We had some questions in our mind which was so important for us, How to find water? , How to filter water in the wild? or How to carry water on motorcycle easily?
So, we have been traveling around the world by motorcycle when we were in Africa we passed from desert, sometimes we only find water from lake or underground. You can imagine that sometimes how can be hard to find drinkable water in there but we survived. 🙂
What is most important our body to be healthy: WATER! Do you think that easy to find drinkable water everywhere or just drink from the tap? Unfortunately, you do not find it everywhere in the world.
We drink minimum 2 liters in a day and need 1,5 liters for coffee and cook. So we need to find daily total 5,5-6 liters water. If we look for a challenge and go somewhere like nowhere we must carry minimum 15 liters with us.
We always ask first the water is drinkable or not. If we can’t we can look markets to find water. But some places, we couldn’t find in Africa. We are on the motorcycle so must be easy to carry 5 liters bottle each. Sometimes not easy to put top of our bags or hang on them when we were fighting with sand or mud.
How to find water?
It is good question how to find water in a desert? We knew that we were going some roads, which pass in the desert and we would be there a couple of days. When we told people, who passed there before us they said that no chance to find. So, we couldn’t get risk for it because if we could have any accident or something wrong it could be so hard to find water. We could drink less to survive if we have it. 🙂
Therefore, we have two water bags; 4 liters and 6 liters MSR dromedary bag , with us. If we don’t carry water we can roll them, they don’t take space which is good for motorcycle trip. So, easy to carry 10 liters also we have two camel bag to carry water, which is each 2 liters. Most of the time, we carry them full because we never know what can happen in Africa.
(Sometimes we use one of them to have a shower. If we go to bush/wild camp for couple of days with humanity weather we love to have a shower of course. 🙂 The MSR dromedary water bag works fine for it. )
Yes, they are a little expensive. When we were buying we were complaining about it as well… First we bought 4 liters bag and used a year. After that we bought 6 liters MSR bag and that time we didn’t think about money. 🙂
How to filter water in the wild?
We have tablets and a straw with us to filter water and safe our life. 🙂
Water tablets: One box of tablet has a hundred pills in it. We bought two of them. We can have 200 liters water with that. If we don’t trust the water is drinkable we use a tablet. Just need to wait 30 minutes before drink. To be honest, I don’t like the pills because of water taste but if we have to we do that.
Filter life straw: I like filter stick more than pills. One life straw is for 1000 liters, which is a good deal. Most of the time, I use it with river or lake water. He likes more to use pills.
If you are travel with a car or camper you can carry 20 liters jerry can with filter but that doesn’t work for us on the motorcycle. If you are backpacker, rider or biker/cyclist you can have easily tablets, filter stick or one liter bottle with filter. They never take space. 🙂 Our opinion you should have at least one of them if you plan to travel Africa.
Also, you can check what we add in our packing list which are so small but so helpful on the road.
GS
