We were again blessed with perfect riding weather today. The misery of riding in rain is still with
us. A couple days of sunshine now seem
like a real blessing.
An early breakfast was around the corner from the hotel and
consisted of mainly local food; porridge, boiled peanuts, fruit, green tea,
and (luckily) fried eggs and bread. I tried the porridge but it was tasteless, and I didn’t like the peanuts in it.
I returned to our hotel room to get the rest of my
belongings and witnessed the morning exercises at the high school next
door.
The whole school was outside
running laps and forming up into brigades.
The ride out of town was uneventful, passing a nice statue on the way out.
We continued to ride on the small two-lane or dirt/gravel national highway even though the
freeway was within sight all day. We
passed over and under it several times.
It’s maddening that motorcycles of our size are not allowed on the much faster road.
We’re headed west, back into the Gobi Desert.
Mountains were in the distance all day.
This part of China has a lot of wind farms.
Not many were working today due to still air.
Grazing animals were evident throughout the day as
well. We once again had to be wary of and
dodge herds.
We’re approaching the western-most remains of the Great
Wall.
Ruins are abundant in the desert.
We took a short detour to get the bikes right up to the old
wall, and them rode along the wall.
It was a great photo opportunity.
The group voted to continue on the dirt road for another six
miles, riding right beside the Great Wall.
How cool is that?! Riding right
next to history.
We popped through a hole in the wall - that-s Alex and Ida from Indonesia.
And then disaster.
Alex and Ida went down. Dave and
I were right behind them, so I jumped off
and ran up to help. This time there was a serious injury. Ida’s foot was twisted the wrong way.
Mike quickly arrived on the scene, assessed the situation
and stabilized her foot. Ida was a real
trooper. She said she wasn’t in much
pain. John contacted Janis in the
support van and had them reroute to our location.
When it arrived, Mike carried Ida to his motorcycle and
carefully moved her to the van.
Yingchu
had already determined the closest full service hospital we could use.
The rest of us got the bikes turned around and followed the van into town.
We had to determine the
extent of Ida’s injury and were hoping it was only a dislocation.
First we had to navigate past sheep,
trucks heaped high with vegetables,
and a farmers market …
made even crazier when school let out for lunch.
After waiting about half an hour at the hospital, it was
determined that Ida had broken both lower leg bones in the ankle area and is going to need an operation - but not in that hospital!
The level of care and cleanliness was abhorrent.
After the X-rays, Mike took over from the
doctor to make sure her leg was splinted and wrapped properly.
Alex arranged for a taxi to take them back to Lanzhou, where
they would catch a flight back to Jakarta.
Their ride was done.
We loaded Alex’s motorcycle into the van to take it to the
next city for shipment home.
Everyone went in to give Ida and Alex a hug goodbye.
It was the only time we saw Ida cry.
After a couple hours we left the hospital, all a little sad
that a second member in as many days was crashed and off the ride.
We had more than half the day’s ride still to
do, so got busy passing farm trucks,
…and workers.
This area is known for red chili peppers.
I also noticed a sluice gate, a sign of irrigation for the
first time on our trip.
A line up of trucks filled to the top with corn on the cob
attracted our attention.
They turned into a large area, circled around and then
dumped their entire load of corn into a recently dug pit.
We think this is how they store the corn for
the winter.
In the last few towns, the sidewalks were lined with large
mirrored saucers. For the life of me, I
couldn’t figure out what they were.
Finally, we saw it. They are used
as solar heaters for teapots!
Once we got to the countryside, there was more beautiful
mountain scenery.
This section of China must have a lot of women who have no
other way to support themselves except to work on road crews.
There is no welfare for able-body people in
China, according to Yingchu.
They must
work to be paid by the government.
However,
there seems to be a lot of “make-work”.
This work crew was spreading chips onto tar,
And then this team of women followed the truck sweeping the
chips over the tar.
Late in the afternoon we began seeing areas stacked high
with something in red bags.
Trucks everywhere were stacked high with onions.
Some of them were being covered with matting and tarps for
protection until shipment.
More chili peppers.
It was early evening when we reached Jiayuguan. They have a beautiful statue at the entrance
to the city.
The guys had some pent up energy, so had an impromptu drag
race.
David left them in the dust (he does have the bigger bike).
The sign on the Jiayuguan Internation Hotel greeted us as we
arrived.
Later in the evening, I took a closer look.
English spelling is not their forte.
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