Today I entered into Namibia and knowing how borders can be I decided to make it an easy day. Plus the next point of interest stop was 300 of dirt road. I pulled into a Lodge on the orange river. I was lucky as they only had one room left. As I was unloading the GS I happen to look down at my left pannier and again discovered a problem and again due to the rough corrugated surface. The exhaust extension had broken off. The result of this is that the heat from exhaust is trapped by the pannier and in this case has melted the rear lower pannier mount. There is still a little of it left but will not last long. The area I'm in is very remote, with my chances of getting it repaired here being zero. After looking at the map and talking to other travelers at the lodge I decided to travel in the opposite direction I had planned on in search of a larger town where I could make a new mount and exhaust extension. The key was also to travel on a "Tar" roads as they are called here. In this part of the world everybody drives on "Gravel" roads because if you want to see any thing of interest or amazement its on a gravel road. That also explains why I'm traveling mostly on dirt roads, plus when locals ask if your traveling on gravel and you say I was thinking of tar, you get this major look of disappointment!
The day was not a disappointment as I meet a great group of guys from Cape Town here in Namibia to do a week long hike in the mountains and canyons. The land scape here is much like the deserts of Nevada.