Hypoxia, I don't recommend it.

I'm not in any serious trouble, not yet, but I'm well into discomfort. I know it's altitude related and not, say, allergies to coal smoke or my body just refusing to accept that I'm insisting on going out in weather that is single digit centigrade temperatures because, well, I've had altitude sickness before.

Twice now—once while working for the Tour of Qinghai Lake in 2007 and once while touring in 2012—I've even ended up in the hospital on oxygen. 

The scariest thing is not the way in which physical activity has gotten harder and it's not the fact that sometimes I start coughing and I cough so long and so hard that my vision starts to goes black around the edges for a bit and I see little sparkly stars just like the characters in Looney Tunes when they got knocked out. The scariest thing isn't even the realization that I need to stop and catch my breath if I want to do 'higher' level mental math like the addition and subtraction necessary to figure out how many kilometers are left to do today. 

The scariest thing is realizing that some of the drivers of trucks and cars are also from lower altitudes and that, never having actually experienced full blown altitude sickness, they aren't paying attention to the signs and they aren't noticing slowed reaction times or a lack of a sense of danger.

I start the morning off at only 1650m but that's already 17% less oxygen than there is at sea level and even if that isn't enough for altitude sickness that's plenty enough to be having an effect on both the body and the brain. 

I slept 13 hours last night. The bed was heated; the room was not. It could have been heated. There was a coal stove that I didn't know how to light and a space heater which, when plugged in, pulled enough power that it was trying hard to set the wimpy electric socket on fire. So, for all intents and purposes, while the room could have been heated, it was best that the room was not heated. I slept because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Because using my laptop was too much effort. Because reading Reddit on my phone was too much effort.

I don't have too far to go to Haiyuan today and I'd happily dawdle about in the hopes that it gets a little warmer before I start off but I'm also really hungry. This morning the people with the restaurant that's attached to the guesthouse are here. However, I don't like them. 

I'm being good and careful about not overdoing anything when biking but I didn't think to take things slow when pumping my tires hard. The quick motions followed by standing up fast meant I got a little dizzy. Then I started coughing. Which, as often with me, led to gagging. I'm literally doubled over gasping for air between coughs and the person from the restaurant repeatedly comes over to tell me not to spit on the ground over here but to go over to the latrine if I'm going to spit on the ground.

I add a decongestant and an expectorant to the morning pharmaceuticals. Then, I take a single puff on the Albuterol inhaler.

I won't lie and say I felt good when I set out. Better to say that I felt 'acceptable'. Better to say that, just like that day in Zhangmo about a month ago, no amount of not really wanting to ride today could be matched by how little I wanted to stay here. Besides which, I already know that I'm well within the range of longer distance buses that are going back and forth to Haiyuan, and, if push comes to shove, I can try hailing a ride.

My cold weather gear seems to be doing good enough at keeping me warm and I still have a few layers (both top and bottom) available to me. In fact, when I'm biking uphill, if it weren't for the fact that unzipping layers would require extra efforts at balance that I don't currently trust my body to be able to do, I'm even a little too warm.

I've entered an area which is mixed Muslim and non-Muslim. There are almost as many little temples as there are mosques of various shapes and sizes. However, I'm too focused on getting somewhere where I can stop and eat breakfast to even bother with checking if any of the temples are unlocked.

When I get to the first real town at the intersection 10 kilometers down the road, I find that yet another road in Ningxia has been upgraded to a National Road. Google and Amap both thought this was a county road. (Since this means I'll be riding on the National Road again for all of tomorrow, I'm not exactly thrilled about this revelation but, as the alternate available to me is hilly, switchbacked, has no guaranteed lodging, and peaks 200 meters higher at 2100, I'll be riding on the National Road.)

In Haiyuan I find my way to the Shunfeng Courier and pick up my package. First thing I do is get batteries in the fingertip pulse oximeter and check my stats. My blood oxygen is wavering between 93% and 95% and, at 98bpm, my resting heart beat is a good 15 or 20 beats higher than I think it should be. Then, now that I have hard numbers letting me know that feeling like crap is not imaginary but also not actually dangerous, I eat a cookie.

My next stop is the police station where, in a shocking display of unRosenberg like behavior, I accept them giving me directions to the most expensive hotel in town. It's 8°, the sky has started spitting in preparation for rain, and I'm hypoxic. Even if I had the mental energy necessary to fight, I'm not sure I have the energy to win. Besides which, the expensive hotel is sure to have both decent water pressure and heat.

Some time later, after I've gotten undressed but before I've gotten in the shower, the police come by and knock on the door with a paper copy of the Temporary Residence Registration Form for Foreigners for me to fill out. I thought the hotel I was sent to was able to use the Hotel Guest Registration System but, I guess not. I guess it's everywhere in Ningxia that can't.

By now it's very definitely raining outside. I can't find any delivery food I want on Meituan so I dine on leftovers from last night's junk food run and cookies from my care package. Awareness of hunger is yet another one of those physical systems that altitude screws with. I'll make up for it with the hotel breakfast in the morning.