Because we had stretched our visit in the rest of Europe, by the time we got there it was chilly mid-November, and we were certainly glad for our new Swiss outdoor-gear.
After a glorious ride through the winding coastal roads of Catalonia and lunch in the deserted beach town of Tossa, we made our way into Barcelona. What a charming city! Full of cobblestones, colour, interesting-looking people and Gaudi touches everywhere.
A serendipidous meeting with a friend who treated us to a home-style Italian meal above the central market and inspired us with stories of her recent travels to South America, an evening visit to the Gaudi park (where we felt very welcome) 
and (after a quick tyre-pressure check - see my spunky boyfriend below), we were on our way north again. 
At times riding can be cold, it can be wet, and frankly, it can be damn uncomfortable. However, it can also be absolutely thrilling, and this was definately how I'd describe our ride through the Pyrenees Mountains. The road wound around dry, high rocky mountains jutting above the bare plains.
The wind whipped around us, and we stopped for lunch and to warm our limbs in smoky tapas bars in stone villages that looked as if they'd grown out of the rock.
Our final nights camping were our chilliest yet. One morning (pictured) we woke to the task of scraping ice from INSIDE the tent! The locals later told us it has been minus 7 degrees!
So much fun to be out there doing it though. Here we had to walk to the bottom of the gorge and across thick mud plains to to filter our drinking water from the river that hadn't flowed properly since it had been dammed downstream (in one of those wise decisions made on behalf of modern industry).
The Pyrenees gave way to the fertile hills of the Basque country
and those to the surrounding villages of the port-town, Bilbao. While I played tourist
Andy spent his days negotiating the bureaucracy of shipping our bike, in his fifth language ('jaula' is the Spanish word for crate if anyone is trying the same), and doing a brilliant job of it.
After three days, the bike was crated, the papers were finalised, and Andy had created such a relationship with the (rather glamourous) agent that she was prepared to take the bike in their container dependent on customs clearance the next morning!
Phew, the bike was gone, and all that was left to do was to get ourselves to Madrid to catch our last-minute booked flight to Buenos Aires.
Ahh Madrid. Another city of colour, cobblestone streets, groovy eateries and (Swiss outdoor gear aside) the most interesting clothes shops I had seen yet (I'm not sure Andy was of the same mind).
Not to mention hospitality. Patrick and Orlando showed us their Madrid: their neighbourhood, their soon-to-be-opened resturant (http://www.ilevn.com/)
their cats (who we had an interesting effect on, Sole couldn't get enough of Andy, and Tom took to darting about when I came into the room, and peering at me from under the fishtank ... rather neurotic) and took us on what was to be our last excursion to a historical European town - Toledo.
A visit to one more outlandishly decorated Catholic church, and my thoughts on the imagary of Christianity were cemented. What a strange set of images to base a religion on - a skinny man in rags bleeding from his limbs, a woman with a constant tear on her cheek, and a bunch of fat babies with wings. One last photo (proving that other tourists aren't as good at taking them as we are - that is the bear and the tree, the symbol of Madrid, behind us)
and before we knew it we were about to leave, and Patrick was marvelling at out apparent lack of organisation. It's easy to appear that way when travelling to another continent involves nothing more than handwashing one set of underwear, transferring photos from card to disk and packing our shoulderbags!
So after a final wave and a tear at the airport, we took each other by the hand and went to see what we could get to eat for our last 5 euros (which wasn't much, of course).
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