April 9, 2014

Instead of the usual quick slice of toast and black coffee for breakfast in a bar full of workmen, we sit down to fresh fruit, local cheeses and honey, home-made bread and fresh juice. Yum! The Posada is due to open for the season next week – like everywhere in Spain they are feeling the effects of the recession and no longer open year round. We are fully refreshed and ready for the day.

When we step outside we are greeted by blue skies and full sunshine but with a gusty wind. It’s pretty warm for the time of the day. We can only hope the wind will be behind us and not in our faces. We’ll be spending the first part of the day on a main road, the first time on the trip. After a short run downhill from the town it turns upwards and, being a modern road built for modern traffic, it cuts its way straight through the mountains rather than zigzagging like the back roads. This presents several disadvantages for the cyclist – the first being it doesn’t give any false expectations that you are near the top. You absolutely know that you aren’t because you can see it going on, ever upwards into the far distance. The second is that the road is a ramp set at a constant gradient, kilometre after kilometre, with no respite. The twists and curves of a hair-pin mountain road give a constantly changing gradient and a bit of rest for the legs now and again. Needless to say, the wind isn’t behind us.

The rest of the day is spent climbing on a back road often used in the Spanish professional road race equivalent of the Tour de France. It is a really beautiful climb. Cyclists names are painted on the road with encouraging messages. None of them say “Go! Julie Go!” but still it is nice to know that I am suffering on the same bit of road as the greats such as Froome, Wiggins and Contador.  Lunch is a picnic by the road-side, which is what we try to do most days.  It is one of the joys of being on the bike; you get to sit on a bench in a village or on the roadside, listen to the birds, snooze in the sun and generally let the world pass by in a way you would never normally do.

By mid-afternoon the skies have turned hazy and the air feels heavy and humid.  We don’t know what the temperature actually is but it feels hot, very hot, so we’re glad to reach our destination around 5pm, looking forward to a cool drink and a cool shower.  The place we stayed in last time has the shutters pulled down and no signs of life.  We ask around and it seems that it is the only place we would be able to stay, but some builders working opposite tell us that the owners have gone on ” un viaje”.  Basically, this means a trip.  The problem is that we are on “un viaje” and we won’t be home for 10 weeks, equally they may just have gone to the next town for the afternoon.  The workman doesn’t know when they will be back and suggests we wait.  We wait for a time unsure of what to do, the next place along the route where we would find somewhere to stay is more than 30 kilometres away.  Just as we decide to move on the builder shouts over to us that the owners are back.  Phew!