B-Day

We woke up early. We had to go across the desert and we were probably going to be forced by the police to find a save place. This could mean going far away. So we decided to start 7:30 am.

 Right away the same patrol that escorted last night came again. Last night that nice folks ask our cellphones and connected Adam’s phone to a device called “phone hunter”. We did not know if the copy all his phone info, if they installed some software or even if they installed a tracking app.  I was ready to fight for my privacy. I don’t have any special thing on my phone, either pornography or something. But I was not going to give them my phone. I am Spanish citizen and they don’t have any right to do so. Anyways, for some reason they didn’t wanted my phone. I recall someone telling me that they cannot do that on apple devices. Don’t know. Later that night Adam was really worried about what they did.

So next day we started cycling with this police car following us with lights on. They didn’t said for how long they will follow us. They just said they do it for our safety.

After 40 km we stop for a quick stop, to eat something. I offered them some biscuits. And this were some meaningful cookies. Not as the one they give you in church on Sunday morning. Some 2000 years old body dead man. I offered a true alive body cookie.  A cookie that sooner or later was going to be part of my body pumping my legs muscles to go across the desert. I offered them a peace cookie, a love cookie, a totally friendship cookie. Obviously nobody mentally healthy enough would accept water of food of someone cycling the desert, so they refuse.  But the magic was done, we were now friends and we started joking around. My ice breaker in this situations is telling them “so can I take your car for some km while you ride my bike?” and they all always laugh.

And we continued.

By time to time the police was stopping the car to take a rest.  May be to take a leak may be because they were bored of driving 25 km/h.  At a certain point, when they stop aside of the road while we continued, they used the police car alarm and speakers to signal us something. And we turned back to see what was the problem. The idiots got stuck on the sand! The driver was at that point a bit pissed. I guess he screwed his car just to follow some stupid tourists across the nowhere.  They were trying with shovels to remove the sand (I and thought o myself: fuck I got rid of my shovel 400 km back). I started walking the desert in circles in order to look some stuff to avoid the car getting deep and deep in the sand. At my 34 years of live I can say that a got stuck in sand and mud a lot with a lot of different vehicles in a lot of different countries on earth, and I was quite sure that the shovels wont help to bring the car back to the road.

Walking the desert I found so much stuff. You cant imagine. A piece of a chair. A lot of truck exploded wheels. A lot of wood… and we dint see a single tree on e last 200 km. I was picking up things, coming back to the car and going far away. 40 minutes later, when I was far away, Adam told the police that I was actually pissed and I was walking direct to Mongolia. At this point the police got really sacred thinking I was going to escape and he shouted my friend to make me come back. Quickly he told them he as joking. How the hack should I walk 200 km straight east to Mongolia across the desert with no water? Anyway… they didn’t use my found debris.. so they just sit in the shadow of the car while they waited for reinforcement. “Seriously!? 4 gown up strong man cannot solve this situation by themselves!?” Damn! So they wait and then we wait.  Shorter later they decide us to let us go, since they realized that they could catch us quickly anyway… and most important the road, just one, was just going 300 km straight north.  Nowhere to hide.

We continued cycling, after a while the police car was back with us. With the full light, the alarm and American music to celebrate the occasion. They came next to me and they ask “Do you wanna go to the dinosaur park!?””  And well if they were having fan and they wanted to do some tourism. I am not who contradict the police.

SO we went to a small place in the middle of nowhere. They bought the tickets, we left our bikes next to the park guard, and we jumped into the police car. We drove 4 km  inside the desert to  a place where we could see some huge tree fossils. No dinosaurs though. I guess even the bones escaped from the desert to a better place. They invited us to some drinks and watermelon and we came back to the road. There, they said “ we are police officers, we have to come back”. And they  left leaving us there. We thought that they had to bring us to the next check point… but they just vanished.

So we continued passing by a really beautiful areas, until we see 30 km ahead a white building; probably the next control. For which we decided to go to try to find some shadow and eat.  The building was a huge police facility totally abandoned. We ate at the shadow of one the buildings and I fall sleep on it. I dreamed I was somewhere in a city with my friends, in a nice evening drinking nice cocktails and dressing nice clean clothes. A normal life. And suddenly I woke up again on the ground half on the sun half on the shadow of an abandoned building with my dirty clothes in the middle of the desert with nothing in hundreds of km away. And I thought to myself “that’s magnificent, I wake up from a dream and my life is actually more awesome than that dream”.

Back again on the bike, back ridding up. We meet on the way a walker named Carl. Is the first I saw pushing his trolley. HE had been walking for 19 years after leaving the British army! He was heading back to UK, he calculated 3 more years although he thought was most probably 5. He explained some nice adventures. In Mongolia he said he bought 10 camels and he build up an expedition to come back with them to UK, however it was finally cancelled. We shared some more tips about his and our road ahead and we said goodbye.

It is so crazy, we crossed the desert with our bikes. Carl the same road pushing a trolley. With his 45 or 50 years old we has doing 25-30 km a day, in some parts of the desert we was probably waking up and setting again the camp on the exact landscape.

20 km later we got to a new police check point in the middle of nowhere. The station had a restaurant and a shop. He went to the exact same theater as we do 5 times everyday. “where are you from, where do you come, where are you going to sleep..?” and here e decided to lie. We knew that was nothing in 200 km and we knew we were going to hide from them. But suddenly the police, contrary to any previous occasions asked us if we wanted to sleep there. So we accepted. The shop owner had a small warehouse/room with 2 beds and some accumulated onions. Perfect! We accept the invitation, we came back to the police checkpoint station to fill up the registration, and then the police noticed my birthday. “We will eat and drink together tonight!”

And so we did, the owner of the shop invited us to a really expensive Chinese liquor, the owner of the restaurant cooked some vegetable/chicken dish and some millenary transparent eggs, and the police and myself (even if they didn’t wanted) bought several beers for everybody. The party was on and they repeated once after another “we are really sorry we didn’t find any cake”. Find a cake?  Where the hell they wanted to get a cake from with nothing around.

Was a beautiful sunset, a beautiful night full of starts, and a beautiful day to share with strangers.

Next day, we woke up late and we cycled 180 km into the next sunset and night.