Crossings are Scary

The conditions were pretty good as we set off from our camp spot down the coast. We intended to make it to Ballangen, a little town about 10 miles down the coast, and then decide what's next. Arriving into Ballangen the sun came out and while Tom watched the gear the rest of us headed into town to get cash out and buy more supplies. I ended up crashing, low blood sugar I think, and once I'd had some lunch I fell asleep on some telegraph poles. Justin and Melissa meanwhile met a retired teacher, John, who gave them a lift to the gas station and then explained that his village down the coast had a place to moor the boats, to camp and even hot showers. We decided this was an offer too good to refuse and so we climbed back in the boats and headed out. As we rounded the coast the conditions got more choppy and the village always seemed to be around the next headland. All in all it ended up being a further 11 or 12 miles which we did without a break. By the time we rounded the final headland into the bay and spotted Kjeldebotn we were really having to dig deep to make it in. We moored the boats and I immediately went into violent shivers. Tom and Melissa were amazing. They got me out of my wet clothes, put 2 hats on my head and found me somewhere warm to sit. Tom then made me a hot chocolate whilst Justin and Melissa spoke to the local fishermen to explain John had invited us.

John soon arrived and they opened up their fishing hut for us, said we could sleep in it and use their bathrooms and shower. The harbour is community built and ran by the local fishing and boat owners association. I eventually stopped shivering and after dinner John came and picked us up in his car and took us on a tour of the area. We drove up the local mountain, enjoying beautiful views in his cosy car whilst he told us about the local area. We were completely amazed at the level of community spirit in this beautiful little town where local associations took care of the road into the mountains, the harbour and even the local grocery store. People would pay into these associations and volunteer their time to provide better facilities for the local community. It was really inspiring.

It was past 11pm when we went to bed but still light. Due to poor conditions forecast for the following day John had offered to give us a lift in his boat across the fjord to the northern coast. We were all nervous about towing the boats behind John’s fishing boat so we set off tentatively, Justin and Melissa manning the towline, Tom chatting to John and me just transfixed by the bouncing blue boats bobbing in John’s wake. Despite a few moments of concern we made it to the other side and past Ramsund unscathed. John expertly pulled up against some rocks & we unloaded all our gear & pulled in the kayaks. After waving John off we packed the boats and set off paddling. After a couple of hours we spotted a pristine white sandy beach which we knew would make a perfect camp site for the night. We beached the boats, unloaded our gear, set up our tents and gathered wood for a fire as Tom and I were out of camping gas.

John had kindly given us 4 large fish fillets and 8 fish cakes. We fried up the fishcakes as a starter and made a tomato and fish sauce for our pasta. Tom reckoned it was the best meal he’d ever had! We had a relaxed evening around the camp fire and hit the hay as we knew we had our first big crossing the next day to Lodingen. The stretch down the coast to the headland opposite Lodingen was a little rough but as we rounded the headland we felt the wind coming down the fjord and there was nowhere to really pull in the boats to assess the situation. Justin and Tom we're confident we could make the crossing so we set off. In hindsight I think it was mostly luck which got us safely across. Tom and I took on a lot of water, it was really pretty rough and though it was only about 20 minutes of paddling it was hard paddling. I was quite honestly terrified and had to just chant “paddle really hard, paddle really hard, don't think about the water, don't think about the water” to myself. Turns out Melissa felt pretty similar. We made it into Lodingen harbour and once we located the public jetty we headed into town. 

Lodingen is a cute little town with a lovely community run harbour with facilities for camper vans so after restocking we hung out in their little kitchen to get warm and look at forecasts. After a few hours the wind had died down and we felt confident to continue. We made good progress with a tail wind, made it over two other smaller crossings and began the hunt for a camp spot. We pulled into one beach, but there were houses nearby and horses grazing so we weren't too comfortable and so we pushed on to a beach on the other side of Rinøya that we’d spotted on our maps. We almost missed this secluded little treasure as we rounded the headland into the bay, but as we set our eyes on it we knew we’d made the right choice. Another perfect sandy beach with grassy areas and even a little wooden building we could shelter from the wind beside. We couldn't figure out the purpose of this little structure; it was low, there was seats all round the inside of it and it had a big fire pit in the middle with cooking grate and kettle. But it's decking made an excellent drying spot and kitchen. We went to bed tired and full hoping that the weather would be kind to us in the morning.

Arctic Express

The Swedish trains have a simple luggage policy - you can bring what you can carry. Nevertheless we were close to the limit with our our kayaks and gear. Labouring into the train we found our compartment, bundled all the bags around us and settled in for the overnight ride. The compartments are a lot like the 2nd class carriages on the Indian railways except we had a six person compartment for the four of us and there's no one coming round selling snacks at the stations (which is a shame). We’d met Justin and Melissa in Stockholm station an hour before we departed and conversation as flowing as we caught up on the last couple of years as the train whizzed north.

Despite the light night we managed some sleep before changing trains in Boden and heading northwest to Narvik. The train was fairly empty and we moved around the carriage to get the best views of the mountains. We were all surprised at how much snow there was on the ground and the fact the lakes in the mountains were still frozen. But we were now in the Arctic Circle so maybe this shouldn't have been a surprise! We unloaded at Narvik and while Melissa and I watched the stuff Tom & Justin headed to the gas station to ask about places to camp. With directions to a little spot by the beach with toilets we started to make our slow and painful progress under our heavy burden. Luckily after only about five minutes a guy in a pick up asked if we needed help and offered to drive our gear to our camp spot. Justin jumped in the truck with the stuff and the three of us followed on foot in the drizzle.

We set up our tent by the sea and Justin and Melissa opted to just camp out in the toilet to save getting their tent wet. We ate dinner together in another toilet block and did ‘Happy, Silly, Sad’. The next morning we hit the local supermarket to stock up on groceries before getting on with assembling the boats. To our slight horror a number of the plastic plates that form the connections between the parts of the boat had cracked. Thankfully we had a large roll of gorilla tape which we liberally applied and then continued with putting the boat together whilst hoping our repairs would hold up. A local guy out walking his dog stopped to chat with us, offering us some tips and places to look out for. We packed our gear into the boats and then struggled to carry them down the pier to the water. Lesson one - if moving the boats on land, move them empty and pack them at the water.

But we got them on the water, got into them and paddled out. Thing was, although that morning the water had been calm and glassy by the time we set off the wind had picked up considerably and the water was pretty choppy. We made it round the headland past Narvik’s harbour before deciding to pull in for lunch as the wind was higher than we liked (we’d gone about a mile and a half). We parked up on a beach and after a snack and a quick scout of the area we headed back out as the wind seemed to have dropped. Rounding this second headland the water was tougher still and after battling with it for a few hundred metres, Tom and I taking on considerable water as we had no spray deck, we beat a retreat for the harbour to check the forecast and decide what next. Lesson two - if the conditions have changed you shouldn't head out just because you've packed the boats.

We moored up in the harbour and hid from the wind behind the marina building whilst trying to determine what was happening with the weather and tides that afternoon. After a couple of hours the wind died down and the forecast said it would stay low so we got back in the boats and paddled back out. It was still a little choppy, but much better than earlier and we managed to get about 10 miles down the coast including a crossing where we all felt a bit like we were on a treadmill. Exhausted we pulled into a beach and camped next to a dilapidated barn and an empty house. It wasn't exactly how we’d envisaged our first day of paddling and we’d covered only half the distance we were planning to in a day. We were pretty sure our plans would need revising.

Something on the Horizon

So yeah, my resolve to keep writing once we got home didn't really stand up to much.  Honestly there's just not much to write about in normal life.  Not for me anyway.  I don't think it helps that I spend 40 hours a week in front of a computer for work so I'm not really keen on sitting down in front of one during my free time.  Plus with all the best intentions we have not really been the weekend warriors or micro adventurers I might have hoped we'd be on returning.  Life back home is just so busy.  But now we have something which certainly is worth writing about.  Something we are so excited about.  Well actually, two things.  But I can't tell you much about the second thing, not yet anyway.

In three weeks time we'll be in the Arctic Circle.  We'll be spending the summer solstice in the land of the midnight sun further North than we have ever been.  And we're going to be paddling, not pedaling.  We are going sea kayaking in northern Norway with Justin and Melissa.  You may remember these two from our time up in North BC.  We met them at Warm Showers host, Cheryl's house in Terrace and spent the next 11 days riding North to The Yukon together.  They arrived at the perfect moment to buoy our spirits when Tom was struggling.  We rode long hard days, had our first bear encounters, swam in glacier-fed lakes, ate giant breakfasts, suffered horrendous swarms of mosquitoes, summited passes, enjoyed root beer floats and suffered the disappointment that is Watson Lake together.  So despite spending less than a fortnight together this friendship forged in the crucible of the road felt strong and life long.

It's true we have zero experience of sea kayaking, but when they contacted us late summer 2016 and said they wanted to reunite Team Baby Bunnies for a little adventure in summer 2017, fueled by google searches and excited Skype chats a plan was hatched to paddle from Narvik to Tromso via a little detour to the Lofoten Islands.  And we had plenty of time to buy kayaks, practice kayaking and learn what we needed about navigation, safety and how the sea works.  Well we thought we did, but like I said, life is busy.  We settled on folding kayaks as they are transportable and Justin and Melissa had met a couple a few years back who had a Folbot Greenland II which they had paddled along a long stretch of the North American coastline and raved about the boat.

I'm going to talk about our boat buying fiasco in another post, but a fortnight ago we had still not got our boat out on the water.  We'd managed only to assemble it once, in our garden, and we were filled with trepidation about how feasible this trip was going to be.  Last week we had a two day course booked with Sea Kayaking Anglesey in which we hoped to take out our boat and learn enough not to die at sea.  It was just the two of us with Phil the instructor and it was the perfect antidote to our huge sense of foreboding.  The boat floats, we can paddle it and Phil taught us enough about route planning, forecasting and safety that our feeling of dread has been replaced with a feeling of excitement.  If you want to learn to sea kayak or improve your skills Phil is your guy.

We've got a few more bits of gear to get and a little more map studying to do, but we're almost all set.  We are meeting in Stockholm, Sweden where we board an overnight train which will take us north through the Swedish countryside, into the Arctic Circle and then west across to Narvik, Norway where we will set up our kayaks and take to the water.  We've then got 22 days to make our way to Tromso where we will part ways with Justin and Melissa and return to the UK to embark on an even bigger adventure...but more about that another time.

Hard to Write

It's almost a year since we set off.  The past year has a dreamlike quality.  I can remember the trip vividly, it's just that it often feels like it happened in another universe.  I'm sorry we've not written since we got back.  I did try.  I wanted to keep the writing up, but I found it so hard.  Its been a difficult 3 months since we arrived back in the UK on 16th November.  We are very lucky to have had a wonderful place to live with my Aunty and Uncle while we found our feet and figured out what the next step holds, but that figuring out has been so tough.  For me in particular.  Tom has had his own struggles, but since flying home our experiences diverged in some ways.  I was leaving the cycle tour behind, whereas Tom was heading towards setting up a business.

It's an idea he had whilst we were on tour and is something we are both excited about, if also a little nervous.  It seems like a pretty big and scary thing to set up a business, but I have utter faith that if anyone can do a good job of it, it's Tom.  He has even managed to get his first piece of consulting work building waste admin systems for a local company.  If you need clever stuff building in Excel for your business Tom is your guy.  I am so proud of him and what he is working towards - it is really awesome and he is constantly amazing to me.  So that is all good.  Scary, yes.  Hard work, yes.  But Tom is a guy who having never been out of the country for more than 2 weeks embarked on a mammoth self-supported cycle tour.  He can do scary and he can definitely do hard work.  And unlike on the cycle tour he has a very definite direction to move in and a real sense of purpose now - which suits him much better than the aimless wandering of the tour.

Having some savings left from the trip and not having to pay rent meant I was free to take some time, not having to rush back into the first job I found.  Tom thought it would be good for me to figure out how to be at home without work.  But this is not a comfortable place for me - I'm not good at being at home, as in the UK, and not working.  I've been travelling a few times before, but on each return I went straight back into work.  This time I intended to take time to write, edit the footage we shot while away, be creative and give myself time to process it all.  Try to figure out why I am utterly happy to be away wandering aimlessly, but as soon as I pass back through UK customs I need a job, I need to fill my time, I can't just be.  Afraid to say that more than 3 months after returning home I still feel uncomfortable and have not worked out the why.  And in fact I have barely been able to bring myself to look at the footage or write.

I was pretty down initially and suffered quite acute reverse culture shock.  I'm sort of getting used to it now, but it's almost like I am reverting.  On the cycle tour things are stripped back to the basics - every day is occupied almost solely with finding food, water, accommodation and toilets (including suitable bushes etc).  Obviously there is all the cycling too, but that in some ways just happens.  You appreciate things in ways that are just impossible to in the comfort of your own home.  Almost every day our lunch was cheese, crackers and half an apple each - and it tasted AMAZING!  On many days the cheese was really sweaty, but that just made all the days that we had un-sweaty cheese really special.  Food always tasted wonderful on the tour.  I think because it was well earned - from the physical exertion of cycling, but also the mental effort of finding shops/restaurants/gas stations.  Now I am home, with a fully equipped kitchen and easy access to the same shops (so I know where everything is and don't have to search for it) not to mention a fridge and a freezer, food just doesn't hit the spot in the same way.  Don't get me wrong we've eaten some delicious meals, meals that totally surpass anything I made whilst we were away in terms of flavour, texture and complexity, but I've not licked my plate clean grinning from ear to ear with the same sense of satisfaction that we got from camp food after a day in the saddle.  Life on the road is hard, it takes effort to do basic things, but there is something wonderful in this simplicity.  Striving to meet your basic needs is somehow ultimately satisfying and fulfilling.  Back home it's not like that.  It's so much more complicated.  And so much less fulfilling.  It's so easy to meet your basic needs, but there's so many other things to worry about and stress over - meaningless, pointless things that fill me with angst and uncertainty.

But things are looking up.  I got a job!  A job I like the look of, with nice people.  And whilst it's true I've not figured out why I feel so compelled to have a job here, the reality is I feel so much better having got one, even though I've not started yet.  It felt like limbo before, but now I feel like I can enjoy the remaining days of leisure I have in a carefree way.  I even feel like I can write.  On top of that we move back to Sheffield on 1st March.  It's been amazing staying with my Aunty and Uncle, but we are definitely looking forward to being in our 'own' house for the first time in over a year and we are so excited about being able to be the hosts, not the hosted.  So many of you showed us the most incredible hospitality, you taught us a lot about how to be better hosts and we are so eager to start paying it forward.

We're not sure what the future holds, but I think the next year at least is looking sort of set.  And as soon as I start work I can start planning holidays!  Totally open to your suggestions for 2 week trips, my current thought is cycling in the Alps or Dolomites this summer, but feel free to shout out other possibilities.  As I said when I think back on the trip it feels distant, I look at the photos or video and think 'my god we cycled there!', but the thing that does not feel distant is you guys.  The people we met, the kindness we experienced, the friendships we made burn brightly for me and do not feel at all diminished by time or distance and that warmth has got me through this cold, dark British winter. Thank you.

The Statistical Analysis of a Cycle Tour

For nearly 9 months we have been cycle touring around the U.S.A, Canada and, to much lesser extent, Mexico.  Today we want to tell you the real reason we have been on this journey; to gather, collate and analyse data of the trip to give you folks an interesting insight in to the numbers.  Whooo!!! (In all honesty we are quite excited about this and we both geeked out over these numbers for a little too long).

From our starting point in California to our final day in Quintana Roo we have been away for 262 days and during that time we have covered 8,709 miles.  This distance was completed in 17 States in the USA, 5 Provinces and 1 Territory of Canada, and 2 states in Mexico (check these out on the map page).  

Pie Chart to Show Distance Cycled Per Country

In terms of analysing the data we we have decided to split the analysis up.  We are calling these 2 sections 'Cycle Touring' and 'Being Away' as since we arrived at our 'destination' of Oshawa things have taken a decidedly un-bikey turn.  We've cycled a total of 135 days; 75 in the United States, 56 in Canada and 4 in Mexico.  As with all exercise one needs to have rest days so as to prevent injury (though Drill Sergeant Soph would often forget to plan in rest days).  Whilst  in the Cycle Touring part of the trip we had a total of 79 days of zero or very little cycling. In the Being Away part we have had 44 days out of a total of 52. Just to put things in perspective.

In the About Us section we talked about doing 2 days of 60 miles and having a rest day (so 1 rest day in 3, covering on average 40 miles per day).  So just looking at the 210 days we spent Cycle Touring we have had more rest days than we thought (we had 1 rest day in 2.7 days), however, we have covered a few more miles that we expected.  The unfeasible regime of 2 on 1 off would have us at 8,400 miles by day 210 whereas as our total was 8,522.  So on average we covered 40.6 miles a day.  Considering the fact we had never done a long cycle tour prior to this we think we had a surprisingly good idea of what a 'good day of cycling' looked like. Incidentally, Sundays, far from being a day of rest, were the day of the week we clocked up the most miles on during the trip.

Bar Chart to Show Number of Times Different Distance Per Day Completed

Having a few more rest days than expected but still covering the distance we expected means we must have done bigger miles when we did ride.  And yep, when you average the days in the saddle we did 65 miles a day.  We can look deeper into these days and get some more insights.  The chart above shows how many times we completed different length rides.  It quite closely resembles the old bell shaped curve of our maths classes, with the apex at 71 - 80 miles.  However it drops off quicker than it rose with markedly less days of over 80 miles than below 71.  The day we covered the most miles was the 30th July (day 154 of the trip, it was a Thursday) and we did 115 miles.  In total we had 5 days where we completed more-than-century rides.  Before we set off Sophie had never done a century ride before and Tom had only done two, both unloaded and fully supported.  Now we have completed 5 on touring bikes weighing around 50 kg each.  We're proud of us.  And whilst the tour absolutely was not about riding far and fast, we think it shows how our confidence & fitness really improved.  All of these greater-than-century rides were clustered around weekends.  With one each being completed on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Drill Sergeant Sophie says Tuesday and Wednesday are feeling left out and we better plan some big rides in for when we get home!).

Bar Chart to Show Total Distance Cycled Per Month

The month we cycled the most was August, we covered 1711 miles!  Compare that to our first month on the road, March, when we rode 1030 miles.  In August we did an average of 55 miles per day, including rest days.  But if the rest days are removed, then when we did ride we rode an average of about 81 miles a day!  Our total mileage since arriving in Oshawa is 187 miles, so we did more in 3 days of riding in August than we have in the last 52!

Stacked Bar Chart to Show Number of Nights Per Day of The Week We Stayed in Different Types of Accommodation

Some other interesting day of the week stuff is shown above.  First of all we have stayed with a lot of people through the wonderful online network that is WarmShowers; we stayed 64 nights with hosts throughout Canada and the US and it is spread pretty evenly through the week.  Although we stayed slightly more times on Monday and Saturday nights and a little bit less often on Thursdays and Fridays.  The few times we stayed at Hotels/Motels/Hostels it was during the week and never at the end of the week or weekends, mostly this was due to serendipity (e.g. the snazzy hotel in Santa Barbara that some friends hooked us up with) or need (e.g. the hostel at Pigeon Point on our second night out after Tom broke his bike) but on the 2 occasions we splurged on a motel just because we felt we needed it, the fact these days fell midweek and were therefore a little cheaper, sure helped us to go ahead and book in.  The fifth night in this type of accommodation was Sophie's birthday, which was luckily a Monday.  Since being in Mexico we have paid for all accommodation, be it a hotel, an Airbnb or a home-stay; there are WarmShowers hosts in Mexico, but almost none in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Infographic to Show Total Weight Lost Across 30 Weeks of Cycle Touring 

It's hard to know, but we probably burned something like 5000-7000 calories each per day of riding our average 65 miles.  And we lost a bunch of weight.  Sophie lost something like 20lbs or 9kg, Tom lost around 39lbs or nearly 18kg!!  The best infographic for this our Friday Photos.  The photos on the left were taken on the morning we flew, 27th February 2015, the ones on the right were taken in Oshawa on 25th September 2015.

So that's about it from us on our statistics and our tour.  We leave in a few hours to fly back to Manchester.  We don't really know what's going to happen next, but if it turns out to be interesting and fun (and we are both very much hoping that that will be the case) then we will probably write about it.  We're so looking forward to catching up with friends and family back home and to all of you that we met along the way remember our door is always open and we can't wait to repay the hospitality you've shown us.

Roadside Meltdown

Saturday morning was thankfully and luckily not rainy. I can't say it was dry as there was still a lot of water about from the previous hours of torrential onslaught, but the stuff had at least ceased to fall from the sky. We were soon loaded up and on our way Cobá. Outside of Tulum the road was good quality, with a nice wide shoulder and we took a gentle pace. Partly this was because despite being 9am it was already fairly warm and humid and partly because we have noticed a direct correlation between the speed we travel and the likelihood of Mexican stray dogs barking and chasing us. Admittedly our research has been pretty limited, but it does seem that if you're going at a more leisurely pace the hoardes of roadside pooches seem decidedly uninterested in you. As soon as we ramp up to our normal pace they can't get enough of scaring the hell out of us by snarling and nipping at our heels. So we're cruising along, it's maybe an hour and twenty minutes since we set off and Tom says "urgh I think I have a slow puncture in my rear tyre". I look at it. It's pretty flat. I comment that it does not appear to be all that slow so we pull over in a sort of driveway to fix it. Before Tom has even removed the wheel we spot a gash in the tyre about 1cm long.

This is not good. We don't have a spare tyre at the moment, we put our second spare on Tom's bike in Canada and since we weren't staying out much longer had thought we'd get away without a spare for our little stint in Mexico. We start trying to figure out what we're going to do:

Option 1) Try to fix it by lining he inside of the tyre with a note, we have a CAD$10 note, it's plasticky and we've heard of other folks get by this way. 

Option 2) I ride back to Tulum to get a new tyre from a bike shop.

Option 3) We try to flag down a bus or taxi for a ride to Cobá and hope they have some tyres for sale there.

Tom is cursing the tyre (after all this is the fourth tyre we've had terminal issues with) and is taking this very badly. Actually once we get the tyre off the wheel we realise that, incredibly, the gash doesn't go all the way through. The tyre isn't done yet. We find the puncture in the inner tube and I find a small piece of wire embedded in the tyre which is the culprit of this particular flat. Tom fits a new inner tube and starts the laborious task of pumping up the tyre. He is soaked in sweat. It's over 30 degrees (Celsius) and humidity must be about 95%. Admittedly it is not ideal flat tyre conditions, but at least the tyre is intact.

I can't say I was pleased about the flat or even the prospect of a dead tyre, but I just see overcoming these obstacles as part of the whole journey. Tom sees them as getting in the way of the journey and in his current state it causes him a great deal of anxiety and stress. I was finding it hard to relate to this, but then I had a little epiphany; if you recall back in Utah we faced a day of very strong winds and I ended up in a state of utter terror until I just got off my bike and walked. Tom is at a point where cycle touring in general is causing him the same level of stress and angst as I was feeling battered by the wind and so when things go wrong he has no reserves to cope with the problem. Coming to this realisation made me more sympathetic and also made up our minds about how we would spend our upcoming days. The remaining 16 miles to Cobá went without note, we checked in to our hotel, and headed straight out to the ruins. We'd been told it was a large site and better seen by bike so we pedalled down, however they don't allow you to take your own bikes, so our trusty steeds stayed chained up at the gate and we set off on foot.

The ruins at Cobá are the second Mayan city on our trip, the first being the ones in Tulum. They are indeed spread through the jungle and are impressive and thought provoking. There are bits where it really looks like the jungle is winning the fight to reclaim the area and you cannot help but think how much effort it must have taken to clear these patches and build these enormous constructions, the most magnificent of which is the Grand Pyramid. It is monstrous and from its summit you can see across miles of jungle, occasionally spying what look like little hills but which are actually overgrown pyramids. 

On our way back to the hotel we saw a crocodile! It was conveniently lounging on a collapsed pier under a sign saying 'Visite los Cocodrilos'.

The following day we ride to Valladolid, our first colonial town. It's a very picturesque town with colourful buildings lining cobbled one-way streets, beautiful old convents and pretty little squares dotted about and a behemoth of a cathedral, which looks like it was built to withstand a seige.

Valladolid is to be our staging post to visit Chichen-itza, probably one of the most famous Mayan cities and somewhere that has been on our detour list since before we set off, thanks to Rhys. We take our first bus out there and arrive at 8:30am. All the online guides tell us that arriving early means you miss the tour buses and the worst of the vendors though it seems pretty busy to us already. Almost by accident we stumble upon the castle, the iconic pyramid you may well recognise. 

The next few hours are spent wandering the site marvelling at the buildings, the carvings and the increasing hordes of people.

Towards the end of our visit I manage to trap a bee between my flip-flop and my foot and get stung on the sole. I've not been stung for many years and it was surprisingly painful, but Tom was quick to get the sting out and we had some insect bite stuff on hand so we were soon toddling around the site again and then back to Valladolid on the bus.