May 23, 2013

The sun is out bright and early – this is getting to be a habit. The next big place along the road is Plasencia, which, according to the map, has camping. So, we aim to get there and camp.

There are a couple of passes across ridges of mountains but nothing too strenuous and the rest of the road is either downhill or flat. We’re getting well into the countryside that forms much of the interior of Spain – scrub, wild sort of pasture, wild oak trees and craggy peaks. The road travels for some time part-way along a river valley, which is lush and green – we know why that is – I’m sure normally it would be dry and brown by now.

It doesn’t take long to reach Plasencia but then we have the usual backwards and forwards through the city looking for the camp-site.  We pass a couple of roadside thermometres – one in the sun showing 28 degrees and another in the shade showing 23 degrees.  That’s more like it.  We do find the Tourist Information office, but I’ve come to the conclusion before that the people who work in these offices are not selected for their local knowledge.  In the end we get good directions from the local police – they are always reliable.  Then, yiphee, we find the camp-site and it looks nice, sited next to the river and very quiet.  It has WiFi, although you need to be near the reception desk to use it, what is more it has a washing machine – such luxury.  We get set up and change into swimwear so we can put all our clothes in the washing machine.  Next we wash all the mud and grit from our panniers as we are starting to hope that we’ve seen the last of the rain for this holiday.  We decide we’ll stay an extra day to give us chance to look around the city and wash and lubricate the bikes ready.  We’ll be set then for our last few days touring back to Colmenar.  It some ways it seems like a lifetime ago that we cycled over familiar roads away from home and in other ways it seems to have flashed by in an instant.  I suspect it would feel then same no matter how many weeks or months, or even years, you were spent touring.  Still it is sad to be on our way back (need to start thinking about the next trip).