Day 9: Hospital de Obrigo to Rabanal

We are getting used to the early wake-up at the refugio. At 7h00 Jan was sitting in front of the computer (yes, refugios often have an internet connection available, though it is nearly always occupied). It is so nice to have a blog, as long as you keep it updated. The early wake-up this morning was designed for exactly that (3 days of updates in 1 go: we hope you readers appreciate reading our daily reports).
The weather looked OK this morning; cloudy yes, and rather cold but we did have dry clothes (thanks to big washing and drying action yesterday evening). Wind force below average (even if that average is rather high anyway). Should we mention Richard and the repair of his flat tyre, or is that something that is so usual by now that it just is not interesting anymore? The flat tyre happened after 3 kilometres and announced the beginning of an off-day. One of the photos we post today shows you the way the sky looked at that moment. Look at it and you´ll get the picture. Rain as usual. The fact that our route today was mostly uphill did not help in lifting the morale. We tried a stop for tea (Richard) and hot chocalate (Jan, Sam) but that did not help much either. We cycled through Astorga and saw another amazing church (what is it with these provincial towns and their once glorious pasts?).
Yesterday we told you about the big climb that was awaiting us today. At about 13h00 and with only 25 km on the counter we knew it was going to be hard to get over the top of the mountain and still find a bed before dark (the weather continued to get worse and we were unsure about the descent afterwards, being all wet and cold already). Conclusion: we decided to stop some 8 km from the top, in the last village on this side of the mountain, Rabanal. The idea is to get our act together this evening (we are working hard on that by organising a sort of pub crawl; Rabanal boasts at least 3 bars...). And with our batteries recharged, we will attack the final climb tomorrow (450 metres of climbing in 8 km), and then go downhill. We hope to find some locals at the top of the hill handing out old newspapers to put under our shirts, the way professionals do it when they start a downhill in the Tour de France. Anyway, as today was a bit of an off-day we have no excuse tomorrow than to do at least 75 km. We are still on schedule but can´t afford a 2nd day like this.
Day 9: 38 kilometres, 3hours 15 minutes, pathetic. Now we are off to build up our strength for tomorrow. Tres Cervesas por favor (or as we use to say: ´tre biras, por varog´- our non-Romanian readers won´t get this, but it is something like pidgeon-Spanish for Romanians).