day 306: [mosquito valley] – 西湖 (xihu) = 15,5km

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What a lovely night, spent with an approximate 1 billion million mosquitos that all seemed to have just barely survived from a famine.

There I was in my tent – a sirloin steak for them, a large serving of kungpao chicken, their own personal party-size pizza with everything plus extra-cheese:

What a horrible night – for me not for them.

…

The day after wasn’t so bad though:

My feet hurt (new boots plus the fact that I’m just not used to walking anymore), but there were a lot of nice things to look at:

The wall was still there:

And I kept running into people selling melons next to the highway:

At one point I even saw my first melon field ever:

Funny, I would have liked them better to grow on trees or something.

Well, too bad.

…

I was somehow astonished when I arrived in what seemed to be a fairly decent-sized village in the middle of nowhere:

The place is called 西湖 (xihu), meaning “west lake” – although there is no such lake around.

“Did there use to be a lake around here?” I ask an old lady.

“No lake, we just call it that because it’s like an oasis between two stretches of desert!” she explains and seems to be looking for some kind of indication that I’ve understood what she just said. I nod, then I make an aaah-sound.

…

Later in the afternoon, I find a dude to fix some stuff on my caboose:

The latch for the lock was broken and I wanted the whole thing to be able to stand horizontally when I put it down.

Once the caboose was taken care of I got something to eat and a small room in the only place resembling a guesthouse around here.

Here’s the theory: if I’m going to walk 4 days to 柳园 anyways, I better spent as few nights outside as possible.

Give the pizza a break.

Soundtrack: Tom Petty – “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”

—total: 3610,5km