left susan’s after a great few days – horse-riding! Conversation! Food! Hot-springs! – reluctantly, on the 2nd july (“stay just one more day! come rafting with us!”) and, reunited with credit cards thanks to chris in uk, base-camp manager extraordinaire, headed off towards salida. never trust the locals when they say you’ll have a tail wind. (gary and patti, nb!!). sheltered from a monsoon like downpour in a great little museum in saguache that used to be a jail. Eclectic mix of furniture, clothes and household goods from the early 19th century plus a rock collection, a few Indian artifacts, a gun collection (including a tiny ‘ladies’ colt that belonged to a mrs evans who foiled a stage-coach hold-up with it) old spurs and saddles and a collection of different kinds of barbed wire. In the old jail itself, the men’s cell was a truly grim metal cage with four bunk-beds in a tiny space. -no-body ever escaped. The woman’s cell was no larger, but had a chest of drawers and a mirror! then battered on over poncha pass in a relentless head-wind, crawling into poncha springs just before dark. next day i zipped into salida to sort out a mobile phone – cell phone here – that actually has reception. left salida at 6.30pm!! you don’t even want to hear the story. suffice to say, never try to get a USA cell-phone with a european credit card unless you have a LOT of time and patience. i owe my cell-phone to a stranger called deirdre . . .