To my horror, after a little phase of pushing, I realized I was struggling to achieve even this: the altitude teamed with the heat and my apparent complete loss of all muscle strength was leaving me totally breathless, wheezing like I was 80 years old and had smoked cigars my entire life.

Above us, only steep hairpin bends were in view, spreading out into what seemed awfully like forever. Staring up, I realized I had carelessly left my joie de vivre somewhere about 2 miles down the road along with my lungs. Enter heroic Scottish boyfriend, who chivalrously pushed both bikes up the mountain while I crawled slowly behind him, resembling some kind of creature which never fully evolved… Yep, that's love alright.

Finally, amazingly, we reached the top of the mountain many sweaty minutes later. Wiping the droplets from our brows, we climbed back on the bikes to begin the ride. Happily, from this point on, the journey was absolutely incredible!

We started with a very bumpy hairpin decent to the river over large rocks and gravel. It left me exhilarated but a little nervous - the bike kept skidding out from under me as I hit the brakes too hard but I learned to master the weird suspension, my hands gripping the bars so tightly my knuckles were white. As we reached the bottom of the road I could see the shaded river bubbling through the valley and we parked up for a delicious picnic lunch made earlier by our guesthouse whilst we soaked our toes in the cool water.