April 10, 2012
Farmhouse in a small village in the Sil valley
Up along Parada de Sil to Chandrexa
It sounds like someone's taking a shower - the gentle pitter-patter and trickle of water. No, unluckily for me it's rain running down and along the alley at the back of the B&B.
It'd been forecast a couple of days ago, which is one of the reasons I've wanted to press on and get to the scenic Sil valley while the weather is still OK. It isn't to be.
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It just so happens that I'm much closer than I thought and the valley is only a couple of kilometers away. The owner of the B&B tells me it's simply a matter of dropping to the adjacent N 120 and cruising along it until the first junction.
She gives me a map, one of those shiny tourist ones showing sights and popular place, which is just as well because my Michelin photocopy is useless here - the small roads are not shown; the villages neither.
The rain eases off while I'm chatting to Debbie via Skype and my basic Casio says 11 o'clock, but after a week in Spain I'm still on Portugal time. It's actually noon. Time to go.
The blue sky I'd shown Debbie has gone behind a blanket of grey in the few minutes it takes to wheel my bike up the steep concrete driveway. Rain is in the air and it starts spitting before I've reached the last house of the dinky village, so I turn back to stand in a bus shelter. But it then magically stops and back I ride, dropping to the highway and soon reaching the junction where a sign says Os Peares is to the right, on the narrow C-546.
The road is a gem. Deciduous trees still look wintry with their naked branches and the remnants of last year's leaves flank the route, forming a magical corridor to cruise along.
The C-546 eventually ascends, quite slowly, and it's a long, gradual process getting up, stopping frequently as required due to showers coming and going, each lasting just a few minutes but long enough to get me wet and chilled if I'm not careful. Sometimes my shelter is under the branches of a tree; once under a small wooden canopy of a tourist information board.
The cheap PVC jacket I bought in Taiwan prior to departure gets dug out from the bottom of a pannier and used for the first time. Yes, they get clammy from condensation, but I've given up on Gore-Tex. It soon comes off when the clouds drift away.
Streams tumble down the rocky hillside, some in magical, fern-enveloped cascades, their noise the only thing audible. There's virtually no traffic on route C-546 and the couple of vans that do go by seem to be - going by the logo on their sides - are connected to the hydro dam blocking the Sil, forming a lake that comes into better view as I make my way up the mountain slopes.
While sheltering under a church's roof during one shower, I spot a sign across the road that points to a B&B - Casa Rural as they're called - and it states the place is only a few hundred metres away. It has one star to its name, yet the woman who answers the door says it's 45 euros for a single. No way. I'd rather suffer the rain. Bye.
In a junction village - Louriero - further up the road, a woman waiting at a bus stop says it's left to A Teixeira, one of the bigger dots on my map, which, according to my compass, is south. The direction she points is generally north and east, but she seems to know what she's talking about. It's a big climb up there, she gestures with a serious expression, something that also comes as something of a surprise.
She's right on both counts.
The weather continues to tease - showers passing over and the sun coming out in short bursts - but near what turns out to be the real crest, the views became stupendous; rugged cliff faces rising up from the twisting Sil, that forms a squiggle way, way below now. It's unclear how far, but it seems I'd cycled uphill for around 20 kilometres. The effort has been worth it.
The wind chills me and my crappy PVC jacket gets put back on for the fast drop. At one junction, I veer off the road into a collection of buildings and call in at a café after seeing a sign for it and the lady there makes me steaming coffee, plus some toast which comes with a little tub of jam.
It occurs to me to ask around about accommodation, but the weather changes for the better, so I continue to descend. Then it clouds over again and when a sign for Reitoral de Chandrexa - Agroturismo appeares just at the road's 12km mark, I turn off and cruise down a few hundred metres of winding lane to find a 200-odd-year-old farmhouse with a rustic wooden first-floor balcony at the very end, next to an isolated church.
The rate is much higher than my budget, although the accommodation, hospitality and food are all superb. You obviously get what you pay for.
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 1,893 km (1,176 miles)
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