Kalahari, part II

June 21st, Day 10:

 

We departed Upington around 12pm after packing up all our gear and saying our goodbyes to  the Mocke family and our new friend Herman. The road conditions were not exactly ideal, and a strong wind coming at us from the side almost blew us off our bicycles a few times.  The weather was also quite cold.  However, we were determined to make it to a farm house 90 kilometers away, so we pushed on and held strong to our bikes. Luckily, the wind would die down after a few hours and we made pretty good time to our destination. Unfortunately, the woman at our destination was not expecting us, even though Ansa, the owner of the guesthouse, had made arrangements for us. She offered to let us camp out outside her house, but it looked like it was going to rain so we decided to find another option for the night.

 

As we sat on the side of the road in the pitch dark discussing our options for the night, a concerned truck driver pulled over and offered us assistance. Martin was his name, a native of Kenhardt and a diesel mechanic by profession. He was extremely nice to us, tied our bikes to his pick-up truck and offered a lift to wherever we wanted. He told us that there was nothing from where we were to Olifantshoek and that he was going that way anyway, so we decided to take up his offer and find a guesthouse there. While Aaron chatted with Martin in the front of the pick-up truck, I laid in the back of the truck looking up into night sky filled with stars. Although it was quite cold out, it was still a great experience.

 

We thanked Martin for his hospitality and checked into a guesthouse in Olifantshoek. It was around 9pm on this Sunday night so there was nothing open besides a supermarket, where we bought a few items to heat up in the microwave. As we sat down to eat our food and drink some tea, it started thundering outside and poured rain for most of the night.  We were both relieved to be under a roof and not outside getting soaked. We eventually got into our beds and watched "Internal Affairs,"a classic with Richard Gere and Andy Garcia. We both thought Richard Gere was great in this movie and wondered why he no longer plays bad guys in films, instead of choosing long, drawn out romantic dramas that occupy most of Adam's (Our PR guy's) nights.

 

June 22nd, Day 11:

 

We slept in to around 1030 or 11, had some more tea and biscuits leftover from our purchases at the supermarket, and headed off to Kathu. Since we had arrived at Olifantshoek a day early, we decided to break up our trip to Kuruman into two days, instead of bicycling 100 kilometers in one day. The two shorter days would also prove to be beneficial to our nagging injuries, as we would go easy on our bodies and build up strength for the push to Botswana. It was a beautiful day out so we easily cruised along to Kathu without any problems, stopping only a handful of times to document the Kalahari and eat lunch.

 

Kathu turned out to be a nice town with a golf course and palm trees, not something we were expecting in the middle of the Kalahari.  We were told the town was on the upswing with the recent mines prospering near by. We checked into a bed and breakfast right off the main road, which turned out to be run by a great woman with the help of her son Francis. We put our bicycles and gear in our room and played some pool in the house with Francis and his friend Frikkie.

 

Soon after, we had a big meal at a restaurant close by called Denny's, not to be confused with the U.S. chain, but it still offered great burgers and milkshakes that we devoured. We met an unkown man from Nigeria, who we played some pool with and then chatted about his "businesses," some of which might not have been illegal, but he was still fun to talk to. We rented "Charlie Barlett" from the video store and watched it later with Francis before going to bed.