I cross the border over to Namibia,
after a beautiful ride from the nice place I stayed. I go to the nearby town and get a new sim card and a lot of food. It is allready around two when I take a picknick lunch out of town. But then I go fast and bike, me, road and weather is all good. So in the end of the day I do 130 km. This area warns for elephants.
So I stay camping close to a house. O what people are poor. The house is so small. It is the size of a big car. They live four persons here. Of course the kitchen and shower is outside. And most activities you can do outside. But they have no toilet. Not even a hole in the ground, they go in the bush, every time! No one of the two families I speak to has a job more then occasionally, when they help a farmer plowing or cleaning a farm. I dont see how I can help theese people. I dont know where to start.
So I give them 5 USD for camping close to there house. It is not much but deffinatly reasonable and with that they can buy a couple of chickens. Even though they are poor and life is simple here I really love the stay here. My food is left over and cold from lunch but I am so hungry it is good anyway. I come tired and dirty and people are welcoming and friendly and the cold bucket shower feels so good. I stand totally naked in this remote place, the backside of the house and then the low fields mixed with bushes.
The sun is going down and the trees make beautiful scenes as the golden full moon rises. It is so beautiful.
And after the bath I sit and try to talk withthe people by the fire for a short while before going to my tent.
The next day I realise I am close by a great wild park. I have heard of it more then ones and now it is ahead of my wheels. So with only about 15 km to the check point I bunker water. 8 L should last me two days if something goes wrong. I also by matches to light the firecrackers if I need to camp and lions come. It is funny how the picture of the matchbox is a lion. I get to the gate and get greeted by the police and guards.
They ask me the usual where I come from, where to, but also where I go today and if I will manage to go through the whole park. They say I will probably be ok as long as I move in daytime. Yes! They let me in cycling! So I enter with exitement and tense fear. This could go wrong, I am dumb enough to get killed here. But it is so exciting.
I see the warning signs of an elephant with very sharp silhouettes of this ivory horn, dont remember what it is called. The next sign pictures some kind of cat. I know there are dangerous wild dogs here hunting in packs, lions, tigers, leopards but this is probably picturing hygeenas. Wow this is so scarry. I go alone, meeting a car every now and then and then I take my time to either pee or strech my legs or drink. Sometimes I go alone for a good 20 min to half an hour. I pump on fast, at least 20 km/h. And I Scan the forrest ahead left to right and right to left. This is focus for life. The road is so flat and curves are so rare they earn for every one of them.
There is some pack of animals ahead. My heart beats faster, breathe. I stop and watch. Are those hyeenas. No after a minute I see that it is baboons. So I see them go back in the forrest and then I continue. I go another half hour and see two galoping girafs. They are so nice with their slow moving necks.
Then on my right side there is a big tree giving shadow all the way to the road. I hardly notice it even if I cycle in the midle of the road. But then I see the big cat springing in to the bush, it does three big jumps. It was a big leopard only about seven meters from me when I saw it. Good thing I look so scarry. Ha ha wow what a shoock! A leopard! That close! So cool. This is so cool. Of course I have no picture for you, but imagine! A cat allmost the size of my bicycle.
As I come further in to the park there are very small villages. They tell me that I have passed the lions and cheetahs now. On my way during the rest of the day I only see a boar? A pumba- pig and a piglet. And one mighty big black waterbuffalo alone on a trail.
Yes this is the buffalo. Just above the treebranch in the midle of the picture.
I go and exit the park about an hour before dark. Yes! I made it, still alive.
I ask to stay in one of the first houses with these fences of straw. It is an old cute couple. Farmers but retired. Still very poor. They have problems with elephants and doves destroying and eating the crops. But they seem happy living next to daughter and grand children.
The next day is less interesting but I do another 200 km. I met some germans in cars. They told me the gravel roads are good. So I tried and that took a lot of swearing and an extra hour.
It is not worse the risk with this bicycle again especially when the diffrence is about 1-10.
The dirt road is a 1 with bumps from dried running water and big gravel and loose sand and compared to the tarmac which is more or less a 10. None has a very interesting scenary. The tarmac is extremly straight but with more hills today.
I see another big snake run over, black mamba?
I plan to go about 230 km but I run out of time and as the sun goes down I stop in some really shady yard with some houses that seem to fall apart. But there is a nice 27 year old guy who speaks a litle english and he sorts me out. I have the cold nice bucket shower and then I ask him to boil water. So we cook porrage that I brought and share it in the dark. He is a constructionworker. But for now he has no work. He also tells me he has built his own brick house for only 800 USD! Wow! Ok I tell him to build one more and I will pay for the material. Somehow he is not taking much notice of this.
I tell him again in the morning and we decide time and place to meet at the hardware store. But he does not come. Strange.
