Made it to Venice!

We've made it to Venice - long train ride yesterday, and a very interesting time on a bunch of different boats making it finally to a small campground on the island of Lido. The train and the boats aren't bad, but trying to do it with a bunch of luggage and two bikes is a bit much!
It's not bad here - for a campground... We spent the day today running errands and getting ready to go, as well as waiting for Mario to finally make it here with Peter's bike. First of all, you should see the vehicle that will be making sure that we don't stall out on the mountains and following us all around...

We'll have a camper, as well as bunches of luggage and hopefully food following us all around. We got the bikes built today, so we're ready to go with that. I also got a modem so that I can update this scintillating blog everywhere we go - and of course, make Skype calls back to home from here.

We started the day with a light breakfast (compared the 4 egg omelet that's normal for me) at a cool outdoor cafe (below). I have a bunch more pics of Lido, but they take up a bunch of space here, so you can see a bunch of the other pics from the trip over at my Facebook page...

Mario FINALLY got here late tonight, so our initial team is complete: Mario, Juan, Peter, Angelo, and me. Unfortunately, a few of the logistics have fallen through - our cook and driver won't arrive until nearly halfway through the trip, so we'll be rotating driving duties (which will provide some much needed rest). Also, Roberto (also from El Salvador) will be joining us next Saturday in Milan to complete the route with us. However, we're still in good shape. Due to Mario's late arrival tonight, a few final logistics, and a road closing due to the Giro route, we're only going to ride about half the route tomorrow - maybe 40 miles. Unfortunately, the mountain is part of that ride! :) Then, we'll watch the finish of that stage of the Giro and hopefully get some better sleep, considering it's almost 12:30 local time now. With that, I need to get to sleep. I'll leave you with the image that I was greeted with as Mario arrived. Don't be afraid children - he might be scary looking, but he's very nice! And he hasn't had much sleep. But he's here!..