Day 18/164: Rest Day Two in Bogota – The tourist!

Bogota has a population of nearly 8 million people. With the surrounding towns this goes up to 10 million. Bogota is amongst the 25 largest cities in the world, and is situated 2,640 meters above sea level. Also it is the second highest city for elevation in South America (highest is Quito).We have approximately two more weeks in Colombia before we cross into Ecuador.

Before going off onto tourist activity we needed to go to the laundry (lavanderia) to pick up our laundry.  The bike clothes certainly look better having been washed at a laundry rather than in a sink.

Sue and I got a taxi to take us to the cable car to go up to the Monserrate monastery, at 3,152 metres above sea level. The ride with up in the cable car takes about 5 minutes and is pretty steep.

The cable car station (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

The cable car to take us up to Monserrate

View of the city from the cable car

Not a fan of heights, so gripping on tight (Photo and caption credit: Sue’s blog)

We had decided beforehand to have lunch up there. When we got up there the first restaurant we went to was a fine dining French restaurant. We thought what the heck, tomorrow it is dirt roads and sandwiches, so we sat down to a delicious  meal.

The French restaurant we went to on the left

The French restaurant at the top of the cable car

Sue and I at lunch
You can’t see in this photo as it was raining but about 5 minutes later the mist cleared and we had a glorious view of the city

We had French onion soup, and salmon. Sue had flambéed bananas for desert and I had creme brûlée – yum. We had a half bottle of sav blanc to go with it. Plus coffee. The cost was 125 pesos each, which is about 65 NZ 😀

With my delicious salmon meal (Photo credit: Sue’s camera)

The waiter about to flambé Sue’s banana desert at the restaurant

We then walked around the monastery for a while.

The monastery

View of city from Monserrate monastery

Overlooking Bogota (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

We had to go to the toilets (banos) which costs 500 pesos and you get your own individual packet of toilet paper!

Sue with the little packet of toilet paper

We then caught the cable car back down and jumped in a cab to go to Bolívar Square which is part of the historical old town. However there was a protest going on and the first few roads were closed by policia. The taxi dropped us off as close as possible.

View of Bolivar square

In the square you could buy corn and feed it to the pigeons, and they will eat it out of your hand. We wandered back to the hotel looking at all the street stalls. We came across Rhonda coming out of the French bakery. I was looking at the cakes. There were some amazing looking little cheese cakes. Cheese cakes always make me think of my daughter Tracey, who loves cheese cake.

The little cheese cakes made me think of my daughter Tracey

Back to the hotel to download photos from the camera, then out for a quick small meal as I was still pretty full. Back to the hotel to catch up with the blog, pack, and get ready for another 6 days riding – and take one more hot shower.

We have to be downstairs with our bags by 5:30 am tomorrow, so a 4:45am start.

A cat having a snack at the bottom of the cable car

And that’s a wrap!

To take the words from a previous ride: drat, somehow I must have missed a flag, because I found myself at the airport heading back to reality!

So after 80 days the epic tour is over and I am back in Wellington. All I can say about the flight home: long distance travel is ugly! I was sustained though by the knowledge that at the end of last flight I would be seeing my children and new grandson.

I was a bit worried on the flight from Auckland to Wellington as I could not stay awake. However once I got off the plane and saw most of my children and grandson waiting for me I had a new lease of life. Kelly, Daniel (my son in law), Shellbe, Lizzy and Xavier, and Dan (holding a huge bunch of flowers) were there to meet me. Tracey couldn’t get to the airport but she was at home waiting when we got there. Kelly had bought her work car, a 7 seater Odyssey, so we could all drive home together (with the exception of Daniel who kindly drove a separate car to carry all my stuff, such as a large bike box).

Proud Gran!

We got takeaways on the way and Dan had organized wine for the celebration. We had an enjoyable evening catching up.  I got to hold my grandson at the airport and then again at home. I finally got to see him with his eyes open.

