Slow grind into Cagayan de Oro!

It’s about 100 km from Iligan to Cagayan de Oro, but my odometer is down (it’s an internal problem, so no-can-fixee!), and road signs are almost non-existent. To keep track of progress I count kilometre posts, but they come and go, along with the road works that are kicking up dust and rocks wherever I've been in Mindanao.

Surrender to the road, Feely!

My cogset (rear cluster) has been playing up since I arrived, and has now decided to lose nearly all function; Housten, we have a problem! Fuck! I’m down to four high gears. The hills come and go and aren’t so big, but the high gearing gets me in the end, and I end up walking up most of them. It’s stinking hot, slow going, and the mind, like a boy without a purpose, begins ripping shit up. 

One foot after the other….

Still, the locals are friendly, the road’s good, and the traffic’s not too bad despite the fact I’m forced onto the shoulder a few times by overtaking cars. I do find that giving the finger and shouting ‘Fuck you, arsehole!’ seems to have a positive effect on my morale, odd thing that that is.

Just after Gitagum the road, heading 10 km inland over a bluff, winds upwards, and just keeps going. Again, it’s not so steep, but unrelenting, so I slide off the bike after about 2 km and walk the rest. I’m so drained from the heat and gear problem that I stop and rest every 15 minutes, and wonder why I do this. My mind, always its own boss, transitions through old girlfriends, family and further into the bottomless dynamic of the primary school playground. Almost-forgotten loves, hates and feelings of longing and injustice bubble upwards, and soon I’m wondering why I even bother breathing. 

Existentialism, it must be stated, shadows the cyclist like an extra pannier bag, attached securely or not.

Plod on, Feely....

At 5:30 the sun is on the way down, and Opel, a run of wooden roadside shacks, is lighting up. What is this place? Music, blinking lights, crowds, food stalls, and girls in colourful clothing standing outside of karaoke joints waving to me. I smile as best I can and grunt past. Re karaoke bars, one must keep in mind that karaoke bars run a wide gauntlet from the kinds of places you take your kids to on a Sunday afternoon, to darkened sheds where the girls all want to be your best friend. Opel, obviously, has a lot of the best friend variety. 

I feel so hot, sweaty, grimy, and just so damn exhausted, that the last thing I want is to be close to anybody, much less sing Beautiful Sunday and do jiggy-jig, if it came to it.

Me: Sorry, babe, I just can't do it! No power in the legs!
Her: You number 10! You number 10!
Me: You don't have coffee at your place, do you?

Yes, what I want is a real coffee, a shower, and then another coffee. By the time I get into Cagayan de Oro life is raining, dark and sodden, so I go in search of a McDonalds.