A rare Bank holiday Thursday and a bridge day for the Friday calls a four day break from the grindstone for yours truly.
Thing was the beemer is still toast, I had shredded the end-drive, thanks to the magic of the web I had e-bayed myself a new/used end-drive, the UK seller had sent it on and it had crash landed at CH customs, them buggers are getting to be the Bain of my CHian life, they want their quarter pound of flesh.
And they are making a problem out of the matter, they want the tax for a new part at the going list price of 1500€ and not the 105 Pound I actually paid.
So the thing is still in customs and I have no bike degrading me to having to drive a tin box thingy on four wheels,
I really prefer two over four wheels but wishful thinking is not getting me anywhere, muttering sweet buggery to myself I stuffed the tent into the jeep and set course out of ´CHivilization´, Italy in this case.
Running on fumes I went for a petrol station far out of Basel, hey 10 Rappen cheaper than in the big city, still at 1.78 Chuffs a chug I swear I heard my bank-card groan as I swiped it through the machine.
A Jeep grand Cherokee is hell of a fun to drive but a bugger at the pump.
I crawled past Luzerne and hit the Gotthard deciding to go over the top. Half way up and I was not enjoying the experience, big cars with large turning circles suck on a serpentine road.
Thankfully caravans are now banned from the pass but you still get a lot of fat motorhomes and Lunatic cyclists kamakazing down the mountain in the middle of the road at warp speeds, they seem to think that the little helmets are a kind of car-repulsing force-field.
Anyway most managed to dodge and only two of em ended up in the air-intake, Ill poke them out with a stick later..
The pass was surprisingly almost snow free, very unusual for this time of year, call it what you want, I call it global warming.
[Blockierte Grafik: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/yar999/gotthard.jpg]
skiing season really is over.
I like driving around Italy and once you get used to Italian driving you can settle and relax with one arm out of the window and the i-pod pounding out Jefferson airplane.
Around Genua I let the car take me where it wanted to go so we headed south to La Spezia in the Lombardy in the area called "Cinque Terra" just a few miles down the road I saw a sign for a camp-site outside of Chiavari.
[Blockierte Grafik: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/yar999/orhere.jpg]
Overlooking the sea
I like the area around Cinque Terra, or five countries, a 10 Kilometer stretch of coast-line with breathtaking mountains, deep valleys, sleepy Italian villages and clear,very clean blue sea.
What I like most is that although the place is geared up for tourists, the tourie tsunami the communes hoped for never happened and the place has a nice "family" feel to it.
[Blockierte Grafik: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/yar999/aaandnoboobiesheretoo.jpg]
Five countries country
I had the tent up in minutes, grabbed a "heeere´s Slammer" beer and decided to have a walk along the towns promenade.
The gravelly beaches were in parts quite full of people sunning themselves, I could not bring myself to jump in the water, a person of my size is very conscious of exposing blubber around slim people, I would be a Michelin man among the fit, stylish and tanned.
Looking along the rows of bronzing bods up and down the stretch of beach I came to realize that boobies are the closest thing humans have to Jedi mind control, it was time to bolt.
[Blockierte Grafik: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/yar999/noboobieshereIamafraid.jpg]
no boobies here, sorry.
A bit further up at a disused dock I dumped the backpack, offed the t-shirt, took a run and flung myself into space..
.."Ya Mon" Waz da matter?
"Yo! here I waz like floating in a quite mellow way"
Down in the jellyfish bar the assembled jellyfish looked in astonishment at the newcomer.
"Dis monkey jumped me from above mon, stunged dat damm fool up real good I did"
"Yow! You da jelly-mon!"
In a bar on land I had a ice-cold beer in each hand alternatively drinking and rolling the glass over my twice its normal size swollen face, all the bloody water in the ocean and I get me a jellyfish face-mask at first dive.
Also I had forgotten the dollop of sun-lotion, come monday my colleague looked at me in surprise, I was quite messed up.
She went to her office muttering something about that it must be a stupid "Y" chromosome thing
