Portrait of an LBX

By Andy

2010/06/10 — 117 km

Little Weirdo, by Andy

This time we get out of our tents and packed up an hour earlier, although we still get on the road half an hour later than we would if we were in a hotel. Before we climb down from our plowed, planted perch, I check the altitude and find we’re at 2,390 m (7,841 ft). By the time we get on our bikes and climb to the top of the pass, we’re over 2,400 m (7,874 ft), the highest we’ve climbed on the trip, and possibly the highest we’ll get until we’re climbing up onto the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan province.

We find breakfast 18 km later in the valley, and I’ve already gotten my head in a steam about the insane traffic that still plagues us. Fortunately, when we pull into the restaurant I notice that the long strand of trucks, buses and SUVs is originating from the expressway exit in town, and breathe a sigh of relief that we’ll be free of the awful traffic and numerous near-death encounters until the next time they decide to close off the expressway in one direction for a hundred kilometers or so.

The day turns out to be fairly easy and uneventful, consisting of long cruises through green, rice-covered valleys and the occasional climb over into the next.

We stop for lunch around two, but Evan doesn’t eat. We’ve got metabolisms about as opposite as they come. When we continue after lunch, we find the Yunnan architecture that we’ve been marveling at so much (and which I’ve failed to mention to this point) has grown even more interesting.

The houses are basically brick rectangles, outside walls coated with plaster and then painted white and topped off with a gray tile roof, peak curving up at each eave. My description hardly does the simple yet elegant design justice.

Emblems and murals on the local architecture, presumably from the Yi minority (彝族), by Andy

As we descend into one valley, however, at least one, white end-wall of nearly every home is adorned with a mural, many circular in nature, like a family emblem. They remind me of the hex signs on barns back in my home in rural Pennsylvania, but the designs aren’t necessarily symmetric. Fire is a major theme — some feature a bull’s face and horns over a red fire, others people dressed up in traditional costume, dancing around a fire and playing instruments. Combined with the big, blue sky and gigantic clouds stretching out high above to the horizon, the whole valley has a very “western frontier” feel, especially given the drought, that with some minor tweaks would feel just as at home in Tibet or Arizona.

One last major climb as the sunlight is beginning to turn golden presents a vista of endless green mountains, short and rounded at first as they amble away from the valley over which we’re climbing, but growing taller and more craggy in the distance until they jut up against the brilliant blue horizon. I hitch a ride by grabbing onto one of the ropes holding the canvas onto a slow-moving truck as it passes and relax to enjoy the view for the last kilometer.

Village with a view, looking down from our last climb of the day, by Andy

The descent takes us through a long, wooded corridor, to which we have almost entirely to ourselves. Golden afternoon light flickers sideways through the foliage, casting long shadows in front of us as we peddle away from the low-hanging sun. Knowing daylight is growing scarce, we hop into the first open restaurant for dinner and a quick electronics charge, before climbing into the woods a couple kilometers out of town and setting up camp in a clearing where Evan swears he sees monkeys.