Hummmm..... steel bolt in aluminium frame, should be relatively easy to get out I hear you say, well no as a matter of fact it's not, well in Bolivia its not. After chasing round the non existent bike shop, then a mate of the B&B owners we should have stayed at (more on this later), it all came down to a too risky hard drill bit so we decided to go the expensive route and order a new rack that can be fitted on the quick release of the rear wheel.
As this was the best option we also decided to order some extra special puncture resistant super duper tyres as Rich was getting sick and tired of repairing tubes! Therefore we find our selves staying longer than we had planned in Sucre, which is no hardship as we had specifically picked this place for Christmas as it was so nice.
So we are waiting for our parcel to turn up, how long UPS will take to get them here is anyone's guess, so far it has gone from Ireland to England to Germany to Kentucky to Florida and now it is in San Salvador so who knows where it will go next?? hopefully Bolivia but you never know.....so for now we wait.
We had much more thrilling things to worry about in the run up to Christmas, like where we were going to stay. Should have been simple.... two weeks or so before Christmas work out where we are going to be..... look on web for reasonably prices good accommodation, email a booking, confirm booking, turn up, relax, enjoy Christmas. Simple, straightforward, uncomplicated. so why were we walking round on the 23rd looking for a new hotel? Well it appears that while the owner is a great guy, very friendly and helpful his administration skills area little haphazard to say the least, we were not the only ones double booked!!
The saga went something like this (take a big breath), we arrived earlier than expected and had booked in to one hotel, bit soulless but ok, so we phoned up asking if we could book in early, sorry full, ok we will turn up on 23rd, byebye. Then an email, oh oh i'll cancel booking as am sure you do not want to move, response.. NO we want to come to you for Christmas, OOOP's i have double booked you, have checked and you can stay next door. come today, sorry can't today, OK tomorrow. Yippee, have sorted nice quite B&B for Christmas. Turn up, next door is full!! luckily 1 room for 1 night available as late cancellation. Don't worry I have booked you in somewhere else, nice place go tomorrow, I wander down and find paint peeling off the wall, drab brown bedspreads in cold soulless room, NOT staying here for Christmas, it sooooo depressing. So that is the story of how we found ourselves walking round Sucre looking for accommodation on the eve of Christmas eve!!and like good budget conscious travellers like we are we threw money at the problem and it went away.
Now with this lovely hotel room in a prime location Christmas should have been more exciting than it was, however that is not counting my ability to catch a cold whenever we stop for a wee while after some serious riding!! So Christmas day was spent with me alternating between boiling hot and freezing cold and feeling just plain grim, luckily it was just a heavy cold and not flu as I first thought.
We are now residing back at the original B&B where are bikes are and the parcel are turning up, we are keeping ourselves entertained by playing chess on the magnetic travel chess set I gave Rich for Christmas or faffing about on the internet, we are quite bored and are working on my tax return THAT'S how bored we are, oh and have finally established that you can not download music on to a linux system in Bolivia.
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