The odd-job man for the complex gave us some vague directions to where we might get some welding done so, after a fine breakfast, Bill and I set off for the blacksmiths and the others made for the beach. We rode round and round and weren’t getting anywhere. Then, out of the blue, found ourselves stopped by the sound of an angle grinder. I popped my head in the door and found a fully functioning workshop. I approached the guy who was obviously in charge (he had clean hands) and showed him the broken rack. A bracket had broken at the weld and it needed about 3 minutes with a mig welder. If he hadn’t spoken so fast, I would now be able to tell you what the Spanish for “Sod Off, English Pig” is!
I asked him if there was anywhere else?
I think he told me to try next door. Well, not being very impressed with the level of customer insolence, I moved on up the street. Another workshop and another guy fabricating another set of gates.
In I went, with my rack and asked if he could help. He must have spent last night drinking in the same bar as the last bloke. Same speech, same hand signals. I didn’t interrupt him. I just knew that I HAD to get this rack fixed.
I put on my best “puppy dog” face and looked him smack in the eye. “Senior,” I pointed to myself and said “desperado – por favor?”. It was all I could think to say. He tutted and sighed and grabbed the rack from me. Three minutes later it was fixed, as good as new.
He shoved the rack back in my hands and I opened my wallet asking him how much? The strange thing was he wouldn’t take any money. “For a drink – beer” I gestured with my hand. He smiled and still wouldn’t take anything. Strange people. Perhaps they just like to have a heavy duty moan now and then? Not like the English, what ho?
Bill and I made several attempt to find the others on the beach but, to be honest, it was too hot to be out in the noon-day sun, even for us mad dogs. So we did the only thing that could be done, in the circumstances. We found a bar with air conditioning and had a beer. Lunch was swordfish – cooked fresh. It was scrumptious.
We made our way back to the apartment later in the afternoon and refitted the rack and luggage. It transpired that the reason that the rack had failed was that I had bracketed my panniers from the same rack meaning that it was carrying some 300% of its design load! I rearranged my luggage as best I could so that there was less weight on the back of the rack. In addition, we lashed things up with as many cable ties as we could fit on. That would have to do.
It was decided that we’d go out for dinner to a tapas bar. We ended up in more of a restaurant and dined “al fresco”
THE LADIES
THE GENTLEMEN
Plate after plate of food came to the table and we all tried a bit of everything. We wandered off around the town afterwards and just managed to catch an Italian style ice cream shop which we raided for desert.
STATSISTICS - DAY 7
Just an extra 10 miles around Ayomonte
1402 miles in total
Average 200 miles per day
