Lost A mixture of huge rocky cliffs and dense green forest covering the mountainside thats towering above me. And i am lost. For the first time this whole trip. I am lost. The road I was to follow disappeared someway behind me. Literally. The road I am now on is on none of my maps. What should I do! Turn around. Damn that would mean alot of up and down and time wasted. Every few kms the surface became a bumpy, slippy, muddy mess. It was challenging. Then the road became good and was cutting its way deep into a rivine. It had to go somewhere and surly it would then go somewhere else. It was roughly heading south. My path was set. Id run and see where I ended up. I am worried I will just come to an end and that I would have wasted a day. But what the hell. Are my legs screaming at me! Or the road, which, climbs up and down up and down. Following a water course is rarely easy. I couldnt find a rythem. Sweat from the humidity pouring from me. I was thankful the sun was hiding. Then a crowd, a traffic jam. Damn a huge landslide had blocked the road. The locals laughed at me when they saw me approach. Two huge bolders the size of tanks. It should have been a sign, but I checked out the scene. Nothing was moving. Then i laughed at the locals after i had hualed my bike through the landside. Waterfalls, landsides, one after the other. This must be the worlds most dangerous road! But it was beautiful. As i make my way up I see no onward passage, then I turn another corner and another canyon appears. Im reaching the top surely! The sky is wider above my head! The hill tops are just there! Then again I turn another corner and head into another ravine. One that has higher hills and I trudge onward and upwards. Where will this road take me? Its going south at least. And i realise Im the happiest Ive been in my whole time in China. Lost in a jungle shrouded canyon, climbing higher and higher. I push on for a couple more hours, then my worst fear. The Road splits. Both ways are now just a rocky, gravely trail. Left is upwards. Right is down. I keep going up. Four kms later I come to a small hamlet and try to ask where Im going. I could see now from my GPS that Im kind of heading towards a town some 30km away as the crow flies. A lad on a moped with his little sister stops and I ask if this road goes to Puer? You want to go to Pu? He asks via his mobiles translator app. Yes. Then I laugh at the message on his screen in reply you should stick to the highway . Lol, I was and it brought me here. Follow me, and he leads me down a steep Bumby track, past a couple of little side tracks and then upwards again. He taps on his phone which says this road will take you to Pu. Be careful. Walk, its raining. I had to laugh again. i know its raining and this is a road!! I keep climbing. Picking my way around the worst rocks. They are slippy. I climb higher. Completely alone as and the clouds wrap themselves around me. I tell myself Im an idiot, that i should have turned around. Its late. After six. I have at most an hour before its dark. I keep an eye out for a camp spot, but I am also worked about landsides! Its amazing what adrenaline can do. After cycling all day I manage to pump the pedals hard and climb upwards like I was fresh. Finally I reach the top after riding uphill for 40kms and there is a sign saying that somewhere is 27 km away. As I start to pick my way down the descent the clouds disappear and the scenery is stunning. I am now riding through the movie scene of Jurassic Park. I wanted to take pictures, but I wanting to get as far down this mountain as possible before it got dark. And it was nearly dark when suddenly I rode into a 4 house hamlet, isolated up in the hills. I went round a corner and there was a man sat by his tent next to his bee hives. I stopped. My wrist were killing me, so I tried to stretch them. The man beckoned me over and lite a fire and told me to put my hands by it. I think he thought they were cold. But it was a nice touch. I indicated that I was looking for a camping spot and he pulled out a torch and led me to a concrete patch in front of a barn type building. Perfect. In the night the rains came. The next morning I was away early and it was still raining. The track down was very wet, rocky and also a mud bath in places. Myself, bike and bags were flithy. Covered in an orange mud. It went on and on. Then I saw a highway down below. Thankyou. I made my way down to a village. The next issue was how to get on the highway. It had high walls, a fence and a small matter of a river blocking my way. Thankfully I only had to go a few km then a bridge went over the river and luckily some builders were repairing some part of the wall and i could get onto the highway. I vowed I was going to stay on it as long as possible. Bicycles are not really allowed on them, but it was only a dual carriageway and it had a big hard shoulder for me. I was back on track.....
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 19:03:34 +0000
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