It was a hot day today and as Mario, unlike many of the others, didn’t secretly add air conditioning to the car, we really felt it. We spent the day sweating in our seats.
Keep the windows closed and the sun’s rays turn the car into a greenhouse. Open the windows and you get what feels like a hairdryer blowing onto one side of your face and warming you up even more.
Through desperation I discovered that I could hold my arm out of the window and position it so that air would get deflected into my t-shirt. That is the most effective cooling technique I’ve discovered so far but the odd bug would splatter against my arm which wasn’t particularly appetizing.
It was so warm that it was hard to stay awake in the car. The usual water was switched out for Coca Cola and even then there were times when I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
We stopped at a trucker cafe for lunch when one of the competitors asked what happened to my shirt. Apparently I had brown marks all over my back but I assumed it must have occurred getting out of the car.
A little while later, I noticed that my foot and one of my trouser legs was also covered in the same brown stain. I looked as though I had fallen into one of those squatting toilets!
It turned out the heat had caused my last remaining chocolate bar to melt and drip out of the glove compartment, onto my trousers and rucksack. It created a huge mess in the car but luckily Mario assumed it was just dust. If only he knew! It was also a shame for the delicious chocolate.