Last night’s hotel was great even though it was from the same Hotel Group as the previous night, it is all about the Management I guess.
After check-in and the mad dash to hand in your Passport before your friends, (no Passport no Room,) Peens found the town square and sent us the location, the guys went to have a beer while I did the blog. By the tine I got there they said they were going to look for a “Nice” Restaurant as the nice restaurant we were in served beer, and then coffee and cake. So we walked around in the streets, Dog growling like a hungry lion, getting Hangry-er (yes hangry is a real word that combines Hunger and Anger,) by the minute as we walked from one cake shop to coffee shop. We even considered going into an “Empanadery” (a place that only sells high-end Empanadas, and cakes.) The streets were quiet and not busy, we hear the people have all gone away for the long weekend.
We walked past the Flower Sellers getting ready for Valentine’s Day, saw some interesting things and spoke a lot of nonsense while Dog’s growling increased.
Then Millsy took us on a wild goose chase to a restaurant that was recommended to him, far from all the action, which turned out to be closed. Dog was reaching Hangry-Climax.
Below is either a guy that had his seat stolen, or discouraging would-be-thieves from stealing his bicycle:
The guys dancing at our traffic lights in Johannesburg on Beer crates which they flip and jump up and down from, all in rhythm while singing for loose change needs to up their game, see this guy in the video below:
Then just before Dog could attack a Cake-Seller we stumbled on to this gem of a restaurant with an AMAZING waiters who tried her best to accommodate us with the use of sign language, Google Translate and lots of pointing to other patrons food.
When we sat down the waitress brought us a selection of bread with Lentils to scoop on top of the bread, not saucy lentils either??? But we were hungry and before you knew it everything was finished.
And, they had a Vegetarian Platter listed under the Main Courses, so we ordered 4 steaks and 3 vegetarian platters. Sadly the Vegetarian Platter was Baby Marrow, thinly sliced and wrapped around tomato, baked in the oven, disaster compared to our Green & Gold Veg back home.
Inside was Hindenburg Vegetables.
The steak went down very fast and well:
I did my usual thank you trick with the last of our “Normal and Healthy Wire Animals.” (Rocky discovered some wire animals at the bottom of his Pannier and these animals has been riding along for many Legs and had lots of heavy items thrown on top of them, so some of them has a little “Eye Problem” and looks more than squint, the elephant had half his head squashed in and the lion also has great trauma to its head and mane.)
When I hand these out I have a long story I tell about the tradition of beads and how it all started with trading between local tribes who would give the old seafarers a herd of cattle in exchange for a hand full of beads, and how these beads were strung together as a form of a Love Letter by a young woman when the man she hopes to marry goes to war she hands him the beads. But I guess my story is lost in translation when told to a waitress who battled the whole night with a table and tried to figure out how the steak must be done and is it with Papa Fritas (Chips) or Mash or rice.
Then this morning we followed Tex, the aspiring half brother of the Kronkle Twins (Peens and Millsy) as he had planned our route today. The plan was to stay off the two main roads heading North to Buenos Aires, and zig-zag between these roads on the small back roads, making it a long day but scenic. As we left town we saw we were heading right into a rain-storm, I saw lightning ahead, we all knew we needed to stop next to the road and put on our Rain Suites, but there was now shoulder to the road, it went from tar to slippery grass. Eventually we stopped and all the trucks we had passed went past us again. Luckily I stopped close to Millsy as I managed to get myself tied-up within my rain-jacket as the sleeves got caught and hooked on the elbow protection guards inside my riding jacket and I could not get the rain jacket on or off, Millsy had to dress me. We fought to get past the trucks, the spray from their wheels making it almost impossible to see if there were on-coming traffic. Just as we passed all the trucks we got to our small back road, the 76 and we turned off, then the rain stopped and we could have some fun.
We did find the hills, 300m high, and it was a nice road as well. We stopped at a caravan park for a coffee and some home baked biscuits.
There was a Flea Market along the way and we had no other traffic, we almost owned the road. Did you see the hills we found in the background of these photos?
Then we were through the hills and we were changing direction often. The wind picked up after the rain and the temperature started climbing, (at the end of the day it was at 28 degrees and we were sweating,) we had to stop often to remove clothing and layers, and as the wind was coming from in front of us when we were heading North, we were being slapped around by the wind every-time we changed direction, so if we were heading East we had a cross wind from the left, and heading West meant a strong cross wind from the right, eventually I felt like a Martini Cocktail from a James Bond Movie. (Please tell me you got this…….”shaken, not stirred.”)
Then Tex pulled into a road side Gas Station and I saw Peens lose it, we all have had enough of eating next to the road in Gas Stations, so Peens spoke to Tex and the next minute our little KTM train pulled out of the Gas Station (get that one) and went into the town, about 3 km off the road. Peens found us a Gas station and filled up 1st, then raced off in search of the town square where he knew he would find a real restaurant with real food. And once again we did not have an English Menu and the waitress loved talking, a lot, and not even our interpreter Rocky, who is fluent in Portuguese could help us, he kept telling her “slower, slower” but she motor-mouth on and eventually we all had a coke and a meal.
Peens went to the little Cell Phone Shop next to the restaurant and bought a Cable for his phone. the lady working there fell in love instantly when he proposed and offered her a Valentines Dinner. She explained she was married but that things were not going very well. Peens listened to her sad story and offered some Marriage Counseling in spite of him never being married. Later when we were already eating she came to our table and gave Peens a small colorful gift, a type of Power\Battery Pack, Peens was over the Moon !!!
She then got on her bicycle and rode off, only to return half an hour later with two Valentine Chocolates for Peens, he almost stayed behind but we dragged him away kicking and screaming.
Our town tonight only has 2 hotels, one is full and we got the last rooms at this one, it is very cheap, but comfortable and it includes Breakfast. Maybe tonight that phone will ring?????
We spent most of the day riding next to Sun Flower Fields, some Corn and some cattle. This is big farming country with plenty of heavy farming equipment being offered for sale right next to the road, huge Harvesters and the biggest tractors with the most wheels I have ever seen. This is our position on the satalite photo:
Small town, surrounded by farms.
Just over 300km from BA:
I was just called down to the street, seems Peens has found a job at the corner cafe and is setting up tables for Valentines dinner.
Pie and Tex is exploring the little town:
Peens also helped this lady off her scooter and onto a chair, so now he is employed and the locals like him, and we are his friends, so we are reaping the benefits as we can now squat at one of the tables and drink wine and whisky with ice that we bough, from out of a cardboard box, until the chicken seller from across the road fires up his Braai and we buy rolls and have Oros on the side of the road, or, at the restaurant where Peens has just been promoted to Manager.
And that my dear friends is where I call it a day and say goodnight, or good morning to you, I am now knocking off duty. Have a very relaxing Sunday and please jump on the back of our bikes again tomorrow as he do the final push into BA.
XXXXXX
Fleisch
Love you Dad!!