ok after we left salerno with the very happy man in the hostel bidding us farewell after taking an exceedingly in depth interest as to the reason for our trip and why i chose shane to come with me...(we think he thought maybe the other reason two guys go off together...not nice)we headed into the hills....ok when i say hills i mean the big old mountain range in the middle of italy.the first day we got quite far with no real happenings except for having to fork out 45 euros for a hotel as there was nothing else for abslutely miles and shane did look as if he was about to die on me.the next day however i think deserves some note....alot of note...
welcome to the worst day of the trip:
morning ok nice hot weather we get going on the one road thatw e need to take us to our destination...foggia...that would mean that we crossed the whole of the mountain range in 2 days and something we could be very proud of.however the problems started at first with it being a sunday and no supermarkets or anything are open so relying on tabbachi and cafes to be open we plundered on to a town and after asking some locals we did actually manage to locate a supermarket but the directions which shane was given didnt seem to make note in his head as he continued straight passed it and only later said dont worry we'll find something.after not finding anything for quite a while we managed to find a small runthough town and get some much needed food although it was only crossaints and sweet stuff not exactly the lunch for cycling like we do in the blistering heat.ok now we left this place after i watered the solitary plant in the car park before i burst and headed on towards our destination we were making good time and generally going downhill being on the other side of the mountain range now that was untill we hit a diversion, i said as it was a sunday no one will be there so lets just go through the road works but shane insisted on going round and when i say round i mean up,and up,and up.this path ill call it went up for about 2 maybe 3 miles to some small littel godforsaken town which overlooked the road we should have been on.after this we had to then find a way back down from the hill to our road not as easy as it sounds.after consulting a few car drivers we evetually found our road.now my wheel hasnt been in very goo shape for a long time slightly buckled up and down and a little left and right but this road had so many potholes it made swiss cheese look like mozzerella!!!the first bad signal about my back wheel was when i discovered i had a puncture, after inspecting this we found it at the valve not a good place to find a whole.now this random kid on a bike which looked like he had stolen bits off other bikes and cars to make it pulled up and when we said we didnt speak italian in phrases which would surely state that themselves he still decided to stand there and watch us....spooky.not saying anything he just stood and watched as we dismatled my back end and fxed it, or so we thought.as not more than 1km down the road we started to go steeply downhill, you know when is going to be really steep when you see signs that dont allow lorries to go down them.14% was the nicest part i think and this is where the bad conditon of the road took over.my hands as red as the blood pulsing through them from holding the brakes so much my back wheel completely went and by the time i got to the bottom the phrase pear shaped resembled what my wheel looked like to me.completely and utterly F°°°°°D.this threw up the next dilemma where do we stay and how do we get my bike unridable at this point to a shop.luckily and this was the only bit of luck we had all day we stopped outside a train station, but the trains werent running that day and the next one was at 6:41 the next morning and after that at about 3:00 so we though the morning one will have to do.we did find a room which we put the bikes in and the lady opposite supplied us with directions to a bar and a choc-ice each so shane went off the get food and beer and i sat and read contemplating all the possibilities of things that had and could still go wrong with the day.eventually when he retrned frm the bar only #1km# away we ate and drank and sat and waited.when it got dark the bugs came out, when i say came out i mean the were in swarms resembling tuna fish movements in the sea.after closing the door we realised our room had a light which we externally controlled somewhere, after contemplating cutting the wires we gave up and tried to bed down for the night.again luck wasnt on our side as the bell that signals the trains and the hourly freight trains going by destroyed any chance of and sort of sleep we hoped for.we got up at 5 so as not to miss our train and were eagerly awaiting anything that could get us to foggia.up untill this point there hasnt been any enlgish speaking people to tell our tale to so sorry for ranting ok.we got to foggia and evetually found a bike shop thansk to tourist informations in norwich's finest helper.bike fixed 2 new inner tubes all for 20 euros im not complaining then after we got a half priced breakfast thanks to shane confusing the guy at the cafe with his poor attempt at english tourist italian we discovered today might not be so bad.since then our trip has gone without any major events to bore you with so i wont.however we are moving some at the moment and will be in bologna in about 2 days at this rate so things are looking up.
ttfn
x
oh btw we now passed 1500 miles and fianlly lubed our bikes today...
