Luindi Octobre 4th. Il pleut, Il pleut Il pleut.
At 9.30 we are ready to go raining or not. Can't find a place open to have petite dejeuner. We had a few crusts of bread left and we each had an orange from the day before to sustain us. Thinking we would find someplace along the way we started out toward Soulac-Sur-Mer on the Atlantic coast.
We set off in the pouring rain and went looking for the Chateau Mouton Rothchild and the Chateau Lafite Rothchild. These are two famous vignobles just outside of Pauilac. This is the Medoc region and Chateau Lafite produces in the gravelly soil of Pauilac, an elegant red wine, one of the most famous in the region. The weather was very bad and the directions we had were not clear, so we abandoned the idea and continued on our journey to the coast.On the main road was Bechyville
I was almost ready to give up that day and look for a bus to take me somewhere else, but I kept going just the same. This was the longest cycle to date. It was still raining and there were some moderate hills to climb. I came very close to having an accident going down a hill while trying to shift into a higher gear. My bike swerved three or four times on the slippery pavement, but I was able to hang on and recover. It was pretty scary as I was going very fast.
I am finding the going tough today. I guess I am tired and I am having trouble keeping up. Judy and Virginia are long gone out of sight. "Oh mon Dieu!" My front tire is flat. No wonder I found it so hard to pedal. Here I am, all alone on a country road somewhere in France. I'm tired, my bicycle has a flat tire and it is raining. How could anyone stand to have so much fun?
Judy finally missed me and came back. We changed the tire and started out again. The tire went flat again and I realized I had not checked the inside of the tire to find the cause of the flat in the first place. Winfield had stressed this when he was showing me how to change a tire, but in my distress I had completely forgotten. By pumping up the tire several times I managed to get to the next town, St Vivien-d-Medoc.We had met up with Virginia just outside of the town and she helped me to change the tire again, while Judy went to look for a hotel and a place to change some travelers checks. When Judy took her passport and the travelers checks out of her pouch that she kept around her neck for safety, they were soaked from perspiration. Everyone in the bank had a laugh about this.
This time I had to patch the
original tube. We found the hole, patched it "?"
checked the tire, found a small piece of glass which must have
caused the flat and put the tire back on. It would not hold air.
I was puzzled by this until I found the patch lying on the
ground. It did not stick and had fallen off before I had put the
tube back in the tire. Only recourse was to do it again. This
time patch it right. I am getting good at putting tires on. This
time it held air.
NOTE: A sound clip of this operation would have been interesting. #%|#@+^
We couldn't find a hotel in this small town so we continued another fifteen kilometers to Soulac-sur-Mer on the coast. This was truly rural France. We had left the vignobles behind us. While cycling along I could hear ducks quacking and geese honking in the barnyards. This brought to mind what I had read about how the farmers force feed the birds to make them good and fat. This was how they produced the pate foie gras so famous in Gascony.
We found a nice hotel, Hotel des Pins in L'Amelie about three kilometers from Soulac-sur-Mer. We sat in the hotel bar waiting for sept heures to have dinner and performed our daily libations to the group back at work. A white Porsche drove up outside the hotel and I remarked to the girls. "I would give anything to see my little silver cavalier drive up to that door." Judy admitted every time she had seen a red Volkswagon that day she thought maybe it was Ted coming to get her. Dream on ladies. The only way we are going to get home is under our own power!
We had a great dinner at the
hotel and went to our room to bed. I called Winfield using my
calling card. It took a few tries before I got all the numbers
right, but it was incredibly fast once I did. We can hear the
surf pounding from our window. It is a very relaxing sound and so
bon nuit.
73km.
Previous Page | Next Page
To check out some of my other adventures follow these links.
El Camino de Santiago, Spain
Ecuador and Peru adventures
Trekking in Nepal