Day 86 (15 August)

Miles 0. Etna

When we wake up at 8am everyone else is already active, either having breakfast or preparing to go into town for shopping. We want to hit the trail again today and therefore start packing our stuff together. Just when we finish packing in our tent we hear someone talking to us: “Would you guys like to join us for breakfast? We stay in a room and have breakfast included. But as it is way too much, it would be a pity to throw it away.” "Oh yes, for sure", we both agree. The guy’s name is actually Tom aka Tacos and is a fellow thruhiker. He is hiking with his girlfriend, Liz aka Foodfight, they are from LA and a super nice couple  our age. And the breakfast is very delicious. There is a huge omelette with hashbrowns, fruits, juice, coffee etc.

We have a great conversation with Tacos and Foodfight and are very easily convinced to stay one more night and spend some time with them. So we pitch our tent again on the same spot, install everything again and then the four of us go for a ride with the bikes the hiker hut provides to the public pool in Etna. It is very smokey again today I realize, when we ride the bikes on Etna’s streets. After a couple of minutes we arrive at the pool and instantly jump into the refreshing water. That is amazing! We really enjoy pools everytime we are in one! But there is also work to do. Maya’s sleeping pad has a hole somewhere and is deflating every night. So the pool is actually the perfect place to look for the hole. First of all the mattress can be used as a floating device and secondly it is easy to find the hole because it is the source of tiny bubbles we can spot on the surface. And tadaaa, with Liz’s help we find the hole and fix it.

After spending about two hours we start to getting hungry (or hangry) and ride over to the place we had dinner at yesterday. And who is sitting there as well? The three Canadians who started the same date as we did, Double D, his girlfriend Arms and their friend Paige aka Gourmet! We haven’t seen these guys since Bishop and are super happy to see each other again. And only a couple of minutes later we see Monica passing by in the street, storm out and say hello to her. What an incredible day!

It turns out that the Canadians will also stay at the Hiker Hut and also Snowwhite, another Canadian whom we've met multiple times will stay there. Only Monica is going to either another place or will even continue today hiking.

When we come back to the Hiker Hut we have some wine with Tacos & Foodfight and play with the neighbor's dog.
In the evening the four of us head over to a nice restaurant and Tacos invites to for some drinks. We have an amazing time at the restaurant. As we are walking back to the Hiker Hut Paige passes us with her bike, coming from the Dollar General with some beers. Maya calls out to her and yells at her to turn back around. So she turns around,  driving in serpentine like lines and yelling: "Oh I had a couple of beers". Next second she flies thru the air, does kind of a looping and lands save and sound on her feet on the boardwalk! What just happened?! Haha, circus like show although she was very lucky not to have hurt herself badly.

We continue our way home and soon cuddle into our sleeping bags for some more Friends episodes, and then fall deeply asleep.