Posts from — August 2008

daily distance: 136km
total distance: 8017km
riding time: 5-6h

There is not much to report - indeed there aren’t really any pictures of today. The night was terrible, I kept being woken up by the wind which was nothing short of ferocious. It still was when I crawled out of the tent and I wasn’t even sure whether it was a good idea to move out at all.

The choice was a good one. After a sluggish start (meaning just over 22km/h) things really got rolling. It wasn’t painful at all - for a good two hours, I was well above 30km/h and sometimes even above 40km/h for extended time periods. It was a great feeling and despite some high temperatures, it was possible to keep going until the early afternoon when I arrived in Chenaran. A couple of banana milkshakes later, I was doing well again. I found an internet cafe with the help of an owner’s whose own cafer was closed and spent the entire afternoon there trying to organize things for my US visa (good internet connection let me make calls over skype without much of a hitch). I hope that things are on track now.

Left Chenaran rather late, but found a good place to pitch my tent. It felt strange at first … there were only women. A long palaver later, a man arrives and within a couple of seconds he points to the inside of the compound and says to pitch the tent wherever I see fit. He later on brings tea, fruit and veggies in masses.

Feel very tired, but can’t complain at all about the day.