Benji the Excellent Dog was very excited to see me, and not at all impressed when he was put quickly back outside when we had tea. The cat Boss had the usual cat reaction – you haven’t bothered to come home for three months so don’t expect any interest from me just because you’re here now.

I managed to stay up until 10pm, then it was nice to be getting into my own bed, no fly to have to zip up and down to get in and out, and to keep bugs out!  And an inside toilet, with paper and soap – luxury.

Writing this now it is 5am Saturday morning, I have been awake for awhile, it will take me a few days to get back into sync with the time zone. I am going to get up in a minute and go out to the kitchen and make a pot of TEA 🙂 and toast, and come back to bed. Two of the things I really missed when I was away were toast and being able to make a cup of tea whenever I wanted. Then if I don’t go back to sleep I will take Benji The Excellent Dog for a walk along the beach. Then it’s off to the hairdresser for me.

Benji the Excellent Dog

Then, would you believe, I will have to go out and look for a laundromat! How ironic! Our trusty washing machine chose this week to die. The repair man came yesterday and it is not fixable, but it did last 15 years in this busy household. Plus of course I will be buying a new machine today.

I am thinking of maybe going for a short ride today and a longer one tomorrow. Today I also need to get everything for the usual Sunday feast, unpack, and open three months of mail. At my request, my children have also saved me the magazines from the Saturday newspapers, so I will enjoy working through those. I will also of course be reading the Saturday Dominion Post – but only this week’s. Then Monday or Tuesday I will have a go at the Windmill Hill ride in Makara, and the Hungerford Road Hill.

Then I am back to work on Wednesday, and back to fitting in riding and training for the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge around my life, rather than the past three months of riding being my life. However it is helped by the arrival of day light savings time this weekend!

Thanks to you all for reading the blog, I have always enjoyed reading the comments posted. A huge thank you to the editor of this blog, my daughter Kelly, who has done an amazing job, adding  links to the places I have visited, and interpreting and correcting my creative spelling to ensure that my posts are actually readable. I am a challenged (I prefer the term creative) speller at the best of times, but with often poor lighting and the iPad adding its own interpretation of what I’m saying (which I did not always manage to notice and correct) – all I can say is “Kelly you have done an amazing job, thank you”.

This is the final bog for this epic adventure! However blogging will resume with the Bamboo Road ride, late 2013! This epic journey goes from Shanghai to Singapore over three months. I will have to be a sectional rider for this as won’t be able to take three months off again.

Thanks for reading! Some more photos will be posted on Facebook over the coming weeks. You can see them here: 100kayesadayfacebookpage.

(And if you are looking for another cycling adventure to read about, you could follow this one, the blog of a midwife who is cycling around Australia: www.gogirlaustralia.net.au)

Day 79: Avis to Benavente – 104k

6,233km down: 55km to go 

It was a very quiet camp site last night, but I still managed to wake up at 2am and stay awake for a couple of hours. “Oh well” I thought “At least it is the second to last night in the tent, and its not raining”.

I know I have probably bored you all to tears with my running commentary on the toilet facilities where we stay. However as I have talked about the other countries I can’t not mention the Portuguese facility. So I walk in and the first thing I see is a squat toilet, no paper but a hose, and no hand rail to lever up and down! Thankfully I went to the next cubicle and there is a toilet bowl, though once again no seat and no paper. In comparison to the squat toilet it is not so bad, apart from the fact they don’t really flush. You push the button and about a teaspoon on water comes trickling out, so not the cleanest. There was no soap which is par for the course. The showers are full of empty shampoo bottles, toilet paper (I don’t even want to imagine why that was in there) and hair. I felt like I needed a shower after the shower, ugghh! The camp site was well lit though so no problem finding your way to the facilities in the dark.

There was no rain over night and as we have moved back an hour since coming into Portugal it was light this morning when we had breakfast. When we got the instructions for the day – YAY!!!! No tenting tonight, we are staying in hotel, hurray! Yahoo! A bed etc.

Tonight we will get our tour tops so we can wear them into Lisbon tomorrow. The ride tomorrow is going to be short about 50k, of which 35k is a convoy. We will have a celebration when we get there with photos etc. Then we’ll have a break to pack up bikes, get changed etc and then our last dinner together.

