Tonight I
have had a great sleep high in the mountain.
I woke just
in time to pack my things and find a good spot for observing the sunrise. I do
not do something like that very often, but consider that you are on the second
highest peak after 3500 km - I guess you would not like to pass it up, either.
The sunrise was absolutely stunning. The sky was clear, the landscape in the
distance flat, the morning temperature pleasant and the wind very easy. It was
just a glimpse of the moment and the sn was up. That also shows how relative
time is by beautiful moments. You wait for them for ages and they are gone in
very few minutes. I guess it is their finiteness that makes them beautiful. If
the sunrise took the whole morning, nobody would give a damn about it.
When the
sun went up, I enjoyed cool breakfast on the highest hill – one does not enjoy croissants
with a chocolate shake with a view over the mountains in the altitude of 1500
MASL every day.
The ride
from the mountains was very pleasant. It took me almost 40 minutes and I felt
as if I rode a motorbike – no effort, just keeping attention on the meandering
narrow road that was in the hills, quite dangerous by the way, also due to not
exactly flat pavement. The funny remark in the biking guide: be extremely
careful, the road is very dangerous. Well, you don’t say…
As I
arrived in a first bigger town behind the mountains (small villages were cute,
I even bumped into another utterly modest Benedictines refugee), I was lucky to
arrive in time in a wedding ceremony and I also met an Italian biker who did
Camino Francais on his MTB bike through the walking route. Filippo was very
nice, he told me about beautiful biking routes in the Italian Alps, we took
some pictures together and thanks to his wrench I could adjust my seat because
mine got broken. I would gladly share the road with him, but he was about to
take a longer break and I had to move on.
The ride in
the afternoon took me to Ponferrada, another bigger city with a beautiful
cathedral and castle of the Templar knights. Unfortunately, I got lost once
again and made up 10 km more because of taking an alternative route. Moreover,
for some reason there were no open supermarkets and I could not buy anything
for lunch. I took some sweets instead and left for the ride to another pilgrim
city, Villafranca del Bierzo. It was located in the mountains and I was having
a hard time biking in the utmost heat of 35 degrees. I came totally beat and
after several fruitless attempts to find another open supermarket, I went to a
small local shop to buy some food. I wanted to buy something cheap and saw some
curd which was both cold and nourishing so I took it. The price dumbfounded me:
– 3,5 € for stupid curds – what a rip-off! I do not know what kind of super-curds
for so much money they sold in this shop, but never mind. In the end I took a
break in a bar anyway, refreshing myself with something cold. At this moment, I
was down that I had done only 60 km until 7 pm, unbelievably little for the
effort given, especially that the first 20 km was an easy ride down. This
scorching heat is not to be underestimated. …
In the
evening I made another 20 km. it is amazing what a power bar can do. I was
totally worn out, but suddenly, I had a burst of energy and tiredness somehow
disappeared. I could bike for another hour like fully recharged before the
effect eased off. Yes, I made use of my last iron backup. Giving the
circumstances that I did not have any proper meal this day and basically have
biked on sweets, I took this with high hopes that it would even up the
nutrition imbalance. My trip will be soon over anyway and this will be the last
bigger challenge. Strictly speaking, a power bar is also sweets, but is has
some minerals, vitamins and other stuff, too that the body craves for during
endurance sports. But seriously, I felt as if I had taken some kind of doping.
Speaking
about challenges, I stack to my promise and did not push myself to extremities.
Originally, I wanted to reach the mountain peak Cebreiro before the sunset, but
this proved to be out of the question after the unbearable weather in the
afternoon. For this reason, I rather stayed in a small village and left the
challenge for the morning ride when I should be ready for it.
Interestingly,
I would say that this day was one of the most difficult days during the whole
trip, right after the horrible first days, the Pyrenees and that day by the
Atlantic when the wind almost blew me off. It sounds unbelievable that put today's
biking on the pedestal with the toughest days supposing that I have not done
almost anything challenging. Some 80 kilometers are far behind the average, not
mentioning the easy ride down from the mountains. However, there is one clear
reason for this: when you expect something to be difficult, you are somehow
prepared for the worst scenario possible deep within and nothing can surprise
you. Yet, if you expect something to run very smoothly and you kind of have a
sigh of relief too soon, you might be for a surprise. It is like slacking off
right before the finish line and this feature is very me. It happens to me
quite often and I should be more vigorous about seeing things through to the
end without losing concentrations and efforts at the last moment, and most
importantly, without underplaying the situation. Of course, in this case it is
absolutely irrelevant, but it does reflect another foible of me. I should be
more aware of that in the future and eventually do something about it.
According
to the saying that the darkest place is under the lamp, I put my tent in a
village park only few dozens meters from village houses. One Spanish man came
up to me, enquired if I was going to sleep there and then said something in
Spanish which I did not understand. Now I understand how people feel when they
cannot speak a foreign language. I personally felt hopeless, because I was mostly
curious about what he wanted to say, but could not understand him. He walked
away with a hint of disappointment in his face and I will never find out why.
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