Life's Little Luxuries

Another Wally entry: The rains have stopped, and we set up tents for our rest day. I discovered that my sleeping bag was still drenched from sweat (?) from the last bad night I had when it rained (and I had to go out and pee about 4 times). Sponsor Brent showed without camping gear, so I spend the following two nights in a hotel with him and non Niki.

There was some concern that we are 'blowing away' donors money on luxuries, and that some people may expect us to camp and rough it whenever possible. However, this is not the case. I love camping like the best of them, love the fresh air to begin with! But when your health is not 100%, and I am on antibiotic pills and inhalation at the moment, you cannot risk anything to do with your health. Even though I now feel really good I still sweat badly at night, waking up reasonably wet (switch position on the moist sheets and turn the hotel doona over - they have no sheets here!). I still cough a little blood with my morning and night cough sessions (not much though), and so I need to stay in a hotel.

We tried a youth hostel the other day, but they have daytime curfews and still cost about the same as a modest 2 star hotel (about 25 Euro p.p.). The hotels cost on average, here in Germany, 25-35 Euro per person including breakfast). We are all mostly wanting to be self funded, but I want to use the COFE funds to help people stay in the hotels as well. We like to stay together!

Staying in hotels also means no camp cooking, meaning we buy food out at night. Most simple restaurants charge about 10 Euro per head for a simple meal. It adds up for our team staying in hotels. We assume that after we leave the more civilized part of Europe and ride into the more unknown it will get cheaper and we will have to camp out I am sure.

So while we can we should be using the B&Bs and good meals, built up our reserves and stay healthy!! Even Katherine atr home has cleared some more funds for us to make sure we can pay for a bed!

And on another note, we want to have a documentary that shows how CF can be managed on the road, not how you can really get sick with CF by living on the edge!

Cycling is going really well!! We are enjoying Brent and Niki's company, but in a few days they will be gone again, and Martin will leave us at about the same time. It might get lonely with just the five of us!

Not so frugally yours,
Walter----