19/03/27, restday at Chitimba Beach

Thank God for rest days. Even though the last rest day was only 3 days ago, I think my body was up for another rest. Especially knowing that the first two days of the next four day stretch will be tough climbing days.

We started our rest with a party yesterday evening. All names of riders had been put in a hat and all riders got to pick a name from that hat. Each rider bought a “present” for the name they drew from the hat and each rider had to wear the gift he or she received. We started the party with handing out the presents, which was a lot of fun, because behind every present was a bit of a story and people really made an effort 🙂 It made me realise how close the group has become and how much we care for each other!

After the handing out of the presents the TDA staff broke open the punch and the party got started! Partying in this case meant a lot of drinking. I was out with a bunch until 11pm having a good time at the bar (getting pretty boozed up) and around 11 i just fell asleep on one of the lounge sets, to be woken a bit later by a security guard who escorted me to my room instead. However it was too warm in the room, so I ended up sleeping outside on the porch. People who saw me there must have thought I was really out of it (which I was). However getting boozed up like this allowed for a good night sleep and I only awoke around 830 this morning, which was really nice!

The rest of the day was just lazy. I had a double breakfast and after that I went back to sleep. At lunchtime I had lunch and worked on the blog a bit and sorted out some pictures. After that more sleep and a swim in the lake, which was fun because there were pretty high waves 🙂 I was quite successful in staying away from people, which was pretty nice as well. Just some quiet me-time…

Maybe it was not really sensible to light up the other end of the candle yesterday as well, after already being quite tired by al the riding we did so far. On the other hand, it has brought me into this mellow lazy brackish Sunday buzz state which I quite enjoyed and also needed a bit. Tomorrow we ride again, climbing more than 2000 meters to get out of the rift valley again. I really hope I’ll be able to energize myself again, although I always seem to do 🙂 I’m just taking it day by day, that’s the only way…

There’s the ski again…