Day 6: Welkom - Bloemfontein

Total Distance Covered: 447 km
Distance Remaining: 1,563

After washing our faces in the gas station bathroom and grabbing a cup of coffee inside, we hit the road! We hung up our wet clothes in the van and laid our wet – but hopefully now clean socks – on the back seat in hopes that they’d air dry as we hiked through the day.

Following doctors orders, Ryan didn’t hike today and stayed off of his feet. After the massive blister first developed on his heal, it popped and a second blister formed from the continued friction. It too has popped and having now lost several layers of skin, what was before a monster of a blister is now a very serious open wound that is both extremely painful and absolutely disgusting! At this point there’s really nothing that can be done except give the skin time heal…although from the looks of it, an exorcism on that heal probably wouldn’t hurt. LOL.

We had the brilliant idea of refilling all of our water bottles in Welkom. What we didn’t know is that Welkom water is putrid and tastes and smells like mildew. Apparently everyone in South Africa (except us) knows Welkom’s water is wretched. We tried mixing it with powerade and with fruit juice, but to no avail. Nothing could make it palatable!

Without our knowledge, Ikumi stopped drinking the water because of its taste. We didn’t realized she wasn’t rehydrating as we hiked…an apparent attempt at turning herself into Japanese biltong (Africaans for “beef jerky”). By early afternoon, she started feeling sick, getting dizzy and looking pale. Fortunately, we caught it while it was only minor dehydration and she didn’t need medical attention, just plenty of fluids and some rest.

Today was an absolute nightmare! 38 degrees (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and not a cloud in the sky. A long black road cutting through barren fields of dry grass as far as the eye can see…and the very real sense that we’re in the middle of nowhere with a long ways to go! The sweat just poured off our bodies and we could barely take in enough fluids to compensate. The hiking was extremely slow and the heat and sun exposure was exhausting. Kelly and Ikumi are getting heat rash and we’re all concerned about heat stroke, so we’re calling it quits early and will try to make up ground over the next few days. Let’s hope this heat won’t last!

There is one small blessing today…we were extremely fortunate to be able to arrange accommodation at the home of Ruan’s great aunt in Bloemfontein (South Africa’s City of Roses). We hadn’t arranged lodging previously (thinking that we’d be walking non-stop day and night through this portion of the hike) so it was a wonderful alternative to sleeping in the car at a gas station a second night in a row. After a quick dip in the pool and a cold shower to cool down after this miserable day, we headed off to have dinner with the Bloemfontein Rotary Club.

Despite most of the club members being gone already for the holidays, we had an excellent dinner and the club couldn’t have been more welcoming. We headed back and hit the sack…the day-to-day exhaustion of the physical strain and the heat seems to be catching up with us.