Grouped humans can be disappointing…
In short words: two hours of sleep are not enough. I can’t sleep when people are “singing” , speaking loud and laughing. They went quite late to bed and the grandfather and its grandson were then chatting all night. First because it was to hot, then because it was to cold. And always opening and closing the zips.
Anyway… I had then to stand up and get breakfast while the tent needed to dry. I must say: it is very light and compact – but it keeps way to much humidity inside of the outer lining. Even with the ventilation open at the feed and head side and some little wind, condensation happens.
While having breakfast (I need to eat more when I sleep less – it is a kind of compensation to have power) I saw another biker asking for a coffee and something to eat. Strange, I hadn’t seen him the day before and was wondering where he could have slept / put his tent.
So after packing my stuff and saying goodbye to the Italian I had diner with last night, I started the journey saying “never see you again” to that refugio as a sleeping place.
The road was built into the mountain with mainly only place for one car. After some climbing, the dirt / stone road slowly goes done and is often in the forest.
I took as well some hiking path which were nice (but rather short) trails as well. There are some building on the way – but I haven’t seen any place to eat or worse to get water. Another biker cycling the opposite way told me where there might be a refugio, which was in fact an old caserne, just beside the road. I headed towards it and met some quad drivers. Unfortunately, they was no water – as it was not a refugio (anymore?). The quad driver (they had by-passed me before) were very friendly and gave me some water and some chocolate. 🙂 The universe was on my side again 😉
Later on, I joined again the hiking path encountering some cows and a bull obstructing the trail. I really don’t like such situation. But I could walk by.
The landscape were splendid and I had to take some pictures – may be even to many to put them all here ;-).
Later on I saw far in front of me another biker on the trail, which I did join when he was having a short break. It turned out to be the same guy as today morning. Reiner from Germany was doing quite the same… But longer distance, more positive meter and in the same nearly time. The main difference: he mostly start early in the morning (never later then 6:30 on the bike 😱). So that was the reason why I saw him at the refugio. He had started from Limetto 1400 (a bit higher in the mountain) and cycled all the way while I was trying to sleep.
Anyway, he wanted to finish some checking and I wanted to get to a water point. So I left a bit earlier. It turned out that I was just faster downhill – mainly I guess because of stronger-larger tires.
Later on, while I was asking around for water, he joined back. He told me tha there was a restaurant further below which made my stomach and me very happy. We cycled there and enjoyed nice pasta and lots of water. 🙂
We decided to continue the road together to Ventimiglia. The old road was rocky and bumpy, but quite ok to cycle. The landscape still beautiful and the air starting to call for the sea.
A stone hit by leg and hurt quit strongly for 30min and we found a nice trail bringing us to Dolceaqua from where we finished against the wind the last kilometres.
Finally we arrived.
We went then to the train station, where – who would expect that – we saw Rita waiting for buying a ticket. We all had met us on the way, but separately.
What an amazing end!
