October 24th: Zhanjiang 湛江 to Pucaotang 浦草堂 – 26.53 miles
Day 11
Oh what a sweet surprise! After fleeing the city we had a pleasant ride through the countryside. That is until we were cornered by some curious passersby. First a car stopped blocking the shoulder, and young man got out to take a picture, we stopped and waved him off, but he persisted. Next a 3 wheeled cart stopped next to him, then a scooter and a pickup truck. The more that we stayed, the more that stopped until they were blocking two thirds of the road forcing tractor trailers to veer off into oncoming traffic. Feeling more or less cornered and trapped, both Cher and I lost our temper and started yelling and tailgating a motorcycle. Soon we calmed down and felt ashamed because our conduct was perhaps even worse than those that trapped us at the first place.
If seeing us on trikes is the highlight of their day so much so that they deny their own instincts of self preservation to snap a photo while stopping in traffic, it cost us nothing to remove ourselves to a safe spot until they are satisfied. However, it is very difficult to dampen that basic instinct of fight or flight when you are trapped, even if it is by a mob armed only with mobile phones. However, we both agreed that for our own health and safety that we have to be the better selves, even if that was the 7th car that day that stopped our progress.
Just after lunch we drove by a handsome forest with very little brush between the trees. They were made for hammocks! We couldn’t pass the opportunity to try out our hammocks and tarp that we had been carrying around for the past 2 weeks, even with only 2 liters of water between the two of us. Following a dirt path we pulled off and pushed our cycles into the bushes. Hot, sweaty, thirsty, dirty, and tired we pulled in and waited for the sun to set. It was 2pm and even sitting still in the shade made us sweat. We killed out time by putting up the tarp for sun protection and debating the visibility from the road. The temperature finally dropped at sunset. We should have known this was a bad omen but weren’t hammocks made in and for the tropics?
The nightmare began as Cher’s hives broke out in the middle of the night, with dirt and sweat all sealed up in the clammy hammock. Though it was grilling during the daytime, it was chilling during the night, but not quite cold enough for down sleeping bags. As a result, half of our asses were freezing in the cold breeze where they were snuggled against the hammocks, while the other half sweated under the down sleeping bags. Cher spent her itchy night listening to me snoring away, mosquitoes buzzing around and rats squeaking under our food bag. The decision that we should abandon our hammock dream was easily made the next morning.
We didn’t even really need to camp. We have not had any problem keeping our budget of 10USD per person per day so far. We will surely be enjoying our fully air-conditioned hotel rooms without worries, if we can find one that is.