Today was the day to sort the men from the boys! We woke up to sunshine, and Gwenn (now nicknamed Philippe Janneret) informed us that Spain was basically a square, and most of the square was looking pretty sunny. We therefore dressed for a sunny (albeit chilly) day, and headed for a hypromat to wash the grime off the bikes. No sooner had we set off than the skies opened, and the morning was probably the wettest that I've spent on a bike. The temperature was 5C, and when we stopped in a place in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, my shoes were water-logged, and I was shivering with cold. I even managed to forget my sunglasses when we set off again, and although I realised quite soon afterwards, I couldn't be bothered to go back for them. At that stage, I wasn't quite sure how we were going to get to our destination, because there was another hill ahead, and the morale of the troops was low. Fortunately, the clouds started to break up, and the odd ray of sunshine appeared. During a steep climb up to a plateau covered with wind turbines,we were doing about 10 kph, and the destination was still over 100kms away! Luckily, our fortunes turned, and the road was more or less flat, and the wind was behind us! Nothing was open, so we survived on the coke and Mars bars that Marc had in the car, and made good time.
Anthony punctured, and while he changed his inner-tube, Patrick and Vincent found a place with a little shelter from the wind and took their shoes off to dry them a little in the sun.
Anyway, we finally made it to Osorno (there was no more fuel in my engine!), todiscover that we'd booked in a really nice hotel. The restaurant looks good too, so we won't even have to venture out for food - and I can catch up on two days of blogging!
The pictures from today are here, but they don't reflect how tough it was. When I'm suffering, I don't take pictures!
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