We arrive in Windhoek late on Tuesday afternoon, after a grueling ride across the Auas Mountains in which the city sits. We had left camp with only 100 km to reach the city and had expected to arrive by lunchtime. We arrive at 5 after 10 hours of riding into a restless wind over wave after wave of steep incline. If I stop I know the pedals will freeze under my feet, so I continue to trudge forward painfully slowly. At times the others get off their bikes to push. At each summit I stop to catch my breath and look around. It is good to see clouds and hills and slopes full of deep green grass and leafy Acacia trees. When I first arrived in the desert it struck me as beautiful, but after a week of riding my eyes grew tired of gazing into endless fields of dust. Here, in the hills, I see baboons messing around with empty plastic bottles in the laybys and I pedal past a puff adder, which slithers lazily into the roadside grasses. Throughout the ride I focus on reaching Windhoek and the rest days I have ahead. I imagine the city to be quaint and dozy. I hadn’t thought about the logistics of my arrival. I ride past a police check point into rush hour traffic in the pouring rain. I have no idea where I am going and all around taxis and lorries impatiently honk their horns and swerve aggressively past me. It quickly dawns on me that this is an African capital. I turn into a side street and wait for the others who are about an hour behind.
I have ridden over 1500 km to get here over the past two and a half weeks, and 500 km over the past four days. Leaving Keetmanshoop on Saturday morning we headed to a town called Asab, 130 km north on the B1 and marked on the map with a petrol station and hotel. The road there is flat and the only landmark to focus on is a broad mountain in the distance to the west. As we approach Asab, tired, hungry, and thirsty, the wind picks up and Stefan gets a puncture drawing the final 20 km out for what seems like hours. I finally see the faint form of buildings in the haze of heat and dust ahead. I quicken my pace and arrive to find two houses and a burnt out shell of a bar-hotel. The petrol station has closed down. There are no trees so wild camping is impossible and we are nearly out of water. We approach one of the houses, in front of which there is a donkey and cart. An old man explains that there is no running water here, but we may pitch our tents behind his house. To get water we must take a dirt track 3 km west and ask at the village there.
A young guy leads us down the track, which is littered with coarse brown rocks in the dark sand. There are goats everywhere grazing in the dust around the small houses and corrugated huts which form the village. The first building we pass is a tiny white church. It is one storey high with a pale grey corrugated roof. The glassless windows are draped with deep blue curtains and the small tower at the church’s southern end has long thin crucifixes carved out of the cream stone. Some people gaze meekly as we push our bikes between the little houses. Others don’t look up. We are led to a corrugated house with a tap in the garden. The elderly couple there smile and gesture for us to fill up our bottles. We sit with them for a few minutes and share some biscuits, before heading back down the track, with the sun setting beneath the thin clouds over the village behind. We pitch our tents behind the old man’s house, next to a 1950s purple pick-up, which looks not to have moved for years. We cook up noodles and tins of bully beef before turning in just after dark, exhausted.
On Sunday we head to the next town up, Mariental. The road there is flat and the wind blows kindly on our backs, allowing us to make the 100 km in under 5 hours. We stop at a service station on the outskirts of town and buy big glass bottles of Coke which we drink greedily in the sunshine. While we sit a man stops beside us on a huge Harley Davidson and asks where we are headed. Before he leaves he brings us a bag full of drinks and burgers. The next night we stop at a grouping of little chalets, 25 km south of Rehoboth, where the owner lets us camp for free. The road there is lined with long savannah grasses swaying gently in the breeze and we cycle 160 km, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, to reach the row of pastle coloured chalets, where we spend our last night before Windhoek.
It is good to spend a couple of days off the bike in Windhoek and we are looked after well here by Andre, a friend of Stefan’s. He takes us on an evening game drive on a friend’s farm. While he drives, we stand in the back of the buggy drinking bottles of beer and watching out for kudu and oryx galloping amongst the trees. There are huge eagles soaring over the hills amongst the darkening clouds. When the sun disappears behind the mountains in the distance, we make a fire and cook a big rack of lamb, which we eat on its own, with our hands. It starts to pour with rain and thunder echoes powerfully around the surrounding hills, forcing us to sit in the buggy, where we drink glasses of brandy and Coke, before driving back to the city.
Tomorrow I leave Windhoek and will take the road east towards Botswana on my own. It will be strange to cycle by myself again, but the others must head north and I must reach Maun by the beginning of April.
I have ridden over 1500 km to get here over the past two and a half weeks, and 500 km over the past four days. Leaving Keetmanshoop on Saturday morning we headed to a town called Asab, 130 km north on the B1 and marked on the map with a petrol station and hotel. The road there is flat and the only landmark to focus on is a broad mountain in the distance to the west. As we approach Asab, tired, hungry, and thirsty, the wind picks up and Stefan gets a puncture drawing the final 20 km out for what seems like hours. I finally see the faint form of buildings in the haze of heat and dust ahead. I quicken my pace and arrive to find two houses and a burnt out shell of a bar-hotel. The petrol station has closed down. There are no trees so wild camping is impossible and we are nearly out of water. We approach one of the houses, in front of which there is a donkey and cart. An old man explains that there is no running water here, but we may pitch our tents behind his house. To get water we must take a dirt track 3 km west and ask at the village there.
A young guy leads us down the track, which is littered with coarse brown rocks in the dark sand. There are goats everywhere grazing in the dust around the small houses and corrugated huts which form the village. The first building we pass is a tiny white church. It is one storey high with a pale grey corrugated roof. The glassless windows are draped with deep blue curtains and the small tower at the church’s southern end has long thin crucifixes carved out of the cream stone. Some people gaze meekly as we push our bikes between the little houses. Others don’t look up. We are led to a corrugated house with a tap in the garden. The elderly couple there smile and gesture for us to fill up our bottles. We sit with them for a few minutes and share some biscuits, before heading back down the track, with the sun setting beneath the thin clouds over the village behind. We pitch our tents behind the old man’s house, next to a 1950s purple pick-up, which looks not to have moved for years. We cook up noodles and tins of bully beef before turning in just after dark, exhausted.
On Sunday we head to the next town up, Mariental. The road there is flat and the wind blows kindly on our backs, allowing us to make the 100 km in under 5 hours. We stop at a service station on the outskirts of town and buy big glass bottles of Coke which we drink greedily in the sunshine. While we sit a man stops beside us on a huge Harley Davidson and asks where we are headed. Before he leaves he brings us a bag full of drinks and burgers. The next night we stop at a grouping of little chalets, 25 km south of Rehoboth, where the owner lets us camp for free. The road there is lined with long savannah grasses swaying gently in the breeze and we cycle 160 km, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, to reach the row of pastle coloured chalets, where we spend our last night before Windhoek.
It is good to spend a couple of days off the bike in Windhoek and we are looked after well here by Andre, a friend of Stefan’s. He takes us on an evening game drive on a friend’s farm. While he drives, we stand in the back of the buggy drinking bottles of beer and watching out for kudu and oryx galloping amongst the trees. There are huge eagles soaring over the hills amongst the darkening clouds. When the sun disappears behind the mountains in the distance, we make a fire and cook a big rack of lamb, which we eat on its own, with our hands. It starts to pour with rain and thunder echoes powerfully around the surrounding hills, forcing us to sit in the buggy, where we drink glasses of brandy and Coke, before driving back to the city.
Tomorrow I leave Windhoek and will take the road east towards Botswana on my own. It will be strange to cycle by myself again, but the others must head north and I must reach Maun by the beginning of April.
Enjoying your regular blogs, and the lyrical prose evocative of the wide open dusty spaces. Excellent photos as well. Good luck on your solo ride.
ReplyDeletebrilliant blog mate. makes me wish i was out there doing it with you. its shitting it down here...
ReplyDeletekeep it up!