We pulled in to fill up, I was using about 20%more fuel than Sam.

"Where's your other pannier?" 

Goodness knows but I'm not going back. I ran through the contents in my head...battery booster pack (brand new in box, spare inner tube, spare points and condenser, tyre weld, over trews and more).

However we were still moving forward, and that's all that mattered.

The bike was getting increasingly difficult to start, so I was now focused on keeping it running when we stopped to look at the map. The Navi had gone wobbly, so we went old school with my Michelin map of Spain.

At one such stop I pulled alongside Sam and asked him to keep on my throttle while I dug the map out. He grabbed the throttle and the bike stopped.
We were in the middle of nowhere.

I have been know to catastrophise and as my feeble battery was struggling to restart the Guzzi, my thoughts were far from positive. The brand new booster pack that I'd bought before the trip was in the recently lost pannier some miles back.

Miraculously the bike eventually started and we resumed our spluttering journey.
We were on the motorway now and keen to knock off some ks but my bike was getting worse. The plan was to bypass Madrid and spend our second night in a village just South of it. That was 200kms away and the way the bike was running 20ks would have been too far. As if by magic, or in answer to my prayers, the next motorway junction was an Emergencias stop with fuel, a hotel and most importantly shade. I had decided to call the recovery that I'd bought a week before so we pulled in.

Now, I was a bit skeptical about European recovery and justifiably so. It turns out that if it costs more than your bike is valued at to repatriate it, then they just write it off. As my bike was valued at about a grand I was on thin ice. I am not going to drone on about it any more but if anyone knows of a classic bike EU recovery that works get in touch.

So while we waited for recovery we investigated the problem. Tank off and all that matters is revealed...
"One set of points isn't opening" Sam observed.

I turned the crank with an Allen key on the alternator and Sam gave the points a little persuasion. I gave the bike a little test run and lo and behold she was running properly just as the tow truck arrived. Isn't that always the way?

The prospect of my bike being taken to a local garage for repair didn't appeal to me much, especially as my spare set of points were in the lost pannier. We had a nice chat to the recovery driver, despite neither of us speaking the other's language, and cracked on, keen to get some motorway kms under our belts. The bike was fine and after a couple of hours we exited the motorway to cut down to our overnight stop via some country roads. 
My bike stopped on the off ramp, as the main fuse blew. Off we went in search of a Chinese shop. Chinese shops are everywhere throughout Spain and stock just about everything from WD40 to socks and underpants. Luckily we easily found one and I bought a pack of blade fuses for 60 cents.

Off we set again with about a further 120kms to go our overnight stop. The bike kind of coughed once or twice but seemed ok. Then it just got worse and worse...