Day 112 618 day to go. Distance today 73km. It’s 6.50pm Wednesday 21/3/2012 Guanshu. It was a pretty fun cruising ride today with both Rube and I feeling pretty good. We spent most of the day cycling through rural farmland and small towns . I had a computer in the room last night that worked beautifully letting me do some pre Beijing logistics re visas for Mongolia and Kazakhstan and gear to top up supplies. It was a midnight finish and I was still out cold when the alarm went off at 8am. It’s totally weird starting to think about the lands of steppe and open skies. This part of our travel always seemed so distant and its not now.
So much cool stuff has happened and out travels no longer feel a concept. Alternatively its very real and very possible and very cold. Bring on Spring I say!! I just work better in the warm and am really happy with how we have managed the Chinese chilly bill days but a change of season will be dam fine. Im typing this sitting on the bed in my road stop room wearing practically everything I own. It s a funky small town very working class with rough edged colorful folk. We decided to stop as theres a small shan crossing about 750m coming up with not much on the map between here and Xinyang about 70km away. The temp also dropped with no rain this arv happily but it raining tonight. I cant pick the timing and it could have easily turned eeeeek and wasn’t keen to be stuck out in the cold and wet if we can avoid it.
So we arrived in this town and the moped men pointed us to this tiny café that ended up having rooms upstairs for 40 yen yay. Clean enough and with the best smells coming from the restaurant I may have to have a peek at whats on the menu yay :-0) I went out this arv for an Asian squat over sport message time. The moped fellas popped over to say hi and this group loved the spot tracker. They got that it sent a message home but I think I lost them trying to explain the ‘by satellite’ part. Bit tricky! Tried to draw a satellite dish on the ground but it looked ridicules and didn’t help my cred bugga bugga.
The lady from the café came out with a freshly fried folded pancake thing wrapped in a magazine page sooo super delish and hot yum. Ive just been playing with km options for the last couple of hours so I can mix it up and work in with the ups and downs in weather. Toy story was on TV in English with Chinese subtitles so that made entertaining background noise. I was checking out the crane nests today and very deserted they were. I wondered whether they are a spring nesting bird and these nests the remains of last seasons??? Anyone know a bit of crane trivia to share? Im doubting now my crane spot yesterday as a moment of delirium between consciousness and dribble. Time to find the source of that aroma. Talk soon x
shecyclesolo 