Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
listeningtojazzandtalkingwithPaulLefoulon,aself-taughtcarpenterfromPariswhowas
doing his 2-year civil service by teaching carpentry to young people.
Thenextmorning,pleasedthatthetireheld,Iwalkedintothedininghallandjoined
the Salesians for a great breakfast. I thanked them for their kindness and gave them each a
pin. I started cycling for the day and savoured the asphalt road until I had to turn off onto
a gravel one. At first I was preparing myself for a stressful ride, but was surprised to see
that the gravel was the best I had ever seen… even better than the paved roads! The one
advantage of these gravel roads was that they did not reflect the heat thus making it much
cooler to cycle on.
The coolness of the air was also caused by the taller trees of the rainforest that cre-
ated a canopy over the road to block out the sun. It added so much to the area's serenity
and made cycling quite relaxing. My pace was extremely fast and I could have continued
non-stop to Mitzic, but alas I had to stop at a police checkpoint. The officer delayed me 10
minutes by asking me irrelevant questions as a tactic, I suspected, to get me to give him a
bribe. I admit my answers to his questions were curt and when he saw that my wallet was
not going to open he let me leave.
I noticed not long after I resumed cycling a dull pain in my left knee. I felt it was
a warning that I was pushing too hard so I decided to ease up on my speed and the pain
disappeared. When I came across a passer-by, nonchalantly, I asked him how far it was to
Mitzic and was shocked to hear that it was only one kilometre away. Boy was I overjoyed!
I arrived at a parish and the priest welcomed me without hesitation. The church had an at-
tached boarding school and after washing up, I had dinner with all the children.
There was no mass in the morning, so I packed my bike and sped off. The quality
of the road was again excellent and with practically no traffic, I had it to myself. Unfortu-
nately,noteverything wasexcellent with bike forIhadaslight problem. Because ofall the
vibration that my bike was enduring, the rear fender loosened and jammed into the wheel.
Luckily I wasn't going fast at the time and managed to stop quickly. There was no damage
and I simply repaired the fender's holding bracket with my vice-grips and tightened all the
screws.
I resumed cycling and the further south I headed I noticed that the villages were
progressively getting poorer. I stopped for lunch in Lalara, a small village that was eerily
quiet…no music or children running around. Alone, I ate some food that was in my pan-
niersandwithin20minutesorso,Istartedcyclingagain.Itookamuchslowerpacemainly
due to the deeper ripples in the road which caused my panniers to occasionally pop off the
rack.
The traffic picked up significantly which consisted mainly of logging trucks. After
observingtheirspeed,itmademesuspectthattheywerethecauseofthedeepripplesinthe
gravelroad.Quicklythesetrucksbecamemynemesisfortwomajorreasons.First,andper-
haps the more selfish reason, they were on my road, and second, each time they passed, a
Search WWH ::
Custom Search