To Springbok: getting hilly again

December 4, 2015

"I'm being bitten" Patrick says after turning on the light at 1am. "Me too". After a 15 minutes hunting and killing mosquitoes, Patrick gets out our mosquito net and we finish the night with a good sleep.

After leaving town, we lose the shoulder on the road. Many sections there is road construction and we cycle on the construction side, it's like having your own private bike lane! The road is a roller coaster.

The new N7 by passes the Springbok. Circling on an overpass, we go through town and find the a MTN shop for a sim card then the Catnap hostel. There are two caravan parks outside the town, but it's nice to have air conditioning and a room to hang out in for the afternoon. There's lots of activity and the streets full of people. Long lines in the grocery store.

Later in early evening we go to a pub for pizza and beer. Now the streets are practically deserted, and it is the white south Africans out and about. In 1994, just before the election of Nelson Mandela, we saw the division of white and black. As we would enter a town, we could see two separate towns. We wonder how much if anything has changed.

There is lots of road construction today. Long stretches of N7 are one way. We are let through and told to ride on the construction side.

They used to call these "townships". Even with the "new South Africa" reality is that a lot of the blacks still live in settlements like these, typically 5 to 10km away from a town that uses their labor and sells them their supplies.

Patrick's sister has her birthday in three days. Happy birthday Linda!

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 10,119 km (6,284 miles)

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