March 15, 2007
To Baotay: Happy Birthday Patrick
Today is Patrick's 41st birthday.
At breakfast we figured out the places he has been on his birthday when cycling: Australia (1993), South Africa (1994), Bolivia (2000) and now in China. The weather looks stormy and it is warmer than the past few days. We start to climb out of town and we shed layers quickly.
We continue to follow the river up the valley and as the day progresses the valley gets narrower and the river almost disappears by the time we reach Baotay. The past few days, since Jinghong really, the landscape is agricultural...terraced fields all done by hand labor or water buffalo; bananas, watermelon, rice, cabbage, wheat, corn, flax, cauliflower, potatoes (we wonder if Simplot from Idaho has a field for the China MacDonald's French fries), herbs of parsley, cilantro, chives and lots of leafy vegetables that we don't know the names.
The houses are now rectangular, brick or adobe and black tiled roofs up turned on the edges. In settlements, the buildings are at odd angles to each other. Most have solar heating units for hot water and satellite dishes. We did a lot of climbing today, starting at 1251 meters and ending at 1761 meters. After the initial climb we had a downhill, but the road is torn up and we have to navigate through gravel, sometimes fine, sometimes big, sometimes the road is hard packed; we pass by a few work crews. At about 11am the gusts of wind pick up making the afternoon ride a little more difficult.
After a few stops asking for a guesthouse, we find a room. It is dusty and after we walk around town we understand why, the road is torn up and we are chased by a dust devil. We take a shower, there is hot water, but confusing plumbing. The cold water turned on, we could hear the constantly flushed the toilet, and the other value opened the hot water to mix to shower temperature in "midair" before hitting our bodies.
The toilet is down amongst the pigs as we write this, neither of us has gone yet....
Dinner is fixed by the lady of the guesthouse. We are shown the meats in the refrigerator and select one--pork; then in the kitchen we point to the vegetables and eggs that we want. She prepares a "soup" of cabbage and tofu, pork and asparagus and an omelet, all to go over rice.
All in all, a nice day, Patrick took over 90 pictures today...the beauty of digital over slide film when he would have to limit the number of pictures he'd take in a day.
Also, another interesting place to spend his birthday.
Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 6,808 km (4,228 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |