Waking up feeling slightly worse for wear and knowing that, as this campsite was largely on the closed side, we hadn´t been able to dry any of our clothes, I decided to sleep in and make the most of the warmth while Danny took of to being pro-active and getting his clothes washed (which took absolutely ages). Whilst Danny was getting clean in one sense I tried to have a shower but was foiled by someone taking, quite literally, hours (or so it seemed) to do their business. As the toilet and shower were all in the same room and there was only one I just had to wait and be paitent. I took the oppurtunity to do a bit of winding on my wind-up mp3 player but got bored quickly so played music instead. ... At last the toilet opened, and I realised why it had taken so long, there were two doors, one for the camping people and one for the restaurant people (which was located on the campsite), and it seemed that the restaurant owners were giving an entire construction team a bath or something - kinky, eh?
Finally, we left about midday, Danny's clothes cleaned and my skin feeling refreshed, we launched into another day of grey cycling with hills aplenty (which Danny was loving and I was hating). Not an hour into cycling up and down these hills north of Limoges, I already start to feel my legs go - the left thigh and the right knee - and before long I have to spend the rest of the ride into Limoges limping (yes, you can limp on a bicycle, I was as suprised as you!). I don´t like hills.
Limoges is, as befits its surroundings, quite hilly. We hadn't arrived too late on this occasion (helped somewhat by the short ride today), and so were able to find the Tourist Information Office with relative ease (though the French Advertising sense still leaves much to be desired, and least they sign post well enough). I inquired about book-shops (so we could look up campsites), internet cafes, and accomadation: we are really getting quite good at using these tourist information places, they are our slaves.
Zoomed into a local cybercafe and found a route to the campsite. This cybercafe is quite literally amazing. Cheaper by 40c an hour than any other we had been to, but with computers that make me weep a little; sleak, black things, with widescreen LCD monitors, no slowdown at all and a very cool surrounding. If you are ever in Limoges, its a place to check out. Its how all internet cafes should be.
Had dinner across the way, in a awesome little pizza place called Speed Rabbit Pizza (though why they insist on using English is beyond me, its bad at that). We could not figure out what the special deal was, so we just got two super-size pizzas, and were suprised to find that we only need to pay for one. Apparently 1 Achtee = 1 Gratuite means Buy One Get One Free (or whatever the french is - damn you Michel Thomas, I can say it but cannot spell it.
We got to the campsite about 8pm, and so it was quite dark, but we met the campsite warden at reception and were a bit worried for a moment when we told him we were camping. He kept saying that that was going to be a problem, then finally explained that the campsite was very water-logged at the moment. So he took us in and got a map out of the campsite and proceeded to um and err over the pitches until he decided on (what seemed to be quite random) two pitches that might suit us. He then proceeded to get on his bicycle and take us round a tour of the campsite as if we were some VIP guests. The first pitch was no good, he told us, as he scraped about in the mud trying to find a bit of ground. At the second pitch he directed us to a small patch of ground between to two trees and told us that that was alright but everywhere else on the pitch was waterlogged. We checked and he was right. This guy new his campsite well, very well. I don't know, maybe it was because we were cycling but this guy made us feel like we were important. He came round the next day and made small talk for awhile. The guy rocks.
We slept well and woke up the next day to a freezing morning. Our plan today was to go to a bike shop and stock up on supplies, then find a bookshop and get maps for spain and find our route to the border. Our first stop was a little bakery to pick up some much needed p-a-c, but then we found the bike shop, so while I looked for new gloves (I had lost my fingerless ones the day before), Danny attempted to ask the shop owner to check his spokes for him - which was enjoyable, if somewhat painful, to watch just because Danny knows so little French and the bike shop owner spoke no English. Ah, if only there was some international language for cyclists. Anyway there wasn't any fingerless gloves and Danny's attempts at getting the bike shop owner to check his spokes, while successful, did cost Danny a fair few euro.
Onwards to town and Danny wanted to get on top of his application to Imperial, so I went looking around town for a bookshop that was stocked with maps of spain. We had found one for the Catalan region around Barcelona, but not one for the first area we were reaching, the Basque area of spain. After a little bit of wander, and a little bemoaning the severe lack of good sandwich shops - why? - I stumbled upon a little bookshop and browsed the holiday section for maps and a french camping book (The Michelin Guide for preference). I found both and invested in a map of the Basque region of Spain (1cm to 2.5km, which is barely good enough - the catalan map is 1cm to 4km, terrible).
Stopping for awhile in the central plaza and realised the time and found my way back to the internet cafe where I had arranged to meet Danny. The sun was amazing so I sat outside and just basked there. Finally Danny made it and we both went to the bookshop again (which I found with some ease - me and my internal mapping system) took plan a route down to Bergerac where we were to meet a friend of Danny's Mum who hopefully had a book of campsites for us. Route in hand, we stopped in a Cafe to have a talk about what we wanted from the journey ahead. It was the 18th that Day, and Fred and Lucas were arriving in Barcelona on the 27th. This was the first I had heard of this, and I was not pleased that this change of plans seemed to come from no where. Danny suggested that if I started lagging he would speed off and I could continue at my own speed, but I was unsure on this state of affairs as my bike mechanic skill is less than shakey and I was not looking forward to doing any part of the trip alone. I was very tempted on just cutting my ties here, cycling to see my mum and missing out spain all together. Eventually after a bit of wrangling over what we were willing to compromise, we decided that we would try our hardest to reach Barcelona, but if we couldn't we wouldn´t split up but would instead catch a train to our destination. I would cycle a bit further and a bit further than we had been, but Danny promised not to forsake the slower of the two if time called for it. This sorted out I felt a lot better about the trip ahead, almost excited that it could be possible.
We returned to the campsite and made our preparations for tomorrow.
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