S2 : Day 4 - A day to regroup

Valencian team dinner... one big vat of Paella

Cafe con leche con coffee addict!

After close to 250miles and over 10k ft of elevation gain, we hard earned a day break. Not to mention the mud, rain, off roading and everything else that hit us, having a day break was well needed. We woke up late-ish, had a nice relaxed hotel buffet breakfast, where my father had way too many cafe con leches.

The day was spent getting sim cards, checking out the hotel a bit, and we browsed a sports store a bit that was across from the hotel. We discovered that the gym in the hotel had 10 state of the art "glute" machines and the oldest set of mini plates known to man. We decided to skip leg day and went back to one of the rooms to look at the route. After Shruti and I looked at the route on plotaroute... we decided we are trying to beat google and decided it was best if we just followed what they were recommending for day 5. :)

Matty and Eric vying for Miss Spain's attention ... 
i swear i heard "i luv green neck scarves too" 

We also grabbed lunch at two different places ... just because. It was the traditional Valencian "lunch crawl".

We headed in to the city via cab, did a bit of shopping, drinking coffee and then tried out traditional Paella which included rabbit and chicken amongst other ingredients. It was ok, but I preferred Shruti's veggie paella and the seafood paella I had later in the trip. The big city restaurants were kind of hit or miss unless you knew where to go. We were basically like tourists in times square eating at some chain restaurant.

We then finished up the night renting a car! This would be a game changer in terms of cycling the rest of the tour. It meant not carrying our full packs. We could bring just what we needed for the day. It was a life saver for the rest of the trip.

The next day we didnt know what was about to hit us. The first 30miles of flat terrain and then 37 miles climbing close to 4000ft... plus head on wind, in the dark and with the team split two and two... 

I dont know why they started doing this in the middle of the street at like 9pm.
There are another 17 pix just like this. It got messy during the full split street competition.

they say i pout when i take pix... i just dont see it??

i think this was a 15th century building

i believe this is the main market building where Eric bought his safron spices.
At dinner he spent 35mins elaborating on the spice 0_o

I was able to read Shruti's mind through her smile .... "riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!"

the face of a person who just lost their wallet on a bus 0_o
Ericism #3 ... we had to create a ticketing system to catalogue Eric and his mishaps.

All diff types of pork products... all d time

Ham ... ham everywhere! Even for bfast!

having taco bell for lunch in
Spain seems a bit offensive to me... if you open the pic,
you will see my name on the screen :D