Chapter 10
KFC.
First thing out of the border post and there’s a dirty great big KFC. As in, Kentucky Fried Fucking Chicken. I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
This isn’t Africa Africa anymore, we’re home...
Getting out of the post is busy. And then it’s a bloody nightmare. The cars and bikes are all over the road and they’re all cutting absolutely sick at me. Horns and gesturing and just pure vitriol.
I won’t cop it.
I give as good as I get. Hand gestures and everything.
If this is what Namibia is going to be like, well, it’s going to kill me. Everyone’s driving me off the shoulder of the road, squeezing me out.
I’ve been around, I've been places, and I’ve never seen anything like this...
Then it cogs: They drive on the left here.
Dickhead.
Well, shit, no one told me.
No signs at the border or anything.
I'm back on the “right” side of the road, which is of course the left, and things calm down.
Re-wiring the brain is a headfuck in reverse, and even though I’ve spent my entire life on the left side of the road I still nearly get myself wiped out at every "T junction" I come to. I take the wrong line. Every time.
Dangermouse.
Half hour of bland, long, straight tarmac takes me to a town called Ondangwa, and that’ll do me; they’ve got another KFC here.
It’s a weird village. There’s no people. None. But along with the KFC, they’ve got a massive and modern supermarket and even a mall. A mall.
I find the cheapest accommodation option available and shack up. At 200 Namibian Dollars, it’s pretty good value; big bed, hot shower, TV, AC, clean and tidy. Twenty bucks.
I’m just happy to be done with the bike.
Because I had the trots this morning I didn’t dare take even a sip of water on the ride; that would have been bad news.
I’m as dehydrated as a prune, so I guzzle my body weight in water.
My decision to avoid fluids on the ride is immediately vindicated.
I should have sat on the toilet before taking a drink; it doesn’t touch the sides, it’s like my internals have just turned into hollow pipework with no bloody valves...
Awful.
The last couple of day's I've felt a cold coming on. So I’ve gotta hydrate somehow, but short of an IV drip I don’t know how to do that if everything’s going straight through.
Is that going to change the way I eat?
Shit no.
The local supermarket feels like it’s been helidropped straight in from western civilisation. If I squint, I could easily pretend I'm at home.
I buy a half litre of peach yoghurt and three bananas. I scoff that before I’ve even made it out the front doors.
Fuck I’ve missed yoghurt.
Refrigeration. What luxury.
On the way home I buy a greasy box of chicken from KFC. Can’t not.
I jog home to atone for my sins.