Even while today riding it did not seem real, but tonight it is starting to sink in. Especially as I have spent the past hour writing thank you cards for the TDA crew. They are all amazing people and I am going to miss them. I have been challenged on many levels on this trip and they have been supportive and encouraging all the way.

Today was 104k which makes our total so far 6,233k, so we have definitely done the distance on the shirt which is 6226k, phew I won’t feel like a fraud when I wear it. Today was not so challenging, a few climbs but nothing significant. There were two gravel roads, one about 4k and one about 10k. A couple of the riders are not happy when we ride on gravel because they have thin road bike tyres, but hey, it says clearly in the tour information we will go off road onto gravel and dirt roads.

We had one highway we had to go along that did not have much of a shoulder, and there were trucks, so it was a bit hairy. The Portuguese drivers are not as relaxed and bike friendly as their Italian and Spanish counterparts. We discovered this within about 5k of entering the country, when two cars cut us off at a roundabout.

So we were wary of the traffic, but mostly it was pretty good, only a couple of cars got a bit close. At the lunch stop Esther made us laugh, she had flagged the stop with the usual orange tape, but had also written last lunch with the tape (tomorrow we have a packed lunch).

Last Lunch Stop

Today at about 20k we were rushed by a couple of guard dogs. The gate to the yard they were minding was open, and all of a sudden out they came! I concentrated on not making eye contact and not moving my legs as it was a slight downhill, so I just glided through, and they let us go. They got pretty close to Daniel, with one being on each side of him, and he could feel the cold of their noses on his buttocks, but once he stopped pedalling they let him glide through. Carol was the last rider through and she was bitten on the leg, whether it was because she was yelling and kicking out at them, or they had just had enough, who knows but I will maintain the same gliding strategy in future.

We saw lots more calves and lambs today, so it is clearly a planned strategy, not accidental. Also saw a field full of white herons, it had been watered and they were down on the ground.

We got to the hotel about 2pm. I needed to dry out my tent as it was wet from dew from last night. I went into the park across the road, and got a few curious looks from locals, wondering no doubt exactly what I was up to sitting on the grass with my tent in two layers spread out in front of me.

Tonight we are having dinner in the restaurant. When we arrived we had to make a choice – fish or chicken. I chose the fish as it comes with corn bread which I am very partial to. I hope I don’t get food envy when looking at the chicken.

Hotel Vila in Benavente

Day 74: Madrigal de la Vera to Malpartida de Plasencia – 88k

5,850km down: 375km to go Up 1,250 metres, down 1,150

To start off with the camp site had looked really quiet, but we did not realize how many permanent residents of the camp there were. Plus there was a football game with Real Madrid playing at 8:30pm, so the bar got busy, and a stream of people making all kinds of racket headed to the bar to watch the game. Oh great, I thought, another night of no sleep, but I must have been really tired as I went to sleep quite quickly. I woke up for awhile in the middle of the night but got off to sleep again until the rooster started. I did suggest this morning that one of the riders has a recording that they play for fun but no one owned up.

After sleeping two nights ago in a sleeping bag and wearing arm warmers first thing in the morning, the weather has got warmer again.  This morning it was about 8:30am by the time it was light enough for us to get out on the road.

Climbing

We went through a number of towns that ended in de la Vera (I must look up what that means, my best guess today is that de la Vera is the name of the mountain range we are travelling along). The most noteworthy of the de la Vera towns were:
1. Losar de la Vera – this town has heaps of poplar trees cut into interesting shapes, I kept expecting to see Edward Scissorhands at work
2. Jaraiz de la Vera – a really old town with crumbling stone walls etc, I will google it to see how old it is.

You can see the tree cuts up the street, in front a new type of shrine – cut into a tree

The campsite tonight is good. Good showers, toilets with seats and paper. There is still no soap but it has a really good washing area. And it has a bar with Wifi plus a small supermarket. So it is probably the best so far.

