{"id":29044,"date":"2019-05-20T09:07:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T09:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/?p=29044"},"modified":"2019-05-20T09:07:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T09:07:42","slug":"day-546-trancoso-to-itabela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/2019\/05\/day-546-trancoso-to-itabela\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 546 – Trancoso to Itabela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 546                                                      17th January 2018
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45 miles (Trancoso to Itabela) Average speed 8.6 mph Top speed 31 mph<\/span><\/p>\n

What a tough day! Possibly one of my toughest yet.<\/p>\n

I was awake at six and the bottom of the tent and air bed and sleeping bag liner were soaked after a 4am thunderstorm. I hung them to dry and packed up and used the very clean facilities several times! That will teach me for thinking my tummy troubles were over! Breakfast wasn\u2019t ready til eight so I packed up and wrote up my diary. It was a very good breakfast with fresh bread and ham and cheese with coffee and pineapple juice with a lovely cake and a big piece of water melon. After three coffees I left at 9 saying goodbye to Larios and the owners, who tried convince me to stay and celebrate carnival here as Ronaldo and all the big stars would be visiting the local beaches.<\/p>\n

I bought some bread and cheese and ham for the journey as I knew there would be nothing on the road and stopped off at a garage to buy a bottle of Fanta and for the first time ever I was tempted to do some dumpster diving as they had thrown out lots of out of date goodies, but I couldn\u2019t bring myself that low( I\u2019m not poor you know)!!<\/p>\n

It took about three miles to get off the dreaded cobble stones and get back to a proper road for the first time since Porto Seguro, but the luxury didn\u2019t last long as four miles later I joined my sandy path which I would follow for the next 35 miles. Ouch!! Thankfully it wasn\u2019t too waterlogged after last nights thunderstorm but it was hard work trying to find a good line all day. It varied from rutted sand to too thick sand which I sank in, to wet sand which I sank in and clogged up my mudguards, to ridges so thin I could only just balance on. From the start of the track I knew it would be hard but the changing road conditions were alway tormenting me.<\/p>\n

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The start of the sandy road<\/p><\/div>\n

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The scenery through farmland was fantastic but I didn\u2019t get to see much of it as I was forever trying to find a safe passage through the ever-changing surface. When you have to concentrate so hard for such prolonged periods of time it plays with your mind and I found myself talking to cows, birds, donkeys and horses and often letting off steam by swearing at the top of my voice as another hill approached. With each false summit I let out my frustrations by yelling as loud as I could, but as only the animals could hear me there really was little point , still it made me feel a bit better for a few seconds.<\/p>\n

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Animals don’t care what obscenities you shout!<\/p><\/div>\n

I stopped for lunch under cover of a tree on the side of the sandy road and ate my 4 cheese and ham rolls, a bit samey but I needed energy. I dried my gloves, hat and shirt on the fence until it started raining but the shower was at least refreshing. As I stood with my shorts around my knees to cool off a couple of motorcycles passed me, I don\u2019t think they noticed, but I was surprised as these were the first traffic I\u2019d seen on the road. I knew I had two massive descents and climbs ahead of me, but I hadn\u2019t taken into account the  state of the track ahead. It was full of ravines from the rain and almost impossible to navigate without falling off.<\/p>\n

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The state of the road, with ravines and great holes, difficult to navigate without falling off the bike<\/p><\/div>\n

I made it up the first and was so happy to find a small village with four bars to get a 2 litre cold bottle of guarana before taking on the second climb. After a successful second ascent I met two guys who had just finished work and were cycling home carrying their machetes and playing music. I rode with them all the way to Itabela on and off as they left me on the uphills with all my luggage, but we had a good laugh. I struggled to navigate around the village and got lots of strange looks along the way, then took the main ba 101 to a Shell garage which had a pousada next door. I was so happy to check in and pay my 48 reais for my room that I celebrated with a cold beer in the restaurant.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d read a bit online about these rest stops but I never really expected them to be such a hive of activity. The restaurant is fantastic with half a kilo of great food costing 16 reais and it\u2019s one of the busiest places I\u2019ve seen here, apart from the beaches! There is such a wide range of people with truckers and locals and people passing through that it\u2019s quite an entertaining place to be. Having just paid the bill which came to \u00a38 for three 600ml beers and a massive plate of food I\u2019m enjoying service stations even more. How much would \u00a38 buy you in an English service station???? The only shame is that I\u2019ve drunk them dry of Brahma and there\u2019s only Schin left.<\/p>\n

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Dinner by weight<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Pousada Nova Sitia at a Shell garage. I don\u2019t do Shell, but I hope the restaurant is independently run. 48 reais with tv and air con and the best shower I\u2019ve had in Brazil with mixer taps so that I can regulate temperatures instead of an electric one which only has three or four settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 546                                                      17th January 2018 45 miles (Trancoso to Itabela) Average speed 8.6 mph Top speed 31 mph What a tough day! Possibly one of my toughest yet. I was awake at six and the bottom of the tent and air bed and sleeping bag liner were soaked after a 4am thunderstorm. I hung them … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1649,1650,1648],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ermintrude","post-29044","format-standard","category-spc_blog","post_tag-day-546","post_tag-itabela","post_tag-trancoso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29044"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29225,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29044\/revisions\/29225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}