Cycling The Globe

Distance: 75.0 km
Ride time: 4:18:15
Average: 17.4 km/h
Max speed: 28.1 km/h
Total: 46145 km

That’s Angola over there on the other side of the river!

Since I haven’t managed to get hold of a visa, my new plan is to turn right and continue towards Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. That doesn’t sound too bad to me anyway.

Every day my back feels better, and it did indeed feel good to be back in the expedition rhythm, making solid progress. That was until…

I was standing with my bike in the gravel next to the road, having a sip of water and looking at my GPS. As I heard a loud sound behind me I (luckily!) turned around. What I saw was like looking death into the eyes. A truck was coming at full speed, it was close, and on the way into the gravel where I was standing.

Since the road had been straight for 10 km and there was no traffic, I had time to think that the driver had either fallen asleep or he simply wanted to kill me. Then there was no more time to think, and I jumped for my life. A second later the truck hit the bike and the panniers flew around.

In his defence Frank actually stopped his truck and came out to ask what was happening. As I explained with shaking hands he admitted that he was falling asleep and said he was sorry. The material losses look like a broken back wheel and a broken laptop screen. More importantly, nothing happened to me.

We all need a bit of luck sometimes and today I had my share…

Frank offered a ride to Divundu, the next small town 100 km up the road. From here it looks like I will somehow have to make it back to Windhoek to get the bike fixed.

Oh well, I will be back.