Avignon..........Or maybe Lyon

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We were up incredibly early this morning, breakfast was at 7AM and we had to set off around 8AM. We packed our gear and tents then threw it all into the coach. We waited around another 20 minutes for Jamie then eventually after standing in the freezing cold we boarded the coach and set of for Avignon. It was another long drive today and the weather was pretty bad as well, constantly raining, sometimes pouring it down. We were all sitting in the bus, keeping ourselves entertained by either playing games, chatting or just sleeping when all of a sudden the bus seemed to lose power. Billy pulled over on the side of the highway to try get it started but it was dead, eventually we all figured out what was going on, we were stuck on tour, in the middle of nowhere with a bus that doesn’t work.

None of us knew exactly what to do. We all sat there for a while but soon enough, without any air-conditioning the bus became a sauna and some of us braved the pouring rain to get some fresh air. We were stranded quite a while until a vehicle maintenance van came to help us out, but not a single person could speak French, except Hannah. Hannah translated between Jamie and the French mechanic exactly what had happened and what was going on. It wasn’t long before the police came and Hannah translated from them as well. By this time we had been stranded almost an hour and a half and we were all getting hungry. Hannah asked the police permission if we could organize lunch and he allowed us. So Gavo cooked hot dogs for the entire bus on the side of the French motorway in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

We stood stranded for over 3 hours, all the while Hannah translated for Jamie and the French police on what we were going to do. Finally a bus came to take us to Lyon train station while the bus got towed to a mechanic to get fixed. Lyon was the nearest city to us but we were never going there during our tour. So even though we had stopped for over 3 hours some of us were happy to explore an extra city for an hour or so. When we got to the train station Jamie had a chat with us and told us that since the bus shouldn’t take long to fix we had to all stay together in the train station. We were stuck in the Lyon train station for 6 hours, yes 6 long, boring, frustrating hours where several of the group had a go at Jamie for the way the tour was being run. We couldn’t believe that this was happening, and everything about this train station was now pissing everyone off, especially the damn announcement voice and tune which was burned into our minds for all of time.

Eventually we had word from the Topdeck head office that we were spending the night in Lyon. We had waited 6 hours for this news, something we figured would happen around 3 hours ago. We headed to a pub and sat drinking for about 30 minutes until it closed and we had to leave. So we headed to another bar which was charging absurd prices for beer. We had no where to go and getting really pissed off when Jamie had a call from Head Office who had booked us rooms in a 4 star hotel. IT WAS ABOUT TIME! We took about twelve taxis to the hotel grabbed a key and threw our luggage in our rooms. It was good to have an actual bed with unlimited power sockets and hot water, this was luxury. Afterwards we all headed down the road for a look around town, went into a seedy bar and had some drinks before taking advantage of a comfortable warm bed was too much to ignore, we headed to our room. On the way we met Billy with a working bus to grab our backpacks then went straight to sleep. In the end we were miles away where we were supposed to be and had waited just over 9 hours, doing nothing, waiting. It was a frustrating day and for a while we thought we would be sleeping on the streets. It was till around 11PM we were told that we have somewhere to sleep.

Day 5:
Lauterbrunnen - Lyon
250 MILES TRAVELLED // 940 TOTAL
Grand Hotel Des Terreaux

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Photos

Lyon
Our broken down bus on the side of the motorway, to top it off it was pouring rain.

Lyon
A very unhappy tour leader trying to hail roadside assistance.