Tomorrow we ride to Cáceres and then have a rest day.

Day 66: Arnes to Canizar de Olivar – 116k

5,219km down: 1,006km to go  (Up 1,478 metres, and down 943)

I had another dreadful night’s sleep, the Italian family at the campsite before Genoa had nothing on their Spanish counterparts. There were people drinking when we got to camp about 2:30pm, and still going after midnight. One particular woman had a great parenting technique, every 20 minutes or so she would scream at the top of her voice something that sounded like “Harriieee!”. Also it was really hot again in the tent. So far this half of the trip I have slept every camping night in a tent but my resolve is quickly waning.

The day started off with us being served porridge for breakfast, which is always a sign that the day ahead will be challenging – usually we just have muesli. The good news was the first 50k was on a rail trail (www.montsport.es), the bad news was that there was 10k of it on a gravel road, and after that it was climbing for the rest of the day.

The rail trail was pretty good, a slightly up gradient but cool temperatures. The gravel road was challenging, it was more like stones and rocks.

Rail trail after it turned from rocks to gravel

We went through three tunnels, and yes my light chose now to die again.

Rail trail tunnel

The hills after lunch just went on and on, and up! We only had two small down hills the entire afternoon. It was hot too, the country is stark, the scenery was like the desert road – miles and miles of dirt, but instead of tussock grass we had dirt and olive trees!

Dirt and olive trees

At about 15k out from the finish I had had it, my legs were sore, and I was over it! I have to admit there were tears, but tears are not weak – giving up is, so on and on and on I went. At 11k out I came across the lunch truck again! For a moment I thought “Oh my god we haven’t even made it to the lunch stop yet!!”. But Esther realised that we were having a hard day and had stopped to refill water and give us watermelon. I have not yet mentioned the watermelon, it’s the highlight of the lunch stop each day, as it is instant sugar and fluid.

The road went on and on

And on and on some more

I finally got to the last turn, and it was a 2k ride downhill to camp. And yay – a campsite with grass, I should actually be able to get my tent pegs in. And the toilet has soap and toilet paper and toilet seats, plus a shower that stays on. I’m moving in. There were also hardly any other campers, so it should be a better night than last night. We had the riders meeting and got some daunting news about tomorrow – 120k with some big hills. I think it’s time to review what’s in my panniers.

Day 65: Tarragona to Arnes – 108k

5,103km down: 1,122km to go

It was hot during the night but thankfully we were at a quiet camp site.

When we got in yesterday we were told that the bar shuts at 4pm (it was 3pm) and the pool shuts at 6pm.  Not sure if it was because it was Sunday or whether it was because the camp site was deserted. To get wifi you had to produce your passport and get an ID card, quite a lot of work for one night.  Also we found out later the password was device specific and as a group we were only allowed four. Thankfully our group is now only 8 riders and not everyone wanted Internet access.

We are back to showers that you have to push the button to get 7 seconds of water before you have to push it again, and the toilet saga continues – toilets with no seat, but there was soap and paper. I guess if your house has no toilet seat there is never any argument about the seat being left up. There was another interesting translation on a sign in the toilet: “You had to use the paper properly, thank you”.

We knew today was going to be  challenging with hills 10k long, and the heat, so we were on the road by 7:30am. It is not light enough now to leave any earlier. The first 28k was relatively flat, we went through a seaside town called Miami Platsa (which translates to Miami Beach), and we took a photo as we left the Mediterranean and headed inland. The scenery today was fantastic – when you got your head up and your breathing under control enough to enjoy it!

Last view of the sea until Lisbon

I think it was one of the most challenging rides we have done so far. Tomorrow we start with a 50k rail trail then more of the same so maybe that will be the most challenging, as my legs will not have fully recovered from today. We climbed up past kilometre after kilometre of olive trees and almond trees. There was an enormous amount of work that had taken place building stone walls and terraces. There were a few fields of vines as well. At one place there was a golf resort and at the end of it there was a veggie garden.

