One of these days
February 8, 2024
One of these days. We do our best to plan the days carefully. Reasonable amount of kilometers - taking the road conditions and elevation gain into account - the weather, the amount of daytime before night falls, and a proper place to sleep. Be it indoors, on a camping, or somewhere along the way on a wild camping spot. As long as it's safe. Most of the time we succeed. Sometimes though, things work out slightly different.
We wake up to a wet tent. It's been like that for days now. We take our time to get it as dry as possible. There is not a lot of sun so around 10 AM we decide to pack up still wet and go. It is a day we knew we would get to a great camping place around 3 PM (iOverlander app). A bit early, but let's see. Otherwise there would be some wild camping spots just before a pass we'd have to climb. Definitely before then we will stop. A pass late in the day is usually not a good plan. We reach the good spot at 3 PM. Yes, too early to stop. We continue. Hopefully one of the other spots will be good too. First spot. No, too small. Second spot. No, too many bushes. Third. No, too exposed. Ok fourth then. Final chance. Hmm, again too small. It's 5 PM and we had already done 85 km and over 1200m elevation gain. But where to sleep?
On the pass there is no way. Either before it, or over it. We decide to continue. The pass is not that high but still up 500m or so. And dusty! Man! The vegetation next to the road lost all it's color looking rather grim. We go for it. One and a half hour. Done. Ok, now downhill and then there should be spots to camp. Arrival down at 7 PM. Camp spot under a bridge. We check. "Seriously?! Some people are crazy. We don't fit here. And how to even get there?" Hm, ok a camping about 20km further. "How are the legs?" "Good." "Ok let's go. We have light till 10 PM. We will make it." It starts to rain. Great. At 8:30 PM we finally arrive at an agro-camping. It's open! This spot will do. Aimée starts making dinner, delicious as always. Jaap sets up camp. 120 km and 1890 m elevation gain. Wet, covered in dust, and pretty exhausted. Not according to plan, but we do everything for a proper place to sleep!
