If yesterday's ride was in cycling heaven,
today's ride was closer to cycling hell.
A constant stream of trucks, vans and cars, rough roads with potholes,
and being enveloped in car fumes, smoke from fires and chemical smells from the
nearby industrial businesses made riding distinctly unpleasant.
Yes, I rode towards the main town on the
island, Port Villa. I started riding at
around 8, just as the children were heading to school, and seem to have
encountered rush hour:
It was so unpleasant that I turned off the
road to Port Villa and instead explored a side road that eventually turned into
a dirt track:
That was interesting, as I saw lots of
evidence of the damage Cyclone Pam had done to the island: collapsed houses and
other buildings, damaged roofs, houses that had been completely flattened. Even five months later, the damage is still
very obvious:
I only rode for an hour today, just a
recovery ride from the big climb the previous day. Afterwards, I went snorkelling with the
children, and we saw the usual panoply of tropical fish and other animals. The reef around the resort had been quite
badly damaged in Cyclone Pam, and we could see the work they had done to try
and rebuild it. I also saw clams, anemones,
clownfish, Moorish Idols, zebra fish, a titan triggerfish, lots of barracuda, a
weird yellow trumpet fish, and a thing I think was called a bird-nosed
parrotfish:
As well as the fish, we got to explore the
underwater post office. The main
underwater post office at the resort was damaged in the cyclone and isn't
working any more, but they've put up a postbox beside it. At low tide it's not too hard to swim down to
it (I even swam through the old post office building), and you can stand on top
of the building if you can keep your balance.
At high tide, it was too deep for Tighe to swim down to:
Unfortunately, one of the bottles of
sunblock we had brought with us was defective, and both Ruth and I got quite
painfully sunburned. My back is now a
delightful pale scarlet, and the back of Ruth's arms and legs are also badly
burned -- you get sunburned in weird places when you're snorkelling.
I also managed to get a bit cooked in the
sun today as I was watching Oscar play in the water, so I seem to be suffering
from a bit of hyperthermia too. Maybe
that explains why I was so exhausted this afternoon -- we all went to bed
around 7:30 pm, except for Ruth who stayed up "late" sorting through
the 292 fish photos we had taken today.
I'm planning to get up early in the morning
and try riding the whole way around the island.
My lights are all charged up, and I'm hoping to get past Port Villa
before dawn to beat the traffic. It's going
to be a long ride, and it could be pretty tough going if the hills I encountered
yesterday are any indication -- but I should be back by mid to late morning
(all going well) and I won't have that awful road to ride along during the day,
so hopefully it'll just be another wonderful ride through this tropical
wonderland.