We passed an amazing old village Tivissa, and just before lunch we crossed the Rio Ebro river. At lunch there was an ant hill just near the lunch truck, and after a few crumbs of food were dropped it was like a highway – streams of ants going both ways carrying crumbs, sometimes 8 or 9 ants were working together underneath the crumb, and you could just see moving pieces of bread and not the ants.

Amazing town called Tivissa

Today we climbed up 1,436 metres and went down 983. I had my photo taken at the summit of the Coll de Fatxes at 507 metres. In the picture you can’t really see that I’m leaning against the pole recovering. Just before the camp, having just climbed up a hill that seemed to go on and on and on, we got to a plateau and rode along with a beautiful backdrop of mountains with fields of new vines in front, it was very pretty.

At the top of Coll de Fatxes – 507 metres

When we got to the camp, YAY a pool! And no ID rigmarole! And open until late! I had a great swim with the best view I have ever had in a pool.

Across from the camp site

Day 60: Colera to Sant Feliu de Gulixols – 90k

4,791km down: 1,434km to go 

Not a great night sleep again, the camp site restaurant pumped up about 9pm and was still noisy until about midnight, at which point a camp site dog took over keeping people awake by barking every few minutes. I have not been using my ear phones as they seem to set off my inner ear imbalance (though that could of course just be coincidental), so it’s a dilemma – risk setting off and suffering from inner ear imbalance, or suffering from lack of sleep. The worst thing is finally going to sleep then waking up and checking the time and finding it is only 12:30am! And then 1:30am, 3am, 5am etc.

On a positive note the bugs that have plagued us up until now have just about all disappeared. It is too hot and dry, so at least when you get up during the night you are not set upon. Also the average temperature has dropped. Yesterday was pleasant all day, today was great in the morning but it was hot after lunch.

I rang home this morning to check on how my daughter and grandson were. Lizzy was asleep but Shellbe said all was going well. I also had a text from Lizzy overnight saying Xavier was eating and sleeping well. I got some great pictures this morning of Xavier with his mum and dad, another reason to be really pleased that I bought the iPad  – especially as during the rest days I will be able to skype!!! 🙂

Leaving the campsite this morning the first 10k had some climbing then it was flat or a slight incline until lunch. I was riding with John, Brett and Michele. As we came into lunch which we nearly missed the truck as we were watching the traffic and looking at a sculpture, and the lunch truck was on the other side! We were alerted by Ester yelling out, but John was too far in front to hear. Luckily we had a bunch of Spanish riders behind us who heard us yelling at him and when they passed him they said “Companions lost amigo” which alerted him that all was not right and he turned back to look for us. The Spanish riders are a lot more friendly than the Italians, if the Italians had have said anything they would have shouted “Smarten yourself up” as they glided past in their glistening and matching outfits.

Just after lunch we missed a turn and rode to the top of a hill we didn’t have to (all good training for the Taupo bike ride). We rode back and found the place we were meant to turn, we were pretty sure there was no flag but this does not always mean anything, as they often get removed. The next town was 15k away. We went up a fairly substantial hill and then down a steep and long decline, so I was very pleased to see a flag at the next town to know we were on the right track.

It was a fantastic bit of riding – even with the uphill – through the forest, and we only saw one car the entire time. Then it was a bit like when we came out of the tunnel into the small village on our way to Genoa – all of a sudden we were in a built up busy, busy shopping area, with people and cars everywhere. I was pleased to get to the campsite. Brett was even more pleased as he had felt unwell yesterday afternoon and had vomiting overnight. He had ridden today but felt not great, and was feeling nauseous again at the end. Hopefully he will be better tomorrow.

We are camping again tonight, and we have the return of the toilet seat yay! Plus toilet paper yay! And there is a shower that has good pressure and does not have to be held on with one hand while you shower with the other, yay! Still no soap but the rest is a big improvement! On the negative side we are still camping on hard dirt and my tent pegs now resemble sculptures with many different twisted and interesting shapes. Geergo was so fascinated by them that he took a photo of them all lined up together. I will definitely need to buy some more during the rest days in Barcelona. We get there tomorrow and then have two rest days.

