May 27, 2022
Otavi to Tsumeb
Not every day is a good day on the bike
Today was tough. Here was my take at lunchtime, “Let’s hope my 30 minute lunch break revived me for the last 13 miles. Some gentle climbs AND a less than friendly headwind are making today’s ride difficult. The scenery is nice and it doesn’t even feel like I am in Namibia anymore. I also notice I am way to focused on looking for snakes by the side of the road. On the other hand, the tall grasses are right up to the edge in a lot of places and I’ve heard some scurrying. I think I still have one not so nice climb coming my way. Yuk! 😂”
The current state of things 😂 Not in my happy place now! Actually that was when I first arrived at the rest area. Now I am sitting in my chair recovering.
The hill almost killed me!! I pedaled the first bit and then it quickly went downhill — actually uphill, very steeply. I got off my bike and started pushing. Could barely do that. I don’t know what happened. Waves of nausea, quickly out of breath, no shade in sight to sit for a minute. It took me forever to even walk up it. A car even slowed down to see if I was okay. Luckily, it wasn’t super long, but wow. My arms are covered in salt so maybe I am more dehydrated than I realize. Thankfully, I only have 5 more miles to go. I was going to camp, but now I might just have to get a room. 🤔
Let’s back up. Things started off okay although I amused myself with the “gauntlet” of free roaming animals.
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After I regained some energy, I headed the last bit into town. I stopped at the camping site with Olympic sized pool that looked amazing, b it no one else was camping and there was no Wi-Fi and nowhere to really hang out. Looked in Booming’s website, found the guesthouse/hostel. He tells me it’s full. I let him know it’s not cool to have it up on Booming if it’s not really available. He gives me a name of another guesthouse. Reviews look okay so I head there. Yes, they have a room. Oops, sorry, we don’t. I’m fed up and just plain tired. I head to the expensive hotel. I pay, get my stuff to the room and within 1/2 hour the electricity goes out. Apparently to the whole town and also apparently this is not uncommon. They tell me it should be back on within a couple of hours. It’s not. I eventually shower and go to bed super early without dinner — unless you count a piece of cake as dinner. The power came back on around 10:00 pm. Some days you just can’t win.
Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 2,615 miles (4,208 km)
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