[post of
Friday 14th of September 2012]
Every time
we pack the bicycle for a trip, we do so in a different way. We’re not sure our
method to pack them get any better, but this time it looks much better and, at
least, more decent than other times. In addition, this time we got cardboard
boxes in perfect state, not the half-broken we use when we came. We dismount
the bikes as much as we can, and we carefully wrap the metre-counter of the
bikes with cello tape, the saddlebags, the tent, the sleeping bags, and part of
our luggage. We double wrap everything together, and run out of cello tape. At
least, it seems to us that the bikes, and the rest of our stuff, are ready for
the harsh treatment the airport will surely reserve to them!
As
arranged, our “private taxi” leaves us right in front of the bus to the
airport. The bus ticket is 17€ per person and we get to the airport in an hour.
Once there, we can confirm (again) that no-one speaks English in Japan, not
even at the check-in counter. The girl at the counter had just been hired,
didn’t understand English very well, or the rules of the airline company for
which she worked… and she wanted to charge us loads of money for the overweight
of our luggage even thou none of our boxes passed the free-of-charge weight
allowed by Qatar Airlines for sport equipment. At the end, she got her
Supervisor, to whom we went away with the copy of the company terms and
conditions in English we had printed, in which it said how many kg we could
travel with without paying. After some long minutes waiting, we were told what
we expected: everything was fine and we didn’t have to pay a single yen to travel.
In the
airport, we had the last Japanese meal of the trip: sushi, tempura, and ramen.
Then, we boarded the plane in which we spent the next 11 hours, most of the
time, sleeping. The transfer in Doha is of only two hours, although we had to
wait a third one because the plane was delayed. The passengers in the seats
around us bothered us a bit in the remaining 7 hours of our journey back to
Spain; they had a little party going on for the entire flight, with plenty of
alcohol and lot of noise. We didn’t manage to sleep over this time, but
everything passes in life, and we get to Madrid Airport without any major problem
and, above all, with our luggage all in perfect state.
Gabriel’s
mum is there to pick us up and, even thou she’s been following us through the
blog, we cannot help but keep talking about our experience, the wonderful
people we met, the things we laughed about, the pain we felt, the landscape,
the culture, the food. We don’t have a clue about what we’ll do next, but one
thing is for sure: this trip has been just the first one of the trips we will
do through the magic archipelago that is Japan.
The only
thing left, for now, is to express our gratitude for everything; for the good
luck, for the warm welcoming we received, for the support coming from your many
messages, dear friends and followers of the blog. We will reply to each and all
of them very soon, once we recover. We are grateful to our families too, for
their understanding of our project, to CycloTrip for its help and sponsorship,
to Angela for an excellent work translating the blog… to the kamis, and the hotokes, to Nozomi, Johan, Amy, Yasmin and ‘José’, Kozue, Katelyn, Shane, Peacefull,
Nelly, Joe, Sumire, Josh, Mizue, and the twins, Hikaru, Bun and friends, Mark,
Mika and Hiro, Kaccey and Bernardo, and all those who have helped us along the
journey… thank you so much!
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