What day is it?

I’m losing track of the days. Today is Tuesday and I am writing about Monday, but now its Wednesday because I was so busy on Tuesday. My head hurts from all the logistics I have had to try and deal with. It’s probably best to look at the options and then worry about the expense. I could get the bike repaired and carry on. Only I don’t know any garages, mechanics or even where the bike shops are. To the rescue come Horizons Unlimited. I use there web site a lot as it covers all aspects of adventure overlanding. I put up a question and within a few hours or so I was in contact with a guy via Tap Talk

However   whilst that was in the making I looked at option 2. I could ship the bike home and repair it. I could rent a van, put the bike in it and get it home. I searched for van hire but there were none available in my area. The nearest would be Hertz and they want £1000 to take a van one way to UK. OK I’ll strip the bike down, put it in a hire car, rebuild it in Santander, drop the hire care there, push it on the ferry, push it off in UK and get it collected from Portsmouth. I called Brittany Ferries who were very helpful with changing dates but pointed out you cannot push a bike on and off the ferry, it has to be on a recovery truck. The recovery truck want £600 for putting you on and taking you off the ferry. OK I’ll do a one way car hire to France where a friend can store the bike until I can get back for it. One way car hire is £700 or £400 if I return it plus fuel and a train ticket back. OK I’ll get a man and van to do it, however after searching for hours the internet has failed to locate one leaving anytime soon. OK I’ll go on eBay.es and see what I can buy. WHOOP joy of joys as I find a UK registered car for £350 with three days to go. It’s a Ford Focus with 56000miles and two owners. I call the dealer who will sell it to me for £600. I can take the bike home, sell the car and still have some time to myself. Oh yes the car is on the other side of Spain so I book a train, 11hrs setting off tonight, oh wait its a bus ticket. I call to confirm the car has a current MOT, it doesn’t, nor has it had either a UK one or Spanish equivalent for 3 years. OK I’ll put the bike on a train to France and make my way home from there, only you cannot put motorcycles on a train in Spain. I’ll buy a Spanish car, however they are all crazy money. I need to eat, I make my way to the local shops and on hearing English voices I stop at a bar and introduce myself to several guys. Nick and his mates love the pictures of the bikes desperate state and even have some suggestions, one of the guys is a mechanic here and will make enquiries. Nick has mates who are car dealers and may assist. Things are looking up. Having filled my face with cake and fizzy drinks I got back to the hotel and continued messing around on the net trying to resolve my issues. I fired off a few emails and then decided to head to town and see what I could sort out there.

In the middle of all this stress and honestly quite low times my only little bit of fun is that the saddle adorning my room floor makes the cleaner jump every time she comes in. I’ve named it Shep, my fake pet. I’m so getting googly eyes and a nose for it.

By now I am in contact via Tap Talk with a guy called ‘Choutos’, he is a friend of a friend on H.U. and he lives in San Roque. Only it transpires he doesn’t, he now lives in Austria, but he knows people and can assist somewhat. He suggests contacting ‘Rotorrmotar’. They are excellent mechanics, very capable of an engine rebuild. In the mean time I have caught the bus to town. £1.20 for a 5 mile journey on a clean, air conditioned mini bus with plush seating. Why does that not happen back home? On getting to town I find my phone is agrophobic and no longer wants to leave the safety of wifi. So now I have to WiFi hop around town. Standing in doorways to get signal and making my way towards my destination with out mapping until I stumble accross another WiFi spot. Anyway I called Motorotar. They had already seen the pics and were quite impressed, however they are very busy and cannot assist. They give me the number of another mechanic. I call him but he doesn’t speak any English. OK I have time so let’s map out and WiFi hop round the bike shops. The first two are about 2miles apart. It’s hot and although they love the pictures neither can help, in fact one isn’t even a bike shop. So I flag down a taxi and in my increasingly growing Spanish vocabulary I ask him to take me to a motorcycle mechanic. He drops me at a Yamaha dealer, they in turn indicate with a flapping arm that Honda is up the road. In fairness the flapping arm was aided by a scrap of paper with GC Racing written on it and an address. Well it looked like an address to me only no one else thought it did. Eventually a guy in a plumbing shop gave me a better idear of where I was headed and then a bicycle shop followed by a Repsol petrol station, a few random dog walkers and hey presto up a back street with a tiny Honda flag was Honda official servico. The guy was great and very positive that he could get the job done. He asked me to e-mail him the frame number and some pictures so he could price the job, at last progress. I walked to McDonald’s and had a veritable feast of hot spicy mexican burger. There was a kids party going on and if I closed my eyes, smelt the spices and ate, it could almost be a Moroccan souk only without the snakes. After that I walked back to the bus station, it was a long walk and I was knackered. The bus depot was empty, I had to get a taxi. I don’t mind the opulence of taxi travel but I do mind having to pay and give turn by turn directions. No tip for you Mrs taxi driver 

I crashed into bed mentally and physically exhausted.