Wednesday 4 May: Palmwag - Purros; 219 km

When we leave the campsite at 0730 there's a very first and timid movement in the German camp, and it looks like several people have ended up sleeping not in, but on top of their tents after having drunkenly failed to erect them. One cannot help but think that Palmwag's segregation policy may not be totally unfounded.

The C43 stays good, there are many Springbok and Oryx around, and then about a dozen Giraffe, quietly browsing just along the roadside. Gradually, the typical red of Damaraland gives way to the yellows and browns of Kaokoland. At 0930 we turn off right into the Khowarib Schlucht (canyon), which I had intended to drive up and down a bit before stopping at the Warmquelle campsite. Signs proclaiming different campsites line the track, and it's fairly unclear which track is actually the main one. After a couple of attempts, the main track does seem to be the one that goes straight down into the riverbed, with seemingly a very steep climb at the other end. As all three of us don't feel like doing any rough stuff just right now, I reverse and we head back to the C43.

Warmquelle doesn't look very appealing, and even though its hot springs may well be nice enough, we don't see ourselves spending all day there, so we decide to push on to Purros and later see what we're going to do with the full day that we'll now be ahead of schedule. We reach Sesfontein ('six springs') at 1030 and fill up at the Engen station near the old German fort. Sesfontein, where Gotlod hails from, is a fairly miserable collection of huts and shacks among the Acacia's of one of the arms of the Hoanib River, with government extension services and the office of the Sesfontein conservancy providing the main exponents of modernity.

As at Khowarib and Warmquelle, the rising popularity of Kaokoland tourism seems to provide a major economic input. Campsites and restcamps, some seemingly consisting of hardly more than a roughly painted sign and a garbage bin, are announced every few hundred meters. Obnoxiously begging children, the first of such ever seen in Namibia, provide more evidence of the blessings of foreign visitors.

The road, now the D3707, becomes rocky and corrugated, following the bed of the Hoanib. Somewhere around here there should be the turn-off for the track to Amspoort, the off-road fun alternative towards Purros. We've noted the 'Hoanib guide office' in Sesfontein, an anomaly because of its small, neatly tended grass lawn, and doing the Hoanib track with a guide on board might be a nice idea for a next occasion. As it is, we're with one vehicle, and such fun bits should be done with at least two.

As the road leaves the Hoanib for an extended steep climb into the mountains, it becomes little more than a track, bumpy and mildly challenging. I stop at a narrow section to let a convoy with Walvis Bay plates pass, one of them stops briefly, the driver shaking his head: 'Bad road, very bad road, all the way up'. We had noticed as much, my main concern is how this piece of the D3707 relates to the stretch from Purros up to Orupembe, marked on all maps as being particularly bad.

After some more winding and climbing, the track descends again and enters a wide sandy plain covered with tall grass, the Giribesvlakte. I push the pedal down, the sand is a delight to drive on, just soft enough for smooth driving, and just firm enough to prevent the car from sliding in all directions. As we leave the plain, we enter the valley of the Gomatum River, cut out in imposing mica schists on either side, and the road again turns into something awful. The numerous sandy crossing of the Gomatum are fun, but the rest is severe corrugation, rocks, and vicious stony riverbeds. Some of the detours offer a bit of relief, others are just as bad. And the heat is truly fierce.