This
morning I have woken up rather late, about 9 am. I said to myself that there is
finally nowhere to rush and that I should enjoy this pilgrimage with all what
it offers (quite late supposing that I passed up a great social event
yesterday). In this case, it meant at least a decent night sleep. I followed the
old national road for another 40 kilometers, having seen only the arid looking landscape
and hills. There was really not much around. Vast uninhabited areas, where you
could build everything and nothing alike. Before that, I had visited a small
town called Vianna (the striking resemblance to Vienna is just a coincidence) that
I originally wanted to skip, but then I thought it would be nice to use my
spare time to see as much as possible. It was really worth of a stopover
because the town was a historic place with many beautiful buildings and
magnificent scenery from the city walls. A funny experience was that I met
there the Lithuanian girl for the third time and could not really understand
how she could keep up with me providing that she went to Santiago on foot. She
told me that she did about 60 km per day and if I consider different and longer
routes for biker pilgrims, it was not so impossible, but still very admirable. I
must give a big respect to her, I am not sure if I could do 60 km per day in a
long run. Obviously, she is a bigger sport freak than me.
Log from Logroňo
I
squandered for lunch about 4 h which was quite unnecessary. It seems a lot, but
actually if you consider that I firstly had to find a Lidl shop at the outskirt
of the city, then do the shopping, afterwards find a nice and quiet place in
the shadow, and then spend some time with a small siesta it is not so much.
That was the reason why I left the city after quick sightseeing at half past
six. When I finally thought that I can use the bike guide map quite
efficiently, I got lost once again and spent another hour by figuring out how
to get from one village to another. It sounds stupid, but if you had dozens of
crop lanes, it would not be so easy for you, either. I was quite behind the
schedule and tried to make it up by biking hard, but of course cautiously. Now
looking back at my bike routes from other countries, I must say that it was a
piece of cake in comparison with Camino. Today I was not to do much elevation
gain according to the official Camino guide, but after riding up and down steep
hills at least hundred times I clearly felt the difference. For some stupid
reason, almost all smaller towns and villages are built on big hills and
believe me, there is plenty of hills in this region. Tonight, I had to bike
even in the dark and once again made use of my special bike gadgets. I followed
an old national car road, but that one suddenly became a highway and I was
totally trapped. I tried to go by the side and rode on a dry canal, but then I
missed the last chance to get back on the national road. It was sheer despair
when I found myself on a fenced parking lot leading to a normal road and I
could not get in. Fortunately, I managed to locate another roundabout thanks to
my GPS, but still, I had to ride another 1 km on the highway in the first place.
I am so glad that it all went OK! Next time, I must be more careful. There
could not be anything more dangerous as riding the bike on a highway at night. What
a sigh of relief that I survived this stupid and horrific experience! I put my
tent in an industrial area at the outskirt of another bigger pilgrim city.
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