Are you ahead?: Or behind?

March 18, 2014

Before leaving together I wanted to get a photo with Kieran and Natasha in the centre of Pazar. It was a small town but it was very busy and some sort of event for the upcoming elections was about to take place so finding a good spot was difficult. We just lined the three bikes up in a fairly arbitrary place anyway and then Kieran took the camera to ask a passer-by if he could take our photo while Natasha held up his bike. The passer-by that Kieran chose was a dear old man who completely misunderstood our intentions. Kieran held up the camera, pointed at us with our bikes and said to the man; "Can you take photo? Photo?" The slightly bewildered man looked at us and at the camera and then shuffled over to stand alongside me ready to have his photo taken. The fact that myself and Natasha were both in hysterics is probably the only thing that detracts from the result, which I'm sure you will agree is one of the finest pictures on this blog:

After gathering our composure and thanking the man we gave up on the idea of getting a photo together and just got on with cycling. Kieran and Natasha, if you remember, left England in May 2013 to cycle around the world but with much less planning than most, seemingly just heading where the road took and takes them. Natasha is South African but spent the previous ten years living and working in Oxford and so now also has a British passport. Kieran is British and I found him to be almost annoyingly similar to me - same nationality, same age, same overgrown beard. He was even riding the same bike as me. Well, not exactly the same bike, that would have been weird. The same type of bike is what I mean. Except his was blue and not falling apart and also I don't think his can talk. But it doesn't need to because he has a girlfriend to talk to. Good for him.

Kieran and Natasha cycling, and a mosque, obviously

Looking south towards snowy mountains. There is also a mosque in this picture

Cycling with Kieran and Natasha was great although they were a little bit faster than the speed I usually go at. Sometimes I went a bit faster to keep up, sometimes they went a bit slower to stay with me, and sometimes they went ahead a bit and I started talking to my bike again ("Can't you go any faster you useless piece of crap?"*) On one occasion they got quite a way ahead, mostly because I'd stopped to pee, and I lost sight of them as we approached a small town. This was not a particularly momentous event as we approached small towns frequently, but there was a smaller road that left the main highway and ran through the town and I wasn't sure which of the two routes my companions had taken. I guessed that they had probably stayed on the main road but I wanted to take the smaller road as it had no cars and I could easily still see the highway as they ran parallel. But then there was a section where I got into the town and I couldn't see the highway, and when I rejoined this main road I was no longer entirely sure whether they were still going on ahead or if they might have stopped somewhere to wait for me. I could go back to check, but that might mean them getting further ahead, or I could just carry on. I asked a man at the side of the road if he had seen two bicycles go past. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I decided to keep going.

I was all alone again. I was starting to think I wasn't very good at this cycling with other people business. I now had no idea whether Kieran and Natasha were ahead of me or behind me and was in a bit of a pickle as to what to do. I consulted my brain. 'Listen brain, I don't like you and you don't like me, but I need your help on this one. How can I locate my friends when I don't know where they are?' and my brain responded 'Da-da-da-di-dum-di-dum-da-da'

But then I saw some little white chalk-like rocks at the side of the road and I had an utterly inspired idea. I got off my bike and wrote my name on the shoulder with an arrow pointing ahead to make it clear that I had passed by already. This way, if Kieran and Natasha were behind me they would at least know about it and be able to catch up. And if they were ahead then they would be waiting for me somewhere surely. If I just left a couple of messages and then kept cycling slowly I would surely find them one way or the other. 'Well done brain, you've done it!'

A little while later I stopped and wrote 'Chris is ahead' in case they had missed the first message. And then just to be absolutely sure I later wrote 'Are you ahead?'... 'Or behind?'... 'Kieran?'... 'Natasha!'... 'Where are you?'

After about ten kilometres I decided to stop and sit in a bus stop and wait. By now I was quite sure they must be behind because I didn't think they would have cycled on that far without me. I hoped so anyway, otherwise I'd wasted a lot of chalk. But nothing was wasted because sure enough Kieran and Natasha did soon come cycling along and we were reunited once more.

We saw a cattle market and I was very taken by this man's newspaper hat

Not sure if this sign is necessary today

We were only about three or four kilometres from the Georgian border when we decided to camp, turning away from the main road and trying to follow a valley to hopefully find a nice spot down by a river. Annoyingly the road didn't stay down by the river and instead climbed up the sides of the valley. There was nowhere to camp as the hillsides were steep and covered in tea and there were houses dotted around the place. It was also getting dark and beginning to rain a little and we were all getting a little frustrated. Kieran and Natasha suggested that we camp by the mosque in the town at the bottom of the valley but I didn't like the idea of everyone knowing we were there, or of being next to a mosque when the sunrise call to prayer came. Instead Kieran tried asking at a small house to see if we could camp in their orchard where a slightly terrified woman wouldn't even open the door and seemed very close to calling the police.

It was now very dark and started to rain more and as a last resort we dived into an empty house. This house was in the process of being built and, lucky for us, didn't have a door fitted yet. It did have windows though, and a hard concrete dusty floor, and plastic chairs for us to sit on, so we decided to stay the night. We were all a little on edge about staying in this big house without permission but Kieran helped settle all our nerves by sitting in the dim light and telling us ghost stories. I had nightmares.

Kieran and Natasha outside the haunted house in the morning (they survived the night, I was killed)

*It is not clear whether it was me or the bike saying this.

Today's ride: 71 km (44 miles)
Total: 15,025 km (9,331 miles)

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