Day 20: Sunday, 29 May 1983

Start: Youth hostel, Guastalla, Italy

End: Youth hostel, Guastalla, Italy

I hate to skip riding, especially after some low mileage days imposed by the weather, but I promised myself I would rest one day per week. This seems like a good spot.

As I go out the front door of the hostel in the morning to have a look around, I discover the Irishman huddled in the corner of the porch with his sweater pulled up over his head. He hears me and stirs.

"Didn't you hear me last night?" He asks.

Turns out he had little success with the local girls, but stayed out past hostel curfew, so it was locked up when he returned. He says he threw rocks at the window to wake me up so I could come down and let him in. Well, after pulling 130 km with a full load and then drinking my fill of wine, I was dead to the world by then.

I ask the Irishman if he has ever listened to Graham Parker's music, and he immediately quotes me the exact line I was thinking of. "Don't bother with the local girls."

Apparently today is open house at the hostel, and the family that runs the place is preparing a major feast for everyone in town and anyone else who wants to drop in. Empty though it was last night and in the morning, by noon the hostel swarms with inquisitive visitors. The remnants of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, or perhaps the Red Brigades, roar up on motorcycles. I jest, but these ladies and gents were clearly a different element in appearance and behavior. The locals kept a wide berth of them, but the leather gang seemed to take a liking to me after I whipped them repeatedly in ping-pong.

Eventually they pulled out and shortly afterwards Geoff, an English trucker, arrived. He was a lot of fun. We drank wine all evening surrounded by a gaggle of Italian girls, all cute and giggly, who found great entertainment in our antics until the staff finally shooed out the last of them.

Well, I guess that qualifies as my self-imposed day of rest. Back on the road tomorrow.

Two nights and meals at the hostel came to about US$12.

Conditions 

Distance: 0 km 

Weather: Warm 

Road: n/a 

Traffic: n/a 

Terrain: n/a 

Mechanical: n/a 

Physical: Feeling rested