Where we left off, the four of us were getting drenched under a leaky fabric gazebo at a dodgey little riverside restaurant surrounded by torrential rains but eating and drinking like kings (the videos will give you a better idea)...


CIMG4771 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We finally made a break for the hotel when the rain died down (this was hours later), but it came pouring down drenching us on the way back anyway.

Being May the 1st we had gone from hotel to hotel looking for a room, but every place was fully booked (either that or they weren't keen on a group of mud covered foreigners messing up the place. The hotel that beer girl managed to find us was a small little place, but they were willing to let us park our bikes in the lobby (a messy mistake on their part).


CIMG4785 by SerpentZA, on Flickr
Next day we were to head out early, so in order to save time, Tom had the idea of packing some sort of instant food that could be cooked in the hotel rooms using a kettle (things like instant soup, smash, eggs to boil in the kettle... that sort of thing). So we ate some surprisingly good instant mash and soup before heading out (hungover but ready), we decided not to wear rain gear since the weather seemed fine(only beer girl insisted on wearing her raincoat)..... big mistake


about half an hour into the trip we got hit by one hell of a downpour, I was wearing my leather jacket and waterproof riding pants, but that didn't help, I was soaked through within minutes, my heavy leather jacket was now waterlogged as were my leather boots, socks and underwear were soaked too, the only part of me that was dry was my head being covered by my helmet, I couldn't see more than a few meters ahead of me and suddenly there was no Tom (he was leading the pack with his GPS), he had apparently taken shelter from the rain, but pulled too far off the road and by the time he'd turned around to try and flag us down, Martin and I had already passed him, so he hopped back on his bike and followed, we soldiered through.

about half an hour of low visibility torrential rain later the weather started to get better and we hit some rough roads, suddenly Martin decided that he was sick of constantly bringing up the rear and that he'd show us what his bike could do, so off he sped to the front I then noticed half a bungee cord dangling from the back of Martin's bike and dragging on the ground and luckily so did Tom, I was hooting and flashing the highbeams at Martin but he didn't take notice, Tom raced past him and cut him off so that we could see what was what.


CIMG4777 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

A bungee had gotten snagged in the spokes and then snarled up on the rear hub a potentially big deal if it had gotten jammed up in the rear brake, so first technical casualty...


CIMG4779 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We stopped shortly after on a mountain side to have a quick rest and take a few scenic pictures.


CIMG4786 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Martin and Tom


CIMG4787 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom


CIMG4789 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Me and Beer girl

Still completely drenched, we pushed on for about another hour until we hit a small town and settled down for some lunch, wrung out our socks and T-shirts and put them out to dry.


CIMG4795 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Beer girl playing with some chickens...

One thing I've forgotten to mention is that on Day one during our lunch stop, Tom had noticed that the main bolt holding his engine in had worked loose and the nut had fallen completely off (luckily gotten jammed down next to the engine) so that was actually our first potentially bad technical issue.


CIMG4856 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

****** Intermission time *********

More coming after the break