Day 73 Saturday 2nd October Melfi to Potenza by Ali

58km in 3hr8min
17kmph average
59kmph max
5719 odometer

Owing to the fact that I can't currently stomach coffee or fruit juice, Italian breakfast offers me little in the way of sustenance. I'm aware that for the past few weeks all my blog entries have opened with a small British moan about a decent breakfast. I dont wish to disrespect the delightful Italian cuisine but they are really missing the point of breakfast. Actually they are just missing breakfast, how on earth did they create such a powerful

Nation on a few spoons of sugar?! I know Rome wasnt built in a day, but perhaps progress would have been quicker if they had started the day with weetabix rather than espresso and sugar?! The tiny dry toasts take more of my energy to consume than they provide in calorific nutrition and we return to the room.  I sit down on the bed, half wishing we could just be still. Perfectly still, for a while.

I'm feeling completely out of sorts and I long to go back to bed and shut out the mountains for a bit longer. Ideally I would like wake up in Sicily. Unfortunately it's time to go so we load the bikes wobble off. 

We've only 60km until the next town of Potenza but I'm finding every pedal lstroke hard. For the first time my legs really cramp, my bike feels too heavy to humanly propel and I realise my greatest fear of not enjoying cycling! It's a constant slow uphill across the mountains, and my mood is as low as my speed. We keep stopping and I could quite happily lie down on the side of the road and sleep. unfortunately when I awoke I fear I would still be in the same predicament of being in the middle of nowhere with a small two wheeled tank to transport onward.

So on we go, the girls patiently cycling with me at a crawl. It's a baking hot day and we sweat more than ever before, I have the odd sensation of a beading of water along eyebrows and then the sting as sweat runs in to my eyes. Unlike the beautiful alps where we were able to climb steadily towards our high altitude towns, here we are constantly forced right back to where we started. Normally I love a fast downhill as much as he next cyclist, but as we climbed 500m and then dropped 600 only to start climbing again, I began to dread them! Like the past few days, we see not a single cyclist on the roads, let alone a tourer! We are so far from the bici beaten trail  people are confused by us and as one van passes he gives the italian symbol for "what the hell are you doing?!" 

After taking a steep winding short cut over the next mountain (at least there's no downhill!) we arrive on the edge of Potenza and begin to drop down into the valley toward the town which is on the opposite ahill at 800m altitude. Unfortunately there's no straight road to the centro and as we negotiate hairpin bend after hairpin bend we realise we have descended too far and with Hazel at the lead we've ended up at the hospital. We can see the city up on his hill ahead and as we are loathe to turn back we descend further into the university campus in the hope there will be a way out on the other side. We find a locked gate. Still resistant to turn back we spot a semi off road track off to our right which we assume will be a short cut into town. Short cut meaning straight up the mountain rather than winding round. From a standing start we attempt to pedal up a 35% incline. Ambitious. For the first

time in the whole trip we resort to pushing our bikes, which is akin to pushing a small elephant who does not want to go anywhere! At the
Summit we are greeted with another locked gate and so we retrace our steps  all the way back up past the hospital.
Fortunately we spot a centre sign and wend slowly up the hill around the edge  of town like an upside down helter skelter.  We eventually find an albergho after some searching and questioning of police, who as ever were standig around with nothing to do. They sport nice white leather holsters though. We conclude that half of Italy are employed in some police force or other. On arrival at the albergo we have the delightful realisation that we none of us have our passports.
Being seasoned cycle tourists there is no panic. I'm happier in this predicament than with a broken wheel on the side of the ss16 with the dead dogs and prostitutes.
So we explain our situation to the owner of the albergo, Roberto, who fortunately is one of the nicest people we have met so far. He rings the hotel
In Melfi (whom have forgotten to give us back our passports) and gives them an earbashing. He then rings his friend at the local police to check he's not going to be arrested for checking us in without passports. All is well and Roberto even offers to take is to Melfi to collect documentation in the morning. As he is Chilean, we all coommunicate in a confusing mixture of Italian, Spanish and English, with me the most confused as when
I try and speak Spanish i find all

My vocabulary has been replaced by a mixture of Italian, German and Polish! We haven't even been to Poland. I'm very tired. He moves some other guests around so we can have a cheaper room in which we nap for the remainder of the afternoon. We arise briefly for dinner, and as we are friends of Roberto we enjoy an amazing three corse meal for 10 euros at the restaurant down the hill. Sated, we return to be for a well needed 12 hour sleep. Sorted.