23rd February Armenia –Sunia 120 miles

Having had a pre breakfast swim and got the blog up to date we had a pate start today and it is with regret that we have to leave this beautiful hotel. We settled the bill and for bed breakfast, evening meal for 2 days for both of us, eighty pounds, and that included beers and a couple of bottles of wine.
It is warm when we leave but we get a couple of spots of rain that thankfully comes to nothing. Asw we progress the sky is black ahead of us and I am sure we will run into rain soon, but no it doesn’t come and I was thinking that if we manage to dodge this all day it will be like the great escape.
Needless to say we didn’t, the sky was like night and we had quote a few spots and I suggested stopping to put our waterproofs on, Martin agreed and pulled up in front of some warehouse doors which had a small roll overhang over the doors. Well the heavens opened and 2 locals joined us for shelter, it absolutely hammered dawn, at one point we were pressed hard against the doors to attempt to keep out of the driving rain. After about half an hour it eased to torrential rain and we were able to get our togs on and then headed of again.
We soon ran out of the rain, thankfully, and started climbing up the mountain having a great run but progress was slow as it was a twisty road with tiny straights which made overtaking tricky. In places there were signs ‘zona inestable’, and there may have been some gravel where the road had washed away but we then came to an area where most of the road had subsided about 8 to 10 feet, goodness knows why, there were a couple of these. However when we came to the section with a drop on one side there were places where you would come round a corner and your half of the road had gone down the mountain, but in fairness at all these points there was a massive sign warning you and you could see the sign warning the traffic in the opposite direction, so it wasn’t difficult to be cautious in these areas.
As we got to the other side of the mountain, the rain came down, and it poured. With added issue of wet roads, some parts were like rivers, it was obvious we were not going to make Medallin before dark so once again plan B. We came to a town called Sunia, never has there been a worse misnomer because Sun the furthest thing from it. The only hotel we could find was the Grande, it is the total opposite to last night and is a combination of being built and falling down, but it seems clean and dry and the bikes are under cover, so not all bad.
We will make for Medallin tomorrow, it is probably 70 – 100 miles, amazing really when you concider that it was only 160 miles when we left and we have done 120, but that is what we are used to now.