Training day-30km

Note the shoes hanging on the rails above

It was a grey dreary walk whilst training this time. 30 km did not feel as scary as it did at first and it appears to be that my body is growing accustomed to such endurance seeing as the next day, all signs of aching had gone. We walked from Dordrecht as seen here. The grey overcast skies personified the continued conflict in South Sudan.

The International Community, the United Nations, heads of states as well as many others condemn the fighting and encourage peace dialogue and an end to the fighting. Both the president as well as the rebel leader expressed their willingness to talk although I am very skeptical about the good such talks will bring. We are in a state of war with territory being captured and recaptured, meanwhile food security is non existent for many as well as the continued additions to the death toll. Please click on BBC news.

Yumm!

Although the rainy season brings floods and the threat of diseases, it is also known to hinder conflict, perhaps it is now down to mother nature to put a hold on death.

This walk had plenty of delights, it took us through the Kinderdijks. A system of windmills that manage the water flow, without it, a huge part of the Netherlands would have a serious problem and I constantly admire the Dutch innovation in keeping most of their country dry whilst being below the sea level. Somebody once told me the bridge that links Juba and Gumbo was built by the Dutch, an injection of such skilled labor could do us some good in Nation building.

 







Further on during the walk, we came across this poster to the right outside someones house, I asked my partner to translate it for me as the premises did not look like a hotel, here is what it means in English:
Hotel Mama,
All inclusive 24 hours, 7 days a week open,
Unlimited food and drink, washing and ironing service, Homework assistance,
Taxi service, this hotel is lovingly run and worthy of more than 5 stars.

I thought it was the nicest thing I had seen all day and made me miss my mother dearly. 






Later on during the day when we had gotten to the outskirts of Rotterdam at a time when the mind is distant and far, we were jolted by this jingling sound that tends to signal the closure of a route to allow a train, tram or metro to pass. It didnt sound like the usual so we just stood there in confusion seeing as no rail tracks were in sight. The barrier came down (almost on our heads), with us in the wrong side I must add and then this bus just drove paste with nobody manning it. I had never seen anything like it before!

 I have seen these buses parked at the Kralingse Zoom station but never thought them to be driver-less, how efficient. Of all the cities and towns I have been in here in the Netherlands, Rotterdam is by far the coolest, most futuristic and diverse of them all, next thing you know we will be seeing drones whizzing past in the skies delivering peoples packages!

A driver-less bus!