x4 rental car would go. The clock ...