In the wee hours of the morning, Jules woke and for some reason worried that her wetsuit, which she had hung out to dry, would blow onto the ground in the howling wind. She had been dreaming and couldn't get the picture of dogs and pigs tugging on it out of her mind . After hours of worry I decided to end her torment and left the little tent in the darkness to check on the wetsuit. It was lucky that I did.
On the way to the little run down building where we had stored our stuff and hung our wet clothes I found Julies panier on the ground. Oh great I thought. The crazy man has gone through our stuff and stolen something! I hopped back to the tent as quickly as I could over stones and scratchy grass in my bare feet. I told Jules to get out of bed and we examined the panier with my little torch. The bike bag was open and some of the insdies pulled out. No valuables appeared to be missing but strangely the netting was wet; it appeared to chewed on! Was the smelly, crazy man sleeping in the abandoned hut that deranged?
Packets of dried food had been ripped open and the contents devoured. Aha! The dogs had gotten into our stuff. A dog, probably the one Jules had fed, had decided to help itself to our emergency food supply. It had dragged the panier outside and then somehow gotten through the zips at the packet food. it knew we had food - Jules had fed it some of her much-loved crackers after we had eaten dinner. The remaining crackers were gone and a packet pasta of past we had been carrying since Darwin was missing. The next morning I discovered that my noodles had been pilfered too - luckily my panier is much easier to get into.
We laughed and went back to bed. A little damage had been done but now Jules had a "wild dogs ate my crackers and chewed on my panier" story. We were out of food but what could we do? We went back to sleep.
After a good nights sleep we woke with the sun. We packed up our gear and left. I would have liked to have spent another day snorkelling on the beach but we were out of food and the return trip down the mountainside would have been exhausting. We we already tired, and Jules was not feeling well. There was no transport on the severly potholed road out of Tutuala. The first ten kilometres were not bad, and our loaded bikes didn't have any serious problems with the bumps. The road quickly got worse and the boneshaking started for good. Hopefully our bike racks wouldn't break.
We kept checking behind for a lift. After fifteen kilometres we heard the roar of an egnine. "Team Cunt" (as Tom and Hugh referred to themselves for some reason - I think it was due to Hughs inconsiderate driving habits) came hooning down the road at high speed. We jumped off our bikes and waved them down - we didn't give them much choice. They were in a hurry to get to Kom, their next destination (after we had recommended it). We loaded our bikes into the landcruiser.
It was a bumpy ride in the back - Hugh is a true maniac behind the wheel and locals often shouted at him as he passed dangerously at high speed. I would have liked to have ridden the downhill stretch to the coast on the main road but we were also in a hurry - we had to ride another 80km to Baucau and it was already hot. At the Kom turnoff we piled out of the 4WD, said goodbyes and mentioned that we shhhould meet up with Tom in the Loki Bar. It turned out that Hue had actually heard of it through a couple of his friends. Totally bizarre!
We started riding again. It was fun for a while but as the morning wore on it became damn hot. Jules bore the brunt of a stiff wind in the lead. For some reason we always had a head wind. Her lips cracked and burned. I shelterd behind, using her back as a wind break. We had alredy ridden this stretch in the opposite direction and knew it was desolate and boring. There was no traffic so we couldn't flag down a lift.
At one stage our hopes rose as a UN ute appeared in the distance behind us. We were saved! Three Australian police were driving and I thought, no worries, we can jump in the back. No such luck. The cop refused and said something about insurance and rules - the usual bullshit people like to give travellers they don't want to pick up. Bastard! We were really hurting. We kept riding.
We passed the town of Laga and another UN vehicle behind us. Cool! I stuck out my hand and realised as it approached it was the same ute that had refused earlier. I game them a defeated look and smiled as it drove past. Bastards! Oh well, we had gotten ourselves into this adventure and we could get ourselves out.
After having ridden fifty kilometres a large yellow truck came from behind. Jules was mad at me for having missed a lift. I had not been paying attention to what was coming from behind and a vehicle had whizzed past. She was infront and it was my job to keep an eye out the back. Poor Jules was hurting more than me. Shortly afterwards I made up for it. The yellow truck stopped and we climbed into the back, heaving our bikes up fully laden.
Things had suddenly got better! The truck sped off and we faced into the wind, holding our bikes in place against the metal sides. This was the way to travel - it felt like a real luxury. The truck passed the beautiful rice terraces and chugged up the moutainside to Baucau - it would have been a real killer to ride up at the end of an exhausting stretch. The drivers let us off and refused payment with a typical East Timorese smile.
