More biking...yes now its time for a few days rest.

More pics from Sunday's biking extravaganza up the hill from Arusha. It was quite the ride. Eric by a small river and me up on top of a large hill in the fields. The trail I'm on is a walking path but also serves as an irrigation line.

But on Monday a new story was written....

Captain Fresh Legs and the Two Followers

The story begins with three characters...Capt. Fresh Legs (Mat Bailey), Eric and I.

If I were feeling the weight of the world, I shrugged off all related feelings because
I just went through a mountain biking experience that left me without thought ...yet somehow eager for more. Eric, Matt and I went out for over 5 1/2 hours up towards Mt. Meru and into the natural pine.....yes PINE forest on the mountain. At the high end of our trip my lungs screamed for oxygen as we kept climbing higher and higher.

Before we left, I thought we'd go for a short ride today so I didn't even eat lunch or have a big breakfast. After Sunday's incredible ride there was no way I was going to do what we did today. We scaled hill after hill back and forth. I felt tired right after we started because my muscles were sore from biking for the past three days.

(Do you see the smiley Captain and then me following behind the banana tree profusely sweating? 1/2 hour into the ride, thats it)

So it began up the steep, steep hills (about 60 deg incline at times
no joke) of the mountain and past every type of life in the area. We stopped at a shop to have cokes where we were immediately surrounded by 15 children wanting to know exactly how weird we really were. We left that village only to continue up into the forest. We were so far out we started to joke about being stalked by leopards. My legs were tired, I was dehydrated and didn't have enough food for the day to do what we did. But believe it or not we made it through the craziest trails I have ever seen.
*Must.. keep.... going!*
In Mount Meru's pine forest's we reached the most remote corn field I have ever seen, changed my flat tire and started our decent. Slow going at first, we picked up momentum and had to navigate through bomas (Warusha Maasai villages) to get down. We stopped at one and were invited to see one gentleman's pictures. Very nice.
*I am walking behind?*

On our decent, we kept riding on the small trails and we were really starting to feel fatigued to the point were we (Eric and I...of course not Mat) couldn't balance the bikes on the trails. So we asked for directions and kept going on this crazy muddy trail that had a bridge made of half cut logs with huge gaps and Mat biked over it! Too crazy because he would've fallen 15 feet into the rocky ravine. Anyways, we kept going about 1 kilometer and we came off the path and right onto the road we live on and right at our house! INCREDIBLE! We've been here this long and we still have no
idea what surrounds our house and how to get there.
*Minnesota-esque*
So Eric and I made supper. Yes, we boiled the entire package of
spaghetti and made a great marinara sauce for it. We ate and drank
water like you wouldn't believe. Now we are just staring at the wall
comprehending what we just went through.

All is well here, I'm feeling ok...like ok I'm happy I don't have to be tortured anymore. By the way I went over my bike handles on one of the steep declines. No worries, I landed on top of my head in the middle of a thorn bush. Yep....I bounced onto my head then head over
heals directly in a thorn bush. I was bleeding from like 15 places where the thorns punctured and scratched the skin. The locals saw me and I can only imagine what they thought....Who the hell is this crazy white person? The middle of nowhere, bleeding and pouring sweat and biking for fun.

Did I mention Mat mountain bikes all around New Zealand for fun?... Yep, over my handle bars.