When I woke up, it was so quiet, even the waves were quiet. The sun was rising up from the ocean, and painting the entire valley beautiful! SJOE! This very moment, is why I do what I do. This is what I believe in, this is where I am whole!
I got up and found a spot where I could just sit and watch. I don't know how long I sat there, but I heard movement on the porch, and when I snapped out of it, we were back on track. Coffee, cuddle with the dogs, and packing up. This was such an energizing spot, making us stay a bit longer. We left somewhere around 9am. It was still overcast and we hiked in thick, loose sand in places, but the scenery was something else. Ahead of us, only white sandy beaches, to our right, beautiful vegetation, and to our left, the ever prescent ocean.
It started raining during our first break, and we found that we had a new friend who followed us all the way from Mnyameni. He was a black local dog, and no matter how desperately we tried to send him back, he was adamant to stay with us. Katryn didn't like it at all, and kept on growling at him. He stayed a couple of paces behind us, and every time we stopped to rest, he would sit a couple of metres away from us.
Eventually I started to feel bad, and so I invited him to walk with us, seeing as he didn't respond well to the silent treatment. He is a nice dog and I kinda liked his company. He obviously felt the urge to guide us to wherever, so I figured there was no harm in that.
When we finally reached the Sikombe river, we had to try and find a spot out of the rain, because it was becoming miserable. We found a very nice spot to set up camp, right next to the river. It has been such a good day, in terms of my state of mind, feeling complete and just being here. Our campsite was perfect, and we immediately started cooking our dinner, which consisted of spicy tomato soup and noodles. After dinner, we bathed in the river, but it was a bit chilly outside, so we made it snappy.
We had a gorgeous, huge can of coffee, and got into our tents, as it started to rain again. There were so many mosquitoes, and they sucked me dry, before I could zip up and retire for the evening.
There's barely enough space in my tent for myself, let alone Katryn, so our new friend had to sleep outside. There were many dry spots for him to sleep under, but he stayed close by, didn't seem to mind the rain. I was only too happy to give him some of Dante & Katryn's food (Royal Canin), because it meant a lighter pack in the morning. It was only seconds and his food was finished! Poor boy was hungry.
I tried my best to recap my day and to do some visualizations, etc, but I couldn't stay awake for more than 5 mins, so I drifted off happy to be...
