(James Lovelock)
I managed to get up early for once. Perhaps it was because, although I
was sad to be leavung the old bridge, I was also excited to be back on
the road and back to my nomadic ways. It is Sunday and lying in my
tent I could hear the sounds of an African choir (if you know
Ladysmith Black Mambaza this is the kind of thing I'm talking about)
drifting over from the far bank of the river. This was mixed with the
usual morning birdsong I'd become acustomed to in the delta (you go to
sleep to a frog/bat lullaby and wake to rounds of birdsong). Though I
was out of the tent by half five I still didn't actually make it out
onto the road until seven. Still that was my best effort yet!
As I headed up to the main road I met David on his way in, thanked him
for his hospitality, had a last look for the legendary enormous
croccodile, but I guess it was too cold and early. I never did spy
him, but perhaps luckily he never saw me either.
Five kilometers down the road I realised I'd left my sausages behind,
two big fat juicy looking ones in the fridge. Bugger! But I wasn't
going back. My final task in Maun was to pop a postcard in at the post
office (seems to be the only place they have postboxes) and then I was
away! Back into the desert!
After the tough experience of the first half of the Kalahari I'd
decided I should no longer push it in this environment. My grit may be
up to the task but my mortal being was not. There would be new rules.
I'd allow the bike to pick it's own pace and see how I got on just
sitting along for the ride. This actually seemed to work pretty well.
My pace was slower, but not significantly and I was now enjoying the
ride. Even when the winds started up about nine (in my face as usual)
the pace didn't drop off too badly. Another side to this slower pace
was that I sweated a lot less (probably also due, in part, to getting
going early before the heat of the day) this was important since I
fully expected to be unable to refill with water before Rakops the
following evening. So conserving water reserves would be key.
I'd also decided to take proper breaks rather than counting the times
out of the saddle crouching by the bike to refill my water bottle or
have a pee as breaks. About mid-morning just as the heat of the day
was really starting to get into it's stride I was taking one of these
breaks under a shady tree eating an apple, when a young guy came by on
a horse. In the shadow of the tree he didn't spot me at first and was
actually circling around inspecting my bike from his saddle when we
first noticed each other. He spoke good English (certainly better than
my Tswana) and instead of as usual asking why I'd not got a motorbike
or bought a bus ticket was instead just impressed with my plans. I've
often found this with horsemen and also with the San, unlike more
urbanised or westernised people they seem to get it and tend not to
ask why one would try to make things so much harder for oneself, just
for the sake of it. They recognise the desire to push oneself. His
name was Basuti and he was heading off to look for one of his cows he
reckoned was somewhere in the woodlands further up the road. I decided
I'd best get moving so we ended up riding along together for a few
kilometers chatting and sharing my biltong before he decided to veer
off and disappeared into the trees.
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