Guest Book
Just a lousy day
I wake up....late. I updated the site and went to look for a laundromat. Found one. But the woman yells at me – "how dare I to ask for same day service." I didn’t dare" - did I mention that I was already pissed? Breakfast, packing (the bikes were parked last night in the hotel lobby!!!) and fill gas. Then I try to leave the city. Try. After one hour in overwhelming heat and humidity (I am not only mad, now I even disgusted with my sweat self). I am looking for my sunglasses. No sunglasses. I am terrified. Looking around maybe they are on the top of my head but I have a helmet on. NO SUNGLASSES. Here goes $200 and more than this, I can’t ride/drive without sunglasses. Gidion says he saw them fall at the gas station. I want to go back but he convinces me that they are already gone. I drive to a the shopping center. Everyone here are tourists so the prices will be accordingly high. Continued. Still trying to get out of the traffic. At one of the lights I see to my right a mall and through the glass doors I see in front of me a sunglasses store. I stop at once. I start checking ALL the pairs in the store. I create one hell of a mess. After 20 minutes of creating chaos in the store, I decide on what I want. She looks for the box and in the meantime I am looking in the mirror to see how they fit. In the mirror I see myself, the glasses and the pair I ‘dropped at the gas station’ hanging around my throat, where I usually hang them when I have the helmet on. I tell the girl in store ‘just a second’, put the other pair on the counter, and in half a second later I am on the bike. Took me 35 seconds more to be on the highway and to allow the wind to dry the sweat. And it did. Because immediately after, the rain began, and it cooled down, and that’s how it was all the way today. Not as bad as it was in the first days in North America, but water drips from the sky all the time, and it turns cold and ugly and you can’t see a thing and I am not having fun at all. I stop every 50 km to dry off for a while, and update the daily route. I've already compromised on ‘just crossing the border to France’ (about 150 km from Barcelona). At one of the gas stations, we stop for coffee, when suddenly BMW screeches to a halt beside me, an off jumps a Japanese fellow who flies by me with his helmet still on his head – to the washroom…. The rain has its own side effects… the guy has been traveling for a year now. After coming out of the washroom, we chat and exchange stories. Of course now his carrying a sticker on his wind shield…
Arriving at the border. I stop in the rain to take a picture of the sign and when getting back on my bike, I hear Gidion calling me. I turn backward, to find Gidion’s with a shocked look on his face and his bike laying on the ground. He just dropped it somehow. I know the feeling, and before he starts crying (I am joking of course), I lift it for him. 350 kg. Its not simple. The price? A scratch and small chip on the mirror. I hope it will be our only damage ‘till the end.
France. The drivers are ugly and if this web site was not public, I would have said the they are SOBs, but its not nice to say that they are SOBs so I will just write that it is raining, you can’t see a thing and Gidion who is a bit more ‘conservative’ than myself, disappeared on me from time to time because they just ‘cut’ him off. Trucks close in on him and almost touch both of us. At this stage I am apathetic, cold, and just want to end this misery and find a place to do laundry. We arrive at the gas station after the border and I buy a detailed map of the area. While I am looking for the nearest city, the rain becomes lighter. So I decide that we will continue. 150 km later there is a town called Montpellier. In the gas station I surprise myself . Regardless my ‘failed’ French, I can still make small chit chat with the guy in the store. Wrong thing to do, as now I've become our interpreter in France as well. Five minutes later the rain begins again and this time it is worse. You can’t see a thing. I insist and lead us to the city and after leaving the highway the rain stopped (did you have any doubt?). We are going to a town on the beach call Plage, I find the last two rooms in town, as well as a Laundromat. Doing laundry. Back to the hotel. I type this page and I'm glad this day ends.
381 km.
Good night.