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| Loaded and ready |
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| Day 5 flat and happy |
I'm riding my bike around Spain and Portugal. Maybe a bit of Morocco. It is day eight of the ninety-seven day trip. An arbitrary length of time I decided upon mainly because of my dwindling savings. I traveled around the USA for five months by car, five months by bus through Mexico and Central America and it was in Panama City in June of 2011 when I met a guy that had been touring by bicycle for over a year. The idea was born. Over the last three years I've had the extreme fortune of coming up with dreams and plans and then, rather then just leave them at that, do what is necessary to make them a reality. I'm doing this because after a year living in Barcelona I've fallen in love with the country. The pace of life, the language, the paseos and ambience every little village seems to radiate. I'm doing this because I want to be fit again. I'm doing this because I yern for the highs and lows a trip like this inevitably has. Already on this trip I cursed and screamed after turning a bend on a 9% grade and seeing more endless uphill. But you can't go uphill forever and while sitting at a campground bar in Murillo de Gallego sipping a cold beer starring at cliffs drenched in twilight and listening to classic Spanish music I couldn't have licked the smile off my face. Shear joy. Then again while cruising through a canyon rode along a rambling river in the province of Huesca the happiness inside me unleashed itself in a scream of joy. Also the fist pump and ear to ear smile I gave myself while walking back to my campsite in Lumbier after seeing a shooting star streak through the Big Dipper. Yes, this is why I'm doing this. So as an old man I won't look back with 'should of's'. So I have a memory of a shooting star in Lumbier, Spain.
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| Murillo de Gallego |
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| Night 4 - First campground in Murillo de Gallego |
I bought the bike and all the necessary gear in the U.S. and having brought it on the plane from New York I put it back together in the Barcelona airport. Ditching my worn out suitcase I rode out of the airport with my bikes panniers filled. My first time ever being on a loaded bike. In fact, before this trip, I hadn't ridden more than twenty eight miles in a single day.
I rested up in Barcelona for five days, visiting friends and mostly just being nervous about starting. The journey began just outside of Barcelona to avoid some of the headache of navigating out of the city. In the city of Terrassa I took my first pedal of this trip, with my first real goal being Pamplona about 300 miles toward the northwest. After just two hours I peddaled into a city in search of water and nearly passed out on a bench from exhaustion. The "I can't do this's" crept into my head often those first two days. I struggled with the energy to even set up my tent the first three nights and practiced the conversation I was going to have with my mom about how I'm coming home early. I was lonely. I had been setting up camp for free hidden off the road and hadn't seen a single other tourer. I entertained thoughts of going home often those first three days. What the hell was I thinking? Ride around Iberia? Fool! Get back to Connecticut and get a job for Christ's sake!
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| My passbook to be stamped in churches as proof of doing the Camino de Santiago |
But on night four instinct led me to the town of Murillo de Gallego in the province of Huesca, to Guadalupe the campground receptionist, to my first beer, to the Spanish music being blasted and my confidence and reassurance swung back hard. Yes, I am doing this. I started to see tourers; most doing the Camino de Santiago. I was given two gifts: A quality map to replace my massive poorly routed map of all of Spain and Portugal and another of a scallop shell, the symbol of the Camino. My journey had started. For the sake of meeting more people and dispelling loneliness I'm deciding to ride the Camino until its end about 400 miles from here. It feels like the right thing to do and gives me a direction. I will take it slow and probably arrive in Santiago about two weeks from now. I'll speak more of the Camino on a later post. For now, I'm hanging in Pamplona for a couple days of rest. Then I'll continue my journey west...now as a Pilgrim!
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