Three of our riders are leaving us in Barcelona
Phil – Danya’s dad who joined us in Montpellier
David – who joined us in Vilnius
John – who has been with us all the way.

It will be sad to see them go. We are going to send John a tape of a barking dog, Italians partying, traffic noises and people expelling wind so when he misses us he can put up the tent in his back yard and play it through his ear plugs. Of course first he will have to have dinner in a metal bowl smelling slightly of bleach and drunk a glass of wine out of a plastic tumbler (also smelling slightly of bleach). We will have some sort of farewell dinner tomorrow in Barcelona.

Day 59: Le Balcares to Colera – 76k

4,701km down: 1,524km to go (3/4 of the way there!)

I never sleep well in a tent but last night I was awake for a few hours and could not go back to sleep. I feel very conflicted being over here with Lizzy just having had a baby. I rang Lizzy before leaving camp this morning; it was evening there so I got to speak to Lizzy, Theo, Shellbe and Kelly.  It was reassuring as it sounds like everything is going along very well.

I got some great photos of the aunties and uncles with their nephew, my grandson looks a lot like his Mum did as a baby – long and thin, with a red tinge to his hair, and very beautiful.

Today we rode through more deserted holiday parks and shopping centres, and closed amusement arcades. Although they look quiet and deserted now that school has gone back, the places must have been humming in the midst of the season. We made our way through the south of France and went through a couple of towns too beautiful not to mention.

Collioure had an old castle, old walls, a nice harbour, interesting looking houses and old boats.

Collioure

The next town, Port Vendres, had a great big ship in the middle of the harbour unloading, and lots of other small and large boats.

Port Vendres

From about 40k we hit the foot hills of the Pyrenees Mountains so we had couple of significant climbs, including the one to the Spanish border.

Just before the climb up to the border we stopped in a really pretty little town, Cerbère, for a cold drink and tried not to look at the climb ahead.  At least today the wind was behind us and we had a bit of assistance up the hills, however we also nearly got blown over the sides a couple of times, especially up by the Spanish border.

There was a really pretty little bay with people swimming, unlike France with its long sandy beaches, this was pebbly with a rugged coast line (a bit like Makara).

John, me and Brett at the Spanish border

The Spanish border is at the top of a big hill, on the way coming down the hill we came across a small snake on the road, it was smaller than I expected snakes to be, it was more like a large worm! I will have to watch carefully for these in the grass at toilet stops!

Coming down the Pyrenees mountain foothills just past Spanish border

The place we are staying was just after the bottom of the hill, San Miguel Camp Site in a town called Colera. We rode past the campsite and had a look at the town, it was very much like Cerbère – a pebbly beach with a rocky foreshore, the water is so blue.

Beach where we are staying in Colera

The campsite has toilet paper and a shower that stays on, but still no soap and still no toilet seats!  This is the third country with toilets at camps without toilet seats, but on a positive side there were no squat toilets to be seen 🙂 The last couple of camp sites that we have stayed at have been set up for mobile homes rather than camping and the ground is like concrete. I have had to borrow some tent pegs as mine have turned into tired and bent squiggle shapes, and some of them can no longer be knocked back into shape with a mallet.

Tortured tent pegs, or art?

We must not have been able to cook here as we had dinner in the restaurant tonight. We had paella, it was really nice.

Paella (pic stolen from another riders blog)

Day 57: Montpellier to Valpas Plage – 86 k

4,537km down: 1,688km to go

We left the hotel in a convoy for the first 5k. As already mentioned, the weather is noticeably colder, most riders are wearing jackets, and even a couple are wearing hats. The wind was around, but not too bad. We had reasonably good riding until the lunch stop.

All I can say is that when the lunch truck stopped and set up, Geergo would have had no idea that it was going to be right by a crazy busy market and in the middle of a massive motorbike display! My god, the bikes! Hundreds of them – big bikes, small bikes, bikes that were more like cars, they were endless.

