Leigh makes good

In spite of Leigh's illness and my insomnia of the night before, we made good progress, climbing through dusty and rocky valleys for a good part of the day.

Near the top of the day's climbing, we stopped at a small mountain village, where mud-brick buildings and dung heaps seamlessly blended with the parched rocky hills. Children ran from across a pasture, shouting and whistling, to meet us. One child made it to the highway and ran to our side as we grinded upwards. However, he was unable to maintain our pace and soon went back to his friends. Then we stopped at the village water source, and a couple of boys came over with their adorable little sister. We chatted to them a little before rejoining the climb.

As we came nearer the top there were more kids, some of whom were obviously dirt poor. A thin young man stood in my path walking backwards as I cycled up and repeatedly made a gesture of taking a photo with his hands. I wasn't sure if he wanted to photograph me with my camera, or for me to take a photo of him, but I wasn't keen to stop. He walked alongside me and pointed at my bags pretending to eat with his hands, and asking for money too. Soon he moved on to Leigh and Charlie and left me alone. Some of the other much younger children did likewise but soon gave up.

Reaching the pass we enjoyed a long descent and were blessed with a new vista for our efforts. A large and imposing volcanic-looking mountain stood to our north, and in our direction of travel clouds seemed to hang at the same altitude as us.

The descent was long and gentle, and as darkness fell we turned off the road into a field where we'd spotted some distant bushes, putting up our tents behind them before eating and falling asleep at a very respectable hour.