October 25th: Pucaotang 浦草堂 to Gaoqiaozhen 高桥镇 – 24.04 miles
Day 12
We have spent our first and last night in our hammocks. They are neither cool when it’s hot nor warm when it’s cold. To be comfortable in a hammock you either need a constant temperature or to be a contortionist. When it’s hot during the day the hammock envelopes you and cuts off all air flow and it’s stifling and when it’s cool at night convection robs heat from your your backside and you freeze. We spent the night alternately sweating or freezing. When we got cold we wrapped up in our sleeping bags, which compressed the insulation underneath us leaving our bottom still cool and our top hot. This caused us to sweat so we also became chilled. A sleeping pad is necessary to cut down the heat loss, but managing a sleeping pad and sleeping bag in the narrow confines of a slippery hammock is beyond our flexibility, co-ordination and patience.
As terrible as it sounds I did sleep quite well only waking 3 times. Cher’s sleep was much more turbulent, as her hives broke out. Cher also brought up a good point against the usage of hammocks for outdoor living, who wants to be tightly sealed in their own filth after a day of hiking?
I had fantasies of sleeping in the hammock tied to palm trees on wind swept beaches, and being safely strung over prickly undergrowth where snakes and scorpions lurk, all the time forgetting that our tent is already snake and scorpion proof. Also there are few times when we can’t find a patch of earth big enough to put up a tent, even if we have to both squeeze into the middle. Therefore we have deemed the hammock and tarp as excess weight and will be mailing it back. That’s five less pounds that we will have to slog up mountains as gravity drags us back down.
We arrived in the town of Gaoqiaozhen in the early afternoon after a short ride. It’s a pleasant town. The townspeople’s curiosity is reserved and friendly. Cher’s itchiness continues. That coupled with the coziness of the town has compelled us to stay for a rest day, which also happens to be my birthday.