At one point we lost the flags but after discussion and consulting a GPS we were off again. We stopped and took a photo of the Gulf of Lion (part of the Mediterranean), there was kilometre after kilometre of bike path.

We stopped about 15k from the camp at a lock and watched a couple of boats going up it. One of boats was called Christina B which is the name of my maternal grandmother so I took a photo of it.

Christina B

There was also a field with a large straw man, it was really huge.

I still get bike chain gunk all over my legs EVERY day!!

As already blogged about, the night before we got to Montpellier the camp we stayed at had a shower where you had to hold it on with one hand while you showered, well today was not quite as bad, at least it lasted 5 seconds in between pushes. But once again there were squat toilets, no soap, and no toilet paper. One of the things I have also found challenging is knowing which is the male and female toilets and shower, as it is not always clear if you don’t speak the language. In Italy I lurked outside until I saw a women going in, in Slovenia there were graphic illustrations on the male sign that left you in no doubt! In France I took a guess that Femes was female, luckily I was right.

The main holiday season has finished and the children have gone back to school, so we are riding through mile after mile of deserted camp grounds, empty shops, and amusement parks that are being dismantled. You can tell by looking that the place would have been bursting at the seams and humming only a very short time ago . . . Now it has that after Christmas feeling when it’s time to take down the tree.

I was really tired when I got to camp so I had a sleep. I woke up for tea then went for a walk along the beach. I noticed when going to bed that my phone was showing only 16 percent charged, which was strange as it was fully charged in Montpellier this morning! I was going to get up and find an outlet to charge it when it then decided it was 76 percent charged, so I thought it would be ok.

Day 52: Rest day in Cannes

I woke up in time for breakfast this time. It was so nice to wake up in an air-conditioned room in a comfortable bed (and having a toilet and shower). It is amazing how you appreciate really simple things:

• No bugs! (although one small sandfly did attempt to bite me just before it went to sandfly heaven)
• A bed that is bigger than your body
• Being able to stand up while you get dressed!
• A bathroom with soap, toilet paper and privacy!

So after breakfast it was time to take the post box to the post office – I had my fingers crossed that it would be open and not have any strange rules like no boxes on Tuesdays! Luckily I managed to get the post box sent off – we are not allowed to have anything on the tour that does not fit in either our permanent or day bay. The box was taking up a third of my day bag, so it’s good to have that space back!

Then it was time to do the laundry, yay we could leave stuff there, and they washed and dried it for us, we just had to return to pick it up in two hours. We looked around the markets, bought lunch and sent some postcards.

The markets in Cannes

Cheeseshop in Cannes

We saw a number of beggars sitting with a cup in front of them on the sidewalk by the laundry and market. I guess if they tried to sit on the beach front they would be moved on. There were a few street performers, as well one was a man with a cat and dog, they were curled up asleep together. The cat looked just like our cat Boss apart from it had only one black ear. I did not get a photo as my camera was in the hotel but I did take a picture of another pair heading out to their daily spot.

Street performers on their way to beg

There was also a metallic man that stood really still until you put money into his jar, then he moved.

After we picked up the laundry we had the option of sightseeing or going to the beach. We headed to the beach for the afternoon. We went to a pay section, there are small public sections of the beach in Cannes, but they are small and crowded. The rest are owned privately – mostly by the hotels, unfortunately the Ibis where we are staying is not flash enough to have its own beach space. By sheer luck we went to a spot that you did not have to be a hotel guest, for the price of 15 euro we got 2 chairs and an umbrella. If you didn’t pay for the umbrella they took it down. We spent a very nice lazy afternoon there swimming and dozing. The sea was so warm.

I went back to the hotel as I had arranged to have dinner with Dan and Brett at 6:30. We wanted to go to the pizza place right by the hotel but when we went in there the staff were all eating. They told us to come back at 7pm. We went and had a drink just down the road, and when we got back to the restaurant at about 7:05pm it was already packed. The pizza was nice, but I could not finish it.

Then it was time to pack and an early night ready for an early start in the morning.