Today was Flea Market day. We did ok on the tombola, coming away with bottle of Cava, bottle of Brandy, tea light, set of funnels and some instant coffee. Losing tickets also had a booby prize which was a shot of vodka. It helped dull the pain of the cost of the tickets we bought. I also bought a Ukulele and a jazz song book. Phil is thrilled, she's always wanted me to have a Ukulele, especially in a small motorhome. It does, however, need tuning so if somebody could send me a C I'd be grateful. Since buying it I can't stop humming the intro to "Raindrops keep falling on my head" neither can you now, probably.
More and more competitors and their support teams entering the Intercontinental Rally are arriving. The boys and girls of the support teams are really cool, like roadies but with better hair and without the key chains. Plenty of gaffer tape about though so they obviously all go to the same training school. The guy, Jesus, who runs the restaurant here must think all his birthdays have come at once. He's got an eighteen foot long Bar-B-Q going and selling slabs of charred meat, salad and a beer for ten euros with a smile as wide as the Mediterranean. Freddy, the chef, fired the thing up at 8.30 this morning, it's 6pm now and it's still going strong with people groaning from protein overload.
We were talking to one of the French competitors last night and asked if he'd competed before. Apparently not in this rally but in similar ones. He said he could only leave his business for three weeks so this was ideal for him, a weeks prep and then a fortnight hurtling through 5,000 kilometres of desert during which time he'd shred two sets of tyres and be totally exhausted and probably lost for most of the time. Excluding the cost of his bike he reckoned that the support, accomodation, food and all the other bits of stuff would cost him €6,500. "But it's my holiday", he said. Some of the stages are 450 kilometres (obviously longer if you get a bit lost on the way) and take eight hours plus to complete and he reckoned at the end of those you fall of the bike. I asked what he would eat on those long stages, "Maybe a Mars bar" he smiled. Now that is hardcore.
This is the start point of the Rally, on the beach just beneath where we are parked. We'll have a great view on Monday.
Best Off-Roader spotted today.
And best van sticker.
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Good luck with the Ukulele……Phil!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant purchase, you'll have to teach Phoebe to play a tune on hers when you get back! As for tuning it, surely there's an app for that?!
ReplyDeleteYou can download an App (its called clear tune for the iPhone but Android will have similar) for tuning. Hope you got some good tips for BBQing, we might need it when we are lost in the desert!
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