Day 3: More sun

April 7, 2012

Let's see, where was I? Oh yes, had a rough night last night. Still, it could have been worse, and though a 10:30am start isn't exactly the crack of dawn, considering the circumstances, it wasn't bad.

The weather was perfect, clear skies, not too cold, lovely. I stopped for lunch in Gorda and it was there I started leapfrogging Carman.

Carman was riding south to Los Angeles. Her visa is up at the end of the month and she had to get to LAX for her flight home.

"Do you like it here?" I had asked her last night.

"Oh yes, I wish I could stay."

"What are things like in Spain now?"

"Very bad, because of the economy. So many people lost their job. People are becoming desperate."

It turns out, Carman,in her late 20's, is a social worker back home, but she got a temporary work visa as some kind of domestic worker in Northern California.

"Would you like to stay?" I asked her.

"Yes, but I can't. If I was from a country like Germany, where the economy is better and less people need work, it might be different, but since I am from Spain it is difficult to get a visa renewal."

So Carman and I leapfrogged each other most of the morning. She was a slower rider, which was probably due less to fitness than because of her old beater bike with the wrong gears. But since I stopped to take more pictures we kept trading the lead.

Once, because she had told me her French was better than her English, I tried to impress her with my French as I rode by her...

"Bone-jur," I said. "Como-Tally-Voo?"

"AAAAAH," she said with a laugh, clearly impressed with my worldliness.

"Ca Va Bien!" And then she rattled off a whole bunch of things I pretended to understand but only partially did. Thankfully we were then on a hill so I could pretend I was just riding ahead, and not leaving her behind out of shame that I couldn't continue the conversation I had started in the first place. Though, to be honest, I think she knew the truth.

Later, After the long flat section into San Simeon, Carman and I lost track of each other and I was on my own again.

I rode into Cayucas, a beautiful little beach town that makes me think of what places like Cardiff and Encinitas must have been like in the '50's.

All in all, it was a great day.