Day 6: The (metaphorical) ascent

Day 5 was labeled "a bad day" by me (Sergio): fell multiple times, reopened my wounds and lost confidence on the clipping pedals.

How did day 6 start? With an extra dose of exactly that. Within the first second of riding my bike, a still sleepy me fell... again... on my bad knee. And it hurt. A lot. So much for trying to start a day on a different note.

But it changed, oh how did it change. Multiple climbs were just what I needed, alongside my 2 blood-bonded companions, we climbed and climbed. And we even told stories while we did it, including my former flat mates' drama (hope they don't read this). Contrary to the norm, ascents were for sharing, descents for speeding and staying silent.

The day just got better and better, meeting friendly fellow bikers at the one-horse town fountain, taking pictures on a bridge until an unidentified animal screech frightened us away, more ascents - more stories, you name it.

We did arrive to a few points that threatened the day to take a negative turn. After a considerable descent, the way was shut due to risk of fires. We hesitated, as moving forward would only make us travel 2 km in the perilous direction while going back would entail about 6 times that, including backtracking upwards the slope we had just gone down. We went for safety but that just added to the experience. We then had lunch with "a view" (see pic below), I learnesd how to change a tire myself (taking the positives from a second day straight flat tire).

But the spirits were too high, even to the point we took a longer road just to go through Cannes' fancy beaches and enjoy cote d'azur's breeze. Just like that, we finally (120 km to be precise) arrived to a beautiful camping with amazing hosts, we decided to take a well deserved swim in the ocean and end our day going through a 6-8 people serving of chile con carne (spoiler alert: we were not satisfied). 

All in all, a fantastic day, we even high fived at the end of it to show our satisfaction. Few times have starting a day on such a low note have taken such a twist (including my personal record). Happiness and smiles all around as I'm writing this before taking a well deserved sleep.