Sunday 4th May 2025 Cabuyal to El Carmen
No need for the bunsen burner last night, Bingo can keep it clean and sparkling, managed to get the host to fire up his range and dish out the delights of chips, rice and eggs, with Bingo having the grown up version of the eggs (chicken), nice grub few beers all relaxed, went back to the log cabin, covered ourselves in mosquito repellent, could hear the blighters buzzing around, like it was the battle of Britain, Bingo got his gatling gun electric thing out, bit like the advert years ago kill 99.9% of all known germs, just hope it don’t think I am a germ! Worse was to come, we just settled down in our fume ladened room, then next door turned up for a party. It is a bank holiday over here, mate they kept going all night, not one to miss a party, but just let them get on with it, hope the mosquitos move in around them.

Duly got our own back with the party gang last night, just woke up all the cockerels in the morning, feed them a bit of porridge under their shed, that’s enough, the owner who let us out of the farm, laughed when he seen me feeding them under their shed, just a shrug of the shoulders enjoy the morning.

Going to cross the equator this morning, though it was not marked on the little road we were riding on, I was going to dress up as Neptune (who is he) and make Bingo do all the stuff them Navy lads do, when they cross the equator, its only an abstract principle anyway, just like time and all that Physics stuff, but made my mind think about all those clever sods, who devised all these principles and theories, that kept me going for ages. Before we knew it we had crossed the equator, not checked which way the sink goes, but feels so mech better with my blood pumping the right way around, is that a thing in the Southern Hemisphere, could feel the difference straight away.

Soon on the outskirts of Pedermales, just skirting around it, then heading East to nowhere in particular, have a few places in mind, but nowhere to stay and more importantly nothing showing up on the maps, will just have to use my charm and see if we can get a place, other than that is sleeping with the spiders and snakes, another song in that. We stopped just after Pedermales for a nice coffee and soft drink, knew we had a fair bit of climbing to do, basically just got on and done it, very hot and sweaty but not to much of a problem as we weaved up the mountains again we love it. Well came to the end of the ride, little restaurant, had a bit to eat, even put on my sad face and asked if they had a room, ‘Hey you with the sad face come back to my place’ Live it up, from one of the old Crocodile Dundee films years ago, well she did not know the song or the dance and no rooms, bit of a long shot, but hey ho worth a try. Fair play she said its only an hour way, yes in a car I said oh yes maybe three hours then!, little chat then we are off, 3 hours, we will have it done in 2.

Good ride in the afternoon, both got stuck into it, knew what we had to do just pedal, then pedal harder, smashed it in just over 2 hours, with a tropical storm as well, same as ever, the most difficult part is when you hit the town, with the rain joined together, we looked like two drowned rats as we booked in the little hostel, me trying to get the sympathy, she just wanted the money, not a song this time, though I think it could be, just paid up, big ride today, need a beer.