Day 17: Felix United back into SA to road camp with Wataru.

Did my morning mission, took photos and left Felix United. I was back in South Africa in just over an hour passing through the Vioolsdrif border gate easily enough. My heart ached as I left my beautiful Orange River behind. I will always remember the times you let me swim in your cool, wet, refreshing bosom. (Wow, almost crossed a line with that one there ey? 'Shaddup! You’re cheapening the moment.')

Cheapening the moment.

Right we go.

So on a blisteringly hot day I was back in the country where I was brought into this world many moons ago. And the first 8kms were all uphill. Geesh, thanks SA. What a way to welcome me back. With the hill behind me I had a straight forward section whereby I came to a much needed rest stop. So that’s what I did. Stopped and rested, because by this time, the sun was fokken scorching. It was just stupid to be out in the cloudless open like that allowing all those UV free radicals to penetrate my Hollywood glossy magazine skin. I was having none of that so I decided to wait while the sun went down a bit. I was shortly joined by a friendly couple who also stopped to rest and we had a delightful chat about things in general. She loved the area and would be buried in it when her time came. He on the other hand was still coming to terms with how fokken hot it gets out here. Plus how the hell it flowers like it does every year?! It was swell talking to them. They then left and I got back to lying on the floor in the shade for a bit.

I think I was there for about 2-3 hours in total before I decided it was time to go if I was to try and make it to Steinkopf. As I was about to go I saw a small dark figure making its way towards me alongside the road. I paused to see what it was. Slowly as it came closer it formed into a shape recognizable by my soft and squishy, (don’t forget prolly dehydrated) brain. It was another adventure cyclist. Like me! I couldn’t go just yet. Finally this thin lanky tanned individual pulled into the rest stop. His name was Wataru Enomoto, and he had just cycled all the way from China!

Seriously. Who looks like they have been cycling for a year and a half?

My first thoughts were, one, what was his story? And two, man this guy looked tired! He stopped and slowly made his way to sit down with his lunch of juice, dry bread and some kind of pastry I think. He let me know his story. He had cycled from China to Turkey. Then he flew to Cairo to cycle down Africa all the way to Cape Town to avoid the European winter. He had been on the road for a year and a half and had travelled just over 34000kms!!! Holy shit I thought. That is epic! It was awesome to meet another adventure cyclist. Man, he looked tired and I don’t blame him. He was riding with more stuff than I was, plus the sun was a scorcher that day. He also told me he had met in Namibia what may have been the same English guy I told him about who was cycling up Africa.The one I was a day behind earlier in my trip.

I told him about my journey and where I was headed and we decided to ride along together. I was now ready to go so I said cheers as he was still resting. I can still recall how tired he said he was. So I left knowing we would meet each other a little later down the road. Turns out it was sooner than I thought. Wataru didn’t rest for as long as I thought he would and he slowly caught up and over took me. It was at this point I felt what can only be described as a feint pang of cyclist envy. I had up to this moment not cycled with anyone else so I was totally at my own speed till now, but all of a sudden I’m riding with someone else and this stupid feeling of’ ‘I need to keep up somehow’ shows its silly little head. I know it’s stupid and I knew it the minute I felt it but I can’t deny that it was there. I had also read something about it in Rob Lilwalls book when he cycled with his one mate in the beginning of his trip. So this feeling somewhat compelled me to try and keep up with Wataru who was clearly the fitter cyclist. I also thought to myself, how the hell is he actually managing to cycle faster than me? I got less stuff. Must be the fitness? Thing is, who cares? It’s such a rubbish thing when you think about it. But I guess that’s how things are sometimes. A little bit of competition or the desire to show you can keep up sets it. BS ego nonsense.

Stunning looking tree.

Wished I'd seen this 'Halfmens' or was it a taunt?

Retired and now on show.

So I just let it be and we carried on riding after checking out this crystal stones place. Thought it may have been interesting. Shop was closed. Didn’t care. So we carried on. I think it was about 5oclock when Wataru who was ahead of me decided to call it a day. We hadn’t reached Steinkopf and we weren’t going to. The heat of the day was just too much. So we pushed out bikes off the main road into some fenced off area and pitched out tents. The ground was stupidly hard and had all sorts of small stones and harder ones lodged into it. Sleeping on this was going to suck as I didn’t have a sleeping mat with me. Like some naïve dumbass, I had kindly said no to Adam and Pavarni who had offered one to me before I left because I thought that the sleeping bag would be enough, plus where was I supposed to put the thing and I didn’t want more weight. Man oh man. How things have changed. More weight? Thing weighs like nothing. I just didn’t know where to put the damn thing after I had packed my bike is all. So what happened? Well Wataru being the more seasoned traveler pulled out some cardboard and let me use some to sleep on. Genius I thought. He had used it mainly to sit on while he cooked his food. Plus he had his own inflatable little mattress. Pang! Cyclist envy again. His tent was also much smaller and lighter than mine. Clearly this guy had done some proper research and taken his time with regards to planning his trip. Take note future adventurers.

Look at him there with all his experience and stuff cooking away.

My meal for the night. That bag of rice lentil mush tasted pretty bad by the time I tucked into it. Prolly from over heating in my backpack the whole day.

His diet for the last few months while in Africa had consisted mainly of a spaghetti soup for breakfast and dinner.  He would buy that packet of spaghetti we all familiar with and eat 2/5s of it in the morning cooked with few veggies and some soup powder for ‘taste’ as he described. Then in the evening he would eat the remaining 3/5s of the packet. This he cooked on  a piece of equipment which I thought was flippen cool. He had this MSR fuel device where you fill it with about a litre of petrol, diesel, gasoline or whatever and then you pump it and this is attached to a stove head where you cook your food on. You can adjust the flame strength as per usual and if the fire seems to be really dying you just pump it a little more to give it some more gas. Thing costs about R1000, but it beats having to buy gas canisters all the time, but that was okay with me as getting more wasn’t a problem. Plus the main benefit is that it is usable all over the world where ever you can find a petrol station. He gets about 4 days use out of it once filled. During the day he ate pretty much plain bread, flavoured water with pastry style stuff plus whatever else he bought on the road. Hell, no wonder he looked so thin. He really enjoyed cycling through one the 'Stan' country. Either Turkmenistan or Tajikistan. He also told me about being thrown with stones by some children in a village in Ethiopia maybe. Then the parents got in on it too. Hahah. What the hell I thought? It would have been super funny to see this go down from the way he described it.

First day back in SA finished.

So my first day back in SA came to an end and the sky once again blessed us with a beautiful red sunset on the horizon. Oh yeah, and my camera died that afternoon.

The road off the main road we camped next to.

Beautiful skies once again.

Distance: 50kms