#2: [06-May-21]

20-Jul-2004 -- 18.1 km east of Opuwo, the capital of the Kunene Region, lies the confluence 18S 14E. During breakfast in the campsite we consulted our maps and decided to attempt finding this Confluence on the way home.

Off the eastern main road lies a track leading to the Mopane campsite, another community tourism project. The track continues northeast from here and leads to various villages in the area.

We went on many detours and, thanks to a friendly wood collector who guided us onto the right track, we eventually reached a rural village called Ovivero. This is a Herero village and the two friendly women present were Rachel and Tshivehai Kashiri. It was here that we discovered that the road does not continue any further. We were still 3.66 km from the Confluence.

The hike into the mountains would have taken us about 2 hours, time which we did not have. We had to take the tough decision that we would leave this Confluence as an attempt and return another day to complete it. Disappointed, we left the village, taking a shortcut back onto the main road to save time.

Some way from the village, we arrived at a broken water pump surrounded by about 500 head of cattle. Some farmers and labourers surrounded the broken water pump, looking quite despondent. We spoke to the headman, Tobias, and discovered that the problem was not that they could not fix the pump, it was that they did not have enough fuel to make the return trip from Opuwo where the pump needed to be welded and repaired. We decided to give them some money to purchase fuel in Opuwo so that they could repair the pump and supply water to the 500 cattle. Moods at once became increasingly happy and the farmers were confident that they could now save the cattle.

Perhaps we weren't meant to complete the Confluence that day, but rather to help the farmers and help save all those cattle.