Today is all about avoiding the heat. Everything else has disappeared as an issue. The track the bike takes on the road has to be the one that maximises any available shade. At 7.30 in the morning it is still warm. The forecast today is 42 degrees. We have to drink continuously and save energy wherever possible. Talking has become difficult. We sit with vacant stares at rest stops until one of us tries to say something and suddenly stutters out some gibberish and nothing is achieved. Blankness and silence returns. Even the locals can’t be bothered to say, “Buenas dias,” and make do with muttering just Buenas. But it’s a stunning ride this morning running alongside some of the large lakes of Extremadura and everything is good.
We stop often to take on more water and have now stopped for food in the Café Bollocks in Caceres. The policy in Extremadura on eating on Mondays is that it should be discouraged wherever possible. None of the gas stations sell anything edible and we even found a McDonalds that didn’t serve food in the mornings. But the Café Bollocks takes the biscuit (or it would if it sold them). The staff here have been trained to talk complete bollocks and to change their minds about what is available as often as possible. There is an extensive menu of bocadillos (sandwiches) but the girl said they weren’t available. She had to ask about the hamburger and came back with the message that that was off too but we could have Cuban rice. While the Goat was pondering on this a bloke turned up and asked if we wanted sandwiches. I told him the girl had said they were off but he shrugged and said she was wrong and that the Goat could have his hamburger and why didn’t I have a French omlette? It was a great question because apparently Cuban rice had by then disappeared from the list of things that it was pointless asking for. When the food finally came he had covered his options well by sticking my omlette in a sandwich and calling it a bocadillo. In the toilets meanwhile a bloke in a Spain shirt, I think it was Fabregas, was warming up early for the semi-finals by doing some stretching routines and shouting, “Yaaaah!” He had a bandage around his face. Presumably if he does this on a regular basis he quite often gets a poke in the eye.
Finally after 135kms we have arrived in Merida and had the first crash of the tour when the Goat was trying to get out of the way of an ambulance as we climbed a cobbled street into the town, much to the amusement of the ambulance driver. The only damage it appears was his shaving razor so now he can’t shave, he’s lost his cycling helmet, and broken his watch strap and his cycling computer. There seem to be no limits to his incompetence. To cap it all we have made the mistake of checking into a hotel where the rooms are full of electronic gadgetry. Predictably the Goat’s curiosity has got the better of him and rather irritatingly the room has almost come alive around us with windows and blinds opening and closing, lights going on and off and Elton John singing in the bathroom. The problem will be switching these things off, which can all be worked on timers, and I have no doubt that we will be woken up in the early hours of the morning by an orchestra striking up in the toilet!
