Our 68th day on the bike and our longest day of the tour. 208k. I think I did a distance like this before, but I’m not sure when. It definitely wasn’t on one of my multi day trips because then I would have a blogpost on it, so it must have been on one of my single day rides, of which I don’t keep any account. So today could even be my longest day ever, but I just don’t know for sure :-)
My strategy for today was the same as for the last two days: ride in a train on a reasonable pace and don’t wear myself out, because after today there are two 165k days left till our restday in Windhoek. The day started with the same shitty sandroad on which we came in yesterday. Once I got to the main road I waited for Pete, Elaine and Jerome. Lucy and Tom also joined us in the train.
It was a long boring ride, but we got the work done. And I stayed fit. The nice thing is that Lucy, Elaine and Tom had never done a distance like this before. So while they were helping me to pace myself and save my energy, I helped them to finish the ride! True colaboration and a real collective accomplishment for all of us!
So we had a great and succesfull day as a group together. We spend 9 long hours in the saddle, on a long and boring road with head and cross winds. However, at the end of the day the sky provided nice scenery in form of massive thunderstorms that were all around us, but luckily not above us! Furthermore, today was our last day in Botswana. After 207k we crossed the border into Namibia. Country number 9! It’s hard to believe that we came this far! In four weeks time I’ll be back at work :-/
I liked Botswana. I like all the wildlife we saw and I liked the beautifull Chobe river and the Okovango Delta. I liked that I got to see elephants while I was on my bike! I liked feeling like a little kid, full with anticipation. I liked the emptiness of the country. I liked that it is flat :-) I liked the massive thunderstorms that we encountered. I liked the endless bush, which was monotonous, but which gradually changed day after day! Thank you Botswana! Expectations on Namibia are very high :-)
Leaving camp over the same shitty sandroad over which we came in :-)
Riding the train again!
Fighting winds...
I can sleep anywhere :-)
Amazing skies in the afternoon...
Amazing... we kept it mostly dry, only a few drops...
Sunset behind a massive thunderstorm...
Making friends is not hard when it rains and you have some dry space and they don’t :-)
