At least, the North Cape

Dear readers,

A week ago, on Thursday July 10th at 2.00 PM I reached the North Cape. But before I need to go back into time at least I last wrote to you. If you remember I was on the edge of the North Cape Island and I was to cross the tunnel with my new friend José on the next day.
After a good night of sleep in Olderfjord, we woke up pretty early to be able to cycle the whole day up to Honningsvag 100 km further. The first part of the trip was pretty easy as we where skirting the shore providing a flat relief. The originality of that day was the fact that we had to go under four tunnels ranging from 400 meters to 7 kilometres. The closer we got from the longest one and the harder it became. Fortunately I met some people on the way and we were thus 5 cyclists waiting at the entrance of the tunnel and getting our gear ready such as putting warm clothes and switching our lamps. This tunnel has been a legend for us all as we have heard a lot of stories about it. Most cyclists say it is very hard as half of it is getting 10% down and the other half 10% up. For most cyclist it is already quite hard and a lot of them end the tunnel pushing their bikes but for me with my arms it should be even more difficult and I can’t just stand on my legs and push my bike.
So here we are, all 5 of us ready to be swallowed by the mountain. Fortunately it starts with the downhill part and I reach an amazing speed of 50 km/h. At this speed everything goes really fast and I am quickly going slightly up. It begins slightly but it is increasing and at some point I can feel my muscles burning, my forearms getting electrical shocks every time I ask them too much and my lungs asking for more air. José stays with me but the others are far ahead and I have no chance to catch up with them. On the side of the road we can see how many kilometres are remaining and I am looking forward to see the end. Now it gets flatter, however, I have forcing so hard before that I have just enough power to reach the finish line and here it is as we can see the daylight again. After that tunnel we need to cycle 20 more kilometres and it will be hard and I have been almost on the edge of fainting, missing some sugar.
The next day we need to drive 30 kilometres from Honningsvag to North Cape. It is far from being the easiest day as we are on see level and need to up to 300 meters. We started the day with a 3km 9% uphill facing the wind. It was just terrible but fortunately I had José and a newly met Austrian friend: Daniel to cheer me up. After the wind stopped we had a slight rain and thick fog. Mentally the road was very challenging as every time, we thought we were close to arrive, there was a last challenge such as uphills. When we finally got to the northern point of Europe, I felt all the pressure suddenly releasing while all the physical effort just made me exhausted.
After 2200 kilometres and more than a month, I reached one of my goals and this has no price. The emotions I felt were pretty strong and the main one was relief…
Now the way back but before a couple of days of rest doing some sightseeing!