Du Lac Foix

... having a beer and watching a man try to dig his van out of the snow. To my knowledge his van is to this moment where it was when I left the bar.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to post some pictures of Canillo when it's snowy and the sun comes out. Don't have too many, but figured it was worth a post.

... month). I wandered around Andorra la Ville, the capital city here, for the majority of today. This is when I realized the importance of shoes that don't get wet in the snow, even my two pairs of socks defense was useless to stand up to the icy attacker. When I realized everything in the capital relates to shopping for things that cost insane amounts of money, I decided to trek back here and post some pictures. Hope you like them and I'll keep you updated.

... and the rain trying to wash us down hill. Kind of reminded me of the Pennines.

At the first saw-back we had the pleasure of running into one of our rock-climbing friends and chatted for awhile (and gave us a much needed rest). He offered us a place to stay in Foix for the evening. Very tempting, but we had to refuse as we needed to press on further than that.

Continuing the cycling, the grade lessened to a ...

... village et quand on est arrivé, il avait le marché du matin. On a acheter du vin à environ 1 euro le litre (vin de pays) et du bon fromage bleu pour le déjeuner.

On avait pas le droit de prendre des photos dans la grotte pour pas faire de la pollution lumineuse (il y avait déja des ptites pousses de plante pres des lanternes...ils veulent pas en rajouté non plus). Aussi il faut pas déranger les chauve souris...pauve cocottes...

... What it does mean, we're not quite sure of yet. Still dealing with the shock and going over a few different options. All while kicking myself for not realizing this sooner. Only one thing is for certain - I'm not going to let this spoil our trip, and we're going to have to get cycling! (o.k., two things).

... vegetable. Being pig farmers, we had to take 2 porkers to the abatoir to fulfill an order.

Unlike catching the wiener, there was a very different technique used to get these guys into the trailer. Since it didn’t matter which pigs went there was no need to chase a particular one. So instead the pig’s favourite thing was used: food. At lunchtime, Justin began to lure the group up out of their park and into the trailer with ...

... the finish town of Foix. In hindsight we probably made a tactical error by not staying at the finish but we were concerned about it being too crowded. Still it was very cool to see the setting up of the stage finish. The course decorators were out, they carry a big hammer drill and just drill into the pavement as they go. We did wonder what the restoration requirement is after seeing this. The final kilometre is blocked off but we got to look up the ...

... 2:30am preparing for the next day...and then I woke up at 7am to finish what I couldn't (with the lack of lights). Luckily the next day went better, even with the fast change in weather (we were going to play capture the flag, then the rain clouds came in fast, so go to plan B...). It's getting better though! So I'm living on the top of a ...

... little choux pastry with our coffee. The croissants were delicious and there was a steady stream of locals buying bread from the counter. We joined them before we left, and the bread was so good we'd eaten half of it before we got back to the van. Port Vendres is a mix of fishing port, marina and civil port. There are many old buildings, colourful boats and fishing nets - it's a real taste of the Med. We were in this part of ...

... training manuals" for the Pez Maya expedition via e-mail last week. I have to learn all of the Latin names for the hard corals and Cheryl has to learn all of English names for the adult fish species...she's already got her note cards out and we're studying the flash cards as we speak!! :-) Will be back in touch as soon as we can!