You just gotta love those names.. To my surprise it was all paved, gentle and easy climbing. We went through two pretty big river valleys flying down to 2000m and then back up again -twice- close to 3000m. Good weather clouds and sunshine accompanying us. I had read about cyclists being harassed by being called "Gringo" just one too many times and I braised my self only to learn that the calls and smiles directed at us were sweet and harmless.....surely a good thing we don't understand the spanish language well enough so we actually don't really know what they are saying besides "Gringo". But the "sound makes the music" and I don't want to detect hostility and such. I'd rather not understand...be dumb and "kill them with the kindness/friendliness" that I truly feel- and I don't have to pretend. But the other day in town one woman called me Gringita and another me gusta Gringa - no doubt these are friendly words. The stretch from one C to the next C was over 121km and quite a bit of climbing. We broke it up and spend the night in a little village setting up our homey tent. The locals told us there would be NO RAIN. Though the clouds and the thunder looked rather intimidating. We set up camp in good believe and as soon as we did hell broke loose and the rain poured down and sideways from the heavy winds. We were dry in the tent - bikes all set but dinner would have to wait ......waiting and waiting and waiting ...I had developed a migraine head ache and was practicing how to die (this is my approach when none of the pain killers work anymore and there is nothing....really nothing for me to do and just lay there, breath, feel it, let it be, be with it and be without it. Trying NOT to get away from the pain by moving, squirming, crying, sighing....just be still and be nothing and nobody, nowhere...until......eventually I do fall asleep over it with it but without dinner) It rained ALL night and sadly enough it got wet through the bottom of our tent though we didn't feel it until the morning. Our friendly locals didn't show up to greet us - maybe they felt guilty telling us not to worry about the rain? Well, we'll never know. We packed up in sunshiny weather and were soon on our way flying down to another beautiful valley and our last climb up to Cajabamba with another downpour at the top - not too bad though....
