day 315: [out with Teacher Xie] – [the windy hill] = 42km

2008-09-18.kml show on larger map

Wanna know why my friend 谢老师 (Teacher Xie) is hauling more than 50 pounds of old metal through the desert?

It’s because he can sell it once he gets to the city in a few days.

…

We had gotten up early and were hanging around the place chatting and having food and drink until it got pretty late.

Then we broke camp:

It felt kind of brutal parting ways out here in the nothingness. We exchanged hugs and good wishes, and when I started walking he just remained standing there on the curb of the highway, smoking his cigarette, looking at me from the distance.

I could see his silhouette get smaller and smaller:

Good luck my dear 谢老师! May the winter be easy on you, and may your writings go well!

Thank you for everything!

Godspeed to you!

…

Then I was alone with the highway again:

There was nothing. Out here.

Some people had dumped a huge amount of beer bottles next to the road somewhere:

I mean, WTF, the desert is not your own personal waste dump, your parents should beat you with a stick!

Apart from this little delight, there was really nothing except the ever-roaring trucks:

I hauled ass through the nothingness until it got dark and it became  time to make camp somewhere. That’s when I chose a hilltop, because there was absolutely no wind and I liked the idea of being able to look down at the road below:

Just after I had washed my feet and dumped the pictures and the GPS-track onto my hard-drive, it started getting a little windy.

I cursed my stupid choice of a camping location and went out to check and doublecheck the tent pegs and the cords and everything else, then I crawled back into my sleeping bag.

A couple of minutes later, the wind really went ahead and started pounding my poor tent into submission. I crawled back outside. No, it wasn’t a sandstorm, thank god, since there was no crazy sand flying around. Nevertheless, most of the tent pegs were about to be pulled out and the tent was crouching to the ground like a beaten dog. I got a bunch of rocks and put them on some of the tent pegs, and then I placed the caboose ontop of the most important one, the crucial one directly facing the wind.

I looked at the tent, and there it was, almost flat on the floor, and the wind was booing and hooing, and pounding on it like Rocky in the meat-house. I thought about moving the whole thing to a different location, down and away from the hilltop.

Then I thought: fuck it, this is a pretty good tent after all, and I might as well try to get some sleep.

Soundtrack: Sick Of It All – “Die Alone”

—total: 3868,2km