DAY 12 MONDAY 18TH JAN 2010

This morning, for the first time ever, I was first down for breakfast. We wanted an early start to get to the tyre fitter and be ready as soon as he opened. Monday morning for Spaniards obviously doesn't start until 10.30 am when the owner of the Ducati and Harley dealer rolled up for work. His tyre changing equipment consisted of a blanket to go on the ground, two tyre levers, two blocks of wood, a manual press to break the beads and a compressor. When another Spanish customer asked why he didn't have any automated hydraulic machinery he replied "That is for cissies. Real men change tyres by hand". Unfortunately, our real man worked at typical Spanish speed in which the term "glacial" is considered rushed. After an hour and a half he had managed to change 3 tyres out of the 10 required. At this point we realised that this tyre changing task was going to take considerably longer than originally anticipated. It was decided to do the tyres first for the riders who still had to sort out their couriers for parcels home of winter riding gear that was no longer required. As the other riders are planning to fly their bikes back from The Gambia, they have no further use of the thick heavy winter wear that was essential for the first week of this trip. It therefore made much more sense to package it all up and send it home rather than have the weight and bulk of carrying it through Africa.
In contrast, I intend to ride back on my own own and return through Spain and France at the end of February so I will need all my gear. It was only later that I thought that I should have left my gear at this hotel in Spain to collect on my return journey but I never thought of that at the time.
We tried to hurry up our tyre fitter buy staning over him and even assisting in the task to keep him working. Eventually at around 2.00 pm the last tyre was fitted and we were away. The riders who needed the courier service had returned to the hotel to arrange this. I stopped off to get some cash on the way back and then returned to the hotel. Unfortunately, they had not been able to arrange the courier so we would have to stay over another night and not get the ferry until Tuesday. I wad bitterly disappointed as I was impatient to get over to Morocco. To add further insult to injury, the hotel moved us to inferior rooms which did little to improve my mood. After writing up my blog for an hour I had chilled out enough to enjoy a game of crazy golf with John, Glen and Andres. Despite claiming to have never held a golf club before, Andres managed to claim overall honours whilst I trailed in last place which obliged me to buy the next round at the 19th hole, the hotel bar.
When Roger and the other returned they advised that they had negotiated a good deal on the ferry crossing and had booked on to the 8.30 am sailing the following morning.
The buffet dinner at the hotel was again excellent and I could smell the fish soup before I entered the restaurant. Another mmod lifter for me so by the end of the meal I was chilled and relaxed and decided on a very early night before our moring crossing.