Wall

The last couple of days were characterised by barriers. Virtual and actual ones. The picture shows part of the old city wall of Sauran, an old silk route town that was inhabited until the 18th century.

Turkistan, 20 October 2009

Ever since I went around the corner at Qazali (from where my direction became east/southeast), I am struggling with a fierce eastern wind. It sliced my daily totals in half. Can't help feeling that it's pure injustice: I am the only one who's making the road with his own energy (steering a car of course also takes some energy, but this is nothing in comparison) and I get nature's resistance. But indeed, nobody said it would be easy. First the roads where an obstacle and now that has smoothed out, it's the movement of air from an area with high to one with low pressure. If that atmospheric challenge is not enough, there are the man made whirls that mess with my velocity. Heavy oncoming trucks creating immense slipstreams that cancel out my speed. I have to be careful at times like these, because it's difficult to keep a straight line with such a pull. And the cars that come from behind are merciless. They either don't realise they have a brake that enables them to slow down and wait for the approaching traffic to pass first, or they enjoy creating 'three-layered' situations on the smallish road that the M32 essentially is. I've got to stop wailing..

(Pictures: brother/sister)

'Cause I feel good! Yesterday I got to Turkistan, home of the Yasaui Mausoleum. Great building with beautiful domes and tile work on one end, and a massive unfinished (so no tiles) façade on the other. That it's unfinished is also shown by scaffolding poles sticking out of its brickwork, high up in the main arch. The tiled end is being renovated at the moment, so the view's obstructed by iron bars. Or actually not obstructed, as it gives a special effect. As if the blueprint of the construction is drawn on the building and the lines of the design prolonged. With the blue sky as a background, I didn't know what I liked better. The three dimensional drawing in blue, or the detailed patterns on the tomb. How a work of art can inspire.

Turkistan also facilitated a lot of maintenance. As you probably guess, Marco Polo's pants needed stitching, but that wasn't the only thing. The stand of my bicycle broke off the other day (Cycledad had already judged it as fully inadequate when he inspected the bike upon his arrival in Rostov), so I went searching for an 'avtomoika' (garage) this morning that could fix it. It's made of aluminum, so most mechanics immediately discarded the two pieces as waste. One guy however, who didn't spoke a word apart from the "good luck" when I left (I know, not a good sign... I'm sure though that he meant it in an encouraging way), signed to me that he could do the trick. First he used a grinder to create two smooth surfaces that he later welded back together. I don't think it's as good as new, but for careful packing of the bike (a process that's difficult if the bike doesn't stand on its own) it should do. And then there was a haircut (no fancy L'vivan style, but a solid 'steppe cut') and lot's of food. I have to regain a lot of strength after the 'Dehli belly' (or so I tell myself, it's a good reason to keep on eating) and I found fresh dark bread (first in Kazakhstan so far, the others were all moldy and stonehard) and honey. Hmmm.

(Picture: later)

It's this thing with equipment.. It functions as a small ecosystem. As soon as something breaks (and Murphy's law applies here: everything that can go wrong, will go wrong), and I fix it with a makeshift solution, something else will break as a consequence. Example: one of my elastics broke (I wasn't careful and it got stuck between the gear hub and the rear carrier), which I replaced with my leather belt. But then my money belt didn't get its support, so the stitching let loose. I repaired it with a safety-pin, but that got released and stung through my jacket. So the broken elastic caused a hole in my jacket, you catch my drift?

The stand was something else though. It fell to bits underneath 50 kilo of luggage plus the weight of the 'Black Diamond'.

OST:

My brother Ax gave me the splendid album 'Walls' of the German producer 'Apparat' for the ride. Striking, because he climbs three times a week and the latest I've heard is that he's planning a climbing wall in my parents house.. : ) These two pieces of music move me especially.

A 'fractal' is a shape of which the parts roughly have the same form as the whole. Like a wall made of bricks, or, with some imagination, the many huffs and puffs that form a strong headwind. 'Part 1' to me also sounds like the effect of a good cup of coffee. Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised by one of the shop owner's who gave(!) me a pot of real coffee. After I had visited her shop in search for coffee, which she didn't have, she went out and came back with 250 grams of Davidoff grained coffee. A luxury product by any standard. "A present for you", she said. This morning I had that delicious rush of my favourite drug. Well, those that the body produces are far better, but these I wouldn't call 'a drug'. More something like (your) nature smiling at you.

In any case, the rush of wind. Hopefully tomorrow coming from the west.