Clarens
After a very cold but cosy night, the sun rises over the hill, and immediately the next surprise hits us. There is no lying in when you sleep in the bubble. When the first rays of sunshine hit the bubble, it turns into an oven, even with ice covering everything outside. The outside temperature has not yet reached positive numbers, when you are forced out. But it soon heated up outside, and Angie appeared with an awesome breakfast that we enjoyed out on the patio in front of the bubble.
We decide to ride to Clarens with a shopping list consisting of two items: earplugs (that airpump is too close for comfort) and a muscle relaxer (the cold made my lower back go into a spasm). Once we ticked this off our list, it was time for lunch.
Once lunch was done, we took a bit of a stroll through town. Anybody who has ever been to Clarens will know that it is just one big market, and you end up leaving with more than you came with. As we mount Putin to begin the ride back to our bubble, I notice something weird, sort of a lag between when you turn the handlebars and when the wheel responds. It did not take me long to find the issue; the handlebar clamps were completely loose, and they were effectively flopping around. Not wanting to start a full-on service in the middle of the town square, I ‘fixed’ it to the point where I felt confident that it would get us back. Armed with everything we’d need to survive the next night, we ride back to our bubble.
After fixing the flopping handlebars, I crank up the outdoor hot tub. Sitting in it with a bottle of wine while looking at the sun closing the gap to the mountains makes you forget that the temperature is dropping rapidly. Having learned from the previous night, we decided not to wait until after sunset to have dinner outside on the patio while the sun set over the mountains. Again, Angie outdid herself, and we went to bed under the stars with a belly full of great food and wine.
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