Day 9 - part 2(pictures from this episode can be viewed in higher resolution here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmj4kc6m)
Justin and I hit the Hoarusib river and followed it down to Purros canyon. We kept to the natural order - Justin racing upfront, with regular stops to wait for me, and me sweeping and playing at the photographer at the back.
There was quite a bit of water and the river was actually flowing at places - well the narrow stream in the middle of the riverbed was. Still, from what I have seen before, this looked like pretty good wet season.
Justin consulting with the locals the best way across the raging stream:
I watched with bated breath, but luckily he made it safely to the other side:

Disapointingly we have seen very little wildlife in this section, so we had to make use of what we could find. Joking aside, I had an uneasy feeling about this situation. On all my prior trips I have bumped into elephants, even multiple times, but this time - apart from some probably old spoor - there was no sign of them. And I didn't like to see domesticated animals in the river - this is supposed to be proper lion - not cow grazing - territory. The fact that the locals and their cattle roamed around freely made me wonder if they haven't done something nosty to eliminate the 'wildlife risks' from the area. I tried to remain positive, but couldn't completely shake off the feeling that something was badly amiss here. Hopefully it was just my tinfoil hat inner conspiracy theorist talking.
The poort - entrance to the Puros canyon proper about 10 or so km down the river from Puros:
For some reason Justin decided to stare for quite a while up this particular rock face - I thought he may have got carpal tunnel in his neck or something:
Eventually he got bored/healed:
I caught up with him again few km down river, but he set off as soon as I stopped behind him. Not one to waste and opportunity I took the picture of the pretty scenery ahead and getting ready to go almost missed little nasty surprise bloody throttle happy Cappie left for me in his wake. Can you spot it?
Here are few close-ups - it was positioned exactly where Justin was waiting for me and you can see his tracks to the immediate left. So he either dug it out of sand most probably while running it over, or it was trying to talk to him the whole time he was parked there, but he just ignored it.
I have waited a minute or two for the cobra to move away, but it clearly expected me to show some respect instead, so I just went around through the riverbed and it finally relaxed and sliped away. I'm not snake expert but it seemed to move smoothly and seamlessly, so I believe it wasn't injured - good thing that Justing E09 was more or less bald by now.
I chased after the snake whisperer, but managed to catch him only at the bottom of the canyon where the track turns south away from the river and onto the desert plains heading towards Amspoort 70 km away.
Lodge at the bottom of the canyon, where Hoarusib enters the Skeleton coast NP (off limits for bikes) and we were to turn left towards desert and Amspoort gorge.