September 26, 2011
Monday: they used to call it wash day.
Morning saw me rapped up warm. The sun as yet was just above the hills as I fast-pedaled down to a bank of fog which filled the valley below me like cotton-wool. I was thankful, sinking into the fog for a two metre wide shoulder, so Is safely in out of the way of passing traffic whose headlights came and past in dim beams. Visibility was enough to see immediately in front of me but not much more. But things were changing fast because within a half hour sun broke through as the fog began lifting. And before long it had lifted completely and it was warming up; so it wasn't long until I stopped to shed the warm clothes.
I was looking forward to at last reaching the city of Teruel to stock-up after the weekend. I reckoned on getting there about noon, though looking at my watch while passing a Teruel 10km sign, it was only half ten so Is making good progress. After the last city, Lleida, which was approached by a very busy highway, Is hoping it wouldn't be the same here, but any fears of such were an overreaction as the road neither changed to dual-carriageway nor did the traffic amount to much. In fact it was quite a small place: none of the miles and miles of superstore lined highway but countryside within a kilometres of the city-centre.
I came downhill on the usual bumpy urban street and passed under an old stone viaduct at the bottom where I saw a supermercado on the left. I had a bit of a wait for a lull in on-coming traffic, eventually getting across and into the car park where I locked the bike up outside the door and entered. I was hungry and relished the thought of a chorizo sandwich for lunch. Having seen so much pig farming, chorizo, salami and the like are as expected cheap; in fact food in general is cheap in Spain in comparison to mega-dear France. Already I feel a glow of well-being in Spain after only a few days, now eating a good balance of everything: lots of fruit and veg. I bough porridge which I haven't had for a long time, also raisins and honey to have with it to breakfast.
I came out again and sat on a bench in the shade of a tree. I used my Leatherman to slice a tomato and a green pepper, and broke a baguette of bread to make my sandwich. I ate until full and finished off a can of beer. I felt satisfied and remained awhile relaxing taking swigs from a big bottle of coke.
Riding on, the city-centre was on a hilltop to the right of the road pass; all the streets for el centro were big hills and so I preferred to carry on in the direction of the next place on the map. I was passing a Bank so I stopped at the ATM. Putting my card in the machine, keying in the information, it clicked into action and the card came out again and cash slid out, which was a relieve after the hassle I had in France. The banks there didn't like my card remember. A problem made worse by the speed money went out of my wallet.
I followed the signs for the autoruta, Zaragosa and Valence, also the N320 which I found easily enough. It descended from the edge of town into a wide canyon bound by tabular red rock hills with irrigated agriculture in the flat plain between. The hard shoulder had gone but it didn't matter much as the traffic was light. I rode till three o'clock by which time the canyon had tapered in to a narrow gorge, and there was a beach plantation down the bank on the left on the flat of the riverbank, accessible by a laneway. A good place to camp and so I decided to stop notwithstanding it being so early.
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