I am looking for the people who have always been there, and belong to the places they live. The others I do not wish to see. - Norman Lewis

17 December 2019, Zimmi to Potoru, 33.3km
Potoru Guest House 50,000LLE (R73)

We began our morning with breakfast at the same restaurant at which we dined last night. On the radio was a narrative song, telling the story of a woman who had left her baby in the hut and when she returned the hut was on fire. She sang of running into the hut to rescue the child, getting badly burned in the process. She mourned her husband leaving her thereafter, and described the ugliness of her scars. But sang too about the love and gratitude of her daughter, now grown.
I was tired for some reason, so when we found there was a guest house in Potoru, we decided, after some dithering, to call it quits. We rode mainly tar from Zimmi, with short sections of roadworks, through mildly hilly terrain dotted with tall palms.
The guest house was attached to a bar. While taking a drink there, and discussing whether or not to spend the night, we asked the owner if there was a restaurant in Potoru proper. His response was ambivalent. While we were still dithering about what to do and whether to stay, a young boy approached our table with a royal blue pot and lid in hand. He opened the pot to show us freshly cooked white rice with a simple chilli sauce. We were delighted to accept his offer of a hot meal - in both senses of the word “hot”, and ate half of it for lunch, saving the other half for dinner, adding to it a tin of chilli with beans we were carrying in our panniers.
Our room was very simple, the bathroom shared. No fan at all, and no power until the generator was turned on after dark. It was then the disco music was also turned on, pounding insistently until well past our bedtime.
When there is no power and no fan, we get little respite from the humidity. Having damp skin and wet clothes pretty much all the time is … er … unpleasant.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…