day 217: 水磨关 (shuimoguan) - 水泉子 (shuiquanzi) = 23,1km

One last look at all that beautiful green…

…and then it was behind me, and nothing but dust and more dust were ahead:

Sometimes there were these surprising little patches of green, just as if some landscaping god had dropped them there by accident:

…but just because the plants can get water from the ground doesn’t mean that I can, so I’m still dependant on this:

“Water first”, a very good friend and me used to say once - and now it’s more true than ever. This will definitely become a problem in the future.

…but each day has its own worry, and today it was about the Internet, or more precisely: the lack thereof.

I’m using a GSM-card to go online, which has proven to be very slow but also very reliable throughout these last seven months.

But not recently - “no network” it would say, and then totally refuse service.

So once I passed this antenna I got out the computer and gave it another try:

“no network”

WTF??

A bit later, there were these signs on the ground:

BIG08 28m - maybe someone had hidden a large chest of gold? Or a cake? Or even my stupid Internet-connection?

Well, the inspector goes and checks things out, but alas! he found only this:

A shattered red pole.

Frown.

This was supposed to be the famous BIG08?

Frown.

And I had wasted 56m (2x 28m) just to look at this??

Super-frown.

Well, shit happens.

…

Somewhere on the way, hidden in all that dust, there were these murals from a different time:

…a time that seemed long gone:

…swept away by the waves of the “industrial revolution”, just like the walls that these murals had been painted on so long ago:

…

The village 水泉子 didn’t really seem that promising at first sight - there was no hotel, no restaurant and the shops didn’t even have any cookies:

…but I got a bed and some food in the home of a friendly car mechanic.

…and I managed to find a shop that did have some cookies.

..and somehow, magically, the Internet was suddenly up and running again.

So I guess things are looking up:

It’s good to be on a plateau.

Soundtrack: Raekwon - “All Over Again”

—total: 2728,3km