Ride to Martigny : t i c k

Just after we'd engaged in lively cheery banter in mumbled chaotic and incorrect French in the local bakery picking up our morning Croissant Amandes, we took to the hills to begin our adventure to Martigny.

"We can eat our croissants with a coffee in Vallorcine, just one hill climb away!"; I promise Karmel. "It's nice to have 'a moment' with these treats" she says, how true.

We accidentally stayed at the sweet little cafe at the foot of the Vallorcine tree runs for longer than we'd intended. One coffee turned into two, and we quite simply, had too much to talk about.

But ain't nothing better than strong French coffee to power us on our way to the far away Swiss town.

"It's all downhill from here!"; I promised.

But this time my assurance meant nothing, as we found ourselves panting our way into admittedly very unknown territory. I'd swung this way with Meg before, but only in her speeding VW + I was sure it was all one big decent into town. A sure but steady and endlessly long incline stood before us, as we watched with partial fear of the path we were due to follow. A red hot sun appeared out of nowhere as we scrambled slurps out of drastically disappearing water supplies.

"Just trust me", I whimpered sheepishly to my slightly angry looking mate.

"Fuck off", she said.

Cars drove gingerly past us, often pulling down their windows + yelling encouraging expressions to us that we couldn't understand. At least we interpreted them as appraising, but I suppose they could've been saying anything. I suppose we must have looked kind of funny and comically out of place on these competitive alpine roads; with our ripped leggings, mix matching bicycles; one light weight with no gears and one heavy weight + clunky, one squashed water bottle and two very red faces.

Just as soon as I was starting to doubt that there would be any downhill at all into Martigny, we hit the summit + were welcomed by the most spectacular view of next door's Swiss mountain range as well as a neat sprawled out looking town that could only mark our final destination way down below : it was time for us to be friends again.

And today's picture, is that sweet moment at the top. A shame my expression mimics that of a regurgitated pigeon, but vanity must step aside to allow room to remember this great moment, heaped in the strong arms of my great mate.
Needless to say we had a lot of fun embarking on the steep decline into town, and to fulfil our self indulgent quota for the trip, made some movies of each other wailing for joy, but essentially not performing anything more interesting than riding a bicycle down a big hill : watch this space for the scintillating footage.