September 23, 2011
Observations of Maurizio's morning.
Maurizio's watch alarm went, bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep,... on the stroke of seven, followed by sudden movement and an urgent struggle to switch it off; then the rustle about inside the tent before the zip was pulled and he emerged stretching his arms. He turned and reached back into the tent, plucked up a front-pannier, opened it and peered inside. "Oh no! Ants-have gotten in. I forgot to close it properly last night"; he lamented; then announced, "I don't bother with breakfast as I like to get going"; all this as I calmly sat eating my breakfast of baguette spread with pate.
As I chewed and looked down the valley, a car was moving slowly along the track below. "I wonder can they see us here" I commented. "No. I don't think so" said Maurizio, going on to say, "In our society, everybody moves about in cars and nobody sees anything. Nobody walks about any longer. If this were Africa, you'd be seen right away, as people are walking everywhere"; "everywhere...." I half choked. "Yes: in Africa I'll be asking to camp in the village."
Not eating breakfast didn't mean a quick getaway for Maurizio. I myself had everything packed on my bike promptly, and cycled away as he remained crouched halfway into his tent packing something or other. I cycled down through the gap and down across the stubble field below the hedge where we'd camped, and out upon the track where I stopped and waited for Maurizio. He came along shortly, a little unsteady as he ran his heavy leaden bike down the wheat stubble field to the gap. He halted a few lengths short and opened his bar-bag, taking out his SLR camera, and took a photograph of me where I stood in the intense yellow and long shadows of early morning.
I rode in front on the road. There were a few inclines whereon looking back, Maurizo had dropped behind, and after passing a hostel with a restaurant, I think he may have stopped there for breakfast because on looking back again, he had gone and I saw him no more.
I rode all morning towards the city of Lleida. There was the strong ammonia smell of pigs in the air the whole way as I passed clusters of long low metal clad farm buildings; and a brownish yellow traffic pollution haze clung low in the sky, over the stubble land and low rocky outcrop hills at the side.
The last ten kilometres to Lleido was on a busy divided highway with a narrower shoulder than hitherto, so I'd to ride tight against the metal crash-barrier and with caution diagonally across the many on off slip-roads. I was in the land of the superstore and arriving at a big intersection, saw a Decathlon store on the opposite side.
Decathlon is a place I can buy camping gas. And Is glad to see that they stocked the normal 220ml screw on canisters for three Euros something; in France, I could only find the 100ml equivalent which cost four Euros.
I cycled on into the centre. The city was nothing special; alongside the main thoroughfare all I could see was nondescript twentieth century buildings. I stopped at a Banco Santander, but the ATM was out of order, and so with the bar-bag slung on a shoulder strap, I entered, intending to use a machine inside. But there was a security door system; a bit like the glass capsule lift-car that goes up and down on the outside of some modern buildings. I pressed the green button activating the glass door and stepped in; the glass door slid shut behind me and supposedly then Is being scanned before the door would open on the other side, so I could step out and into the bank. But my way in was not allowed, as then, an alarm bleeped and a female voice spoke up, saying "no puedo entar con objetos metalicos"; probably, that meant keys and whatever other metal objects were in the bar-bag; things, I couldn't very well leave unattended in the street; it was why I was keeping them on my person after all, so they wouldn't be stolen. I had enough cash anyway, enough for two days yet, so cycling away and not having passed another bank, I resigned to wait until reaching the next city.
I worked my way out and back upon the city's ring-road system, and back to the intersection by the Decathlon superstore, with that empty feeling of having gained nothing. I needed to be going south-south west, but all the roadsigns were towards either Barcelona or Zargota which are east and west. I needed to find my way to road C12 which on the map strikes off the autopista a little out of town, though undoubtedly there was a quiet route not shown which I would have to find. The wide street with planted saplings and a cycle-path which led away from in front of Decathlon looked as if it went in the right direction. After a couple of blocks along it, it crossed over a canal where there was a playground with trees which provided shade, so as it was around one o'clock, I stopped there for lunch. After lunch I cycled onwards along the street into a satellite town, deserted at this time of day, then saw a sign onwards for a place which not only could I find on the map, but was on top of C12.
Cycling south in the afternoon, the sun made it oppressively hot and tiresome in the arid brown countryside with villages clinging to hilltops off to the side; then around about four o'clock, the sun had gone in a haze, and a brisk breeze blew as dark rain cloud moved over the road ahead. It suddenly felt cold and I stopped to put on a top, but although it got quite dark and I rode on a sheen wet road for a bit, the rain passed over and off to the side with me feeling no more than a few big droplets.
It remained dull and murky towards evening when the road descended a long way down to a greener countryside, toward the town of Flix on Rio Erbo, where on rounding a bend, Is stroke by the sight of an impressive column of steam rising to the sky from a fat concrete pipe like cooling tower above the treetops ahead, but which disappeared from sight again on dropping further downhill through a deep cutting.
On the way into town, I stopped at a supermercado and remained inside a long time