A Special Cameo

Hi all. Normally, this blog is Lynda's domain but she has agreed to let me make a cameo appearance to recount my version of the dog chase mentioned in her last blog posting. This is straight from the journal I have been keeping of our travels and describes the incident from my perspective:

...The next town was Motopi which was still another 50km or so which meant we got hit hard by the sun. Lynda was really feeling it and at one point I even offered to tow her with a small piece of cord I had. Our pace slowed considerably, that is until we encountered a wiley dog and his canine companions. As soon as they noticed us they started barking and running after us. This was to be our first dreaded encounter with potentially rabid dogs that we had read and heard so much about in Africa (we decided to skip the rabies shots back home mostly due to the exhorbitant cost - $1,200 for both of us!) Only one of the dogs, an exceptionally vicious and vocal one who was spotted and scraggly looking, kind of like a hyena, continued on with the chase; the rest fell behind. I had barely noticed them before I heard Lynda yell, "Oh shit!" and watched her kick into high gear. Before I could blink her legs were a spinning ball of adrenaline charged terror as she sped off ahead of me. She dropped into the aerobar position, her body and bicycle unified, slicing through the wind like the blade of a focused and determined ninja; a 'Lynja' if you will. She had left me to fend off the malicious mutt as by now she was approaching light speed. My salt-encrusted, tired legs could not match the cadence nor the determination of her legs - two powerful pistons propelling her away from the dog and towards safety. The persistent little bastard surprised me with it's stamina! Just as I thought it was starting to fall back it seemed to get a second wind and jumped into overdrive. That was when I yelled, "Keep going!!" Lynda charged on showing no signs of slowing down, in fact, she was still gaining speed! An incredible feat considering just a minute ago she was on the verge of collapse and resembled a lethargic sloth riding a bicycle during a heat-induced coma.

Finally, the dog could run no further and gave up his chase. He stayed in the middle of the road watching us as we sped away, probably annoyed that he missed out on this blue moon opportunity to take down two bicycle tourers on this own turf. I kept looking back to see if he was still pursuing us. It was a while before Lynja's steely-eyed forward gaze left the dashed white line ahead of her and peered over her shoulder. By the time we had put in a large enough safety margin between us and the dog we eased off on the pedals and both had a good laugh about it. "I didn't know I had it in me!" she said. "I didn't either!!" I answered back in disbelief.

Ten minutes later we got chased by another dog but ever since those two incidents, the dogs have been much nicer and Lynda has gotten way smarter about having her pepper spray handy for future dog encounters. "I'll spray you! I mean it! I'll f*cking spray you!" I believe were her exact words to the next dog who attempted a chase. Miraculously, he must have sensed her seriousness because the damned thing backed off as soon as she said it! Look out dogs, there's a new boss in town and she goes by the name of Lynja!















Here in Africa, they don't use junkyard dogs, they use junkyard lions! This was taken at the gates to an auto scrap yard. Hopefully we don't run into any of these!