Most Inspirational Moment
The trip far exceeded my expectations so its difficult to pick one inspirational moment but I think the mountain day takes the biscuit! Bob had just taken a nose dive off his bike (moral of the story always wear a helmet!!), it was hot, hot, hot (somewhere around 38 degrees) and we were flagging a bit when out of nowhere came the hotel - nestled in the middle of a jungle down the bumpiest road you ever did see! Never have I been so pleased to see a waiter with a cool drink and the natural swimming pool was stunning... even if we didn't find it til too late to use and just sat in the green pools out the front to cool down!
Thoughts on Group Leader
Jose lead the group and Tuna and Alberto were the mechanics come bus drivers. Loads of local knowledge, plenty of dance steps to teach, lots of patience when we kept finding the nearest bar for drinks and ice creams to cool down... and many a catch phrase learnt to keep us chuckling... Well done "my children"!
Advice for Potential Travellers
There were a few things that I think would have helped me:Take old clothes to leave behind for locals - apparently shoes are very expensiveIf taking gifts school kids want pencils not pens, these are better given to the office workersLearn to use your gears on the bike properly - using granny gears is not a failure! (It was very windy and sometimes harder on the flat into the wind than the hills!)Take sudacream for any er... delicate bike sores... or even just sun burnI wish I'd taken 'thank you' pressies for the guides as well as the tip - they definately deserved themNo matter how tired your legs are or if you're at the back of the group, if you see something you want to take a photo of stop and take it, you only get one chance!Do take a 'good' camera, mine was a few years old and just really slow to take pictures and quite often what i wanted to snap had long gone before my camera fired into action!
