Day 518 20th December
Japoate to Aracaju
74 miles (Japoate to Aracaju) Average speed 10 mph Top speed 32 mph
I got up at 7, showered and packed up, then went into town and had brekkie of sausage sarnie and a ham and cheese roll in the supermarket served by a very friendly waitress. It was very hot in there and there were some very interesting body odours filling the air. I left at 9 and took the long downhill very fast that I’d climbed up the night before. Then joined the road heading east which was a bit like a patchwork of different tarmacs and very uneven.
Patchwork road surface
Sometimes I ventured onto the wrong side of the road to avoid the worst potholes. After about 40 minutes I made it to the main road which was very busy and not very wide with no hard shoulder. There were lots of lorries and coaches coming very close and it was very dusty at times.
I stopped at a petrol station for a cold drink which had a price of 3.49 on the lid but as it was a garage they charged me 7!!
Thankfully there was a road running alongside the main road and I had it all to myself for a few miles until I got to a large set of roadworks where all the traffic was being put across to the road I was on. As I approached the traffic lights I went up the inside of all those trucks and cars that had just overtaken me and when I got to the front the guy in charge of the lights waved me through. I had to wait on the side of the road while the traffic coming the other way took up the unmade road. Then I just crossed over and rode all the way down hill on the freshly laid tarmac.
Camping 46 raeis