After a slightly later breakfast this morning (with no official tournaments events to attend this morning), three of the Spanish players and I grabbed a taxi to the nearest town, Margao, to do some shopping. Our driver took us initially to a store on route to see very expensive souvenirs, carpets, jewellery and the like which we didn’t really want (they of course get commission on anything that you buy for taking you there). We said that we wanted the local market and eventually arrived there after travelling through some mad traffic jams which everyone went through very calmly – none of the hectic stress one sees in Madrid! (Though they do like using their horns).

The stench of cattle in town passageways was overwhelming, mopeds were parked everywhere (it almost seemed that it was a city of mopeds rather than people) and shopkeepers kept trying to tempt us into their shops. We eventually followed one lady into a shop which she shared with a number of other people selling their wares. Hers were jewellery, others had clothes or shoes. Price-setting was quite amusing being as everything had to go through me, but with her goods spread out on the floor around us, prices were finally agreed and everyone came away fairly contented.

We were back at the hotel just in time for lunch, after which the afternoon's round began. Today was a medium day for us with two matches won and two lost. One of the losses was against a high-ranking Russian and was therefore not too disappointing. I am at least learning a little about chess walking around and watching the progress of the matches.

A small story of one of the players on our team. Until the age of 23 he had excellent vision and played various sports to a good standard. Then one day he had a car accident. His car, going at about 60km slid on something and spun off the road into a lampost. As the vehicle stopped he had virtually no injuries. But all of a sudden, the streetlamp above shattered and fell, crashing through the windscreen with splinters of glass shattering into his eyes. He lost his vision for six months, but after that regained some of the vision in one of his eyes. And he still plays basketball. Another of the guys had an illness at 16 which caused degeneration of the eyes. Two pretty impressive stories from a couple of guys I have thoroughly enjoyed going out for drinks with after finishing our days tasks. A lie-in is called for tomorrow, followed maybe by a jacuzzi.