candy flipflop spider land

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The first thing I saw in the morning when I got back on the road was this restaurant in the desert:

Then two guys stopped their car and asked for a photo:

I particularly liked the hat.

Walking sucked, though. My little toes had been squashed by my leather shoes, and my other pair of shoes was damaged at the right heel. So I was hurting.

Maybe that’s why this Let’s Walk video turned out to be so angry:

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The road was hot and long:

I didn’t know what this road sign was supposed to tell anyone, but I figured it was probably making fun of me:

“Watch your feet!” Or something like that.

I limped along for a few hours, and I felt very relieved when I finally saw the lunch camp that my guide Shukur and my driver Gödzh had set up:

We even had shade! Real shade:

I spread my bamboo mat out on the floor and collapsed on top of it. But I had not yet found a position that didn’t hurt when this gentleman appeared out of nowhere:

He had stopped his car in order to give me a bag of candy:

It was becoming increasingly clear that the people of Turkmenistan were really nice.

We had lunch, and then I found a position in which I could rest without being in too much pain:

Feet up, that’s the secret.

But I had to change something about my walking game. Both the leather shoes and my synthetic shoes were pure torture for my feet. So in the end I chose the silly option and walked the rest of the day in my flipflops:

It fucking sucked. But it didn’t hurt as bad as walking in my shoes. At least not yet.

I felt ridiculous though. You know flipflops are called flipflops because of the flapping sound they make, right? So here I was, in the Turkmen desert, walking around to the sound of flap-flap-flap:

There was sand all around:

And apparently, there were lots of camels, too:

I made it to our night camp somehow, and when I got there, the fire was already going, and dinner was almost ready:

So the world didn’t really look that bad anymore.

Until I found her:

Remember my friend Priscilla from a few weeks earlier? Well, this one was A LOT bigger, and she moved A LOT faster, and she had eyes that reflected my flashlight. What the fuck, I thought, what the actual fuck?

Here’s a little video that recaps the day:

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The night was beautiful, though:

The Longest Way had come to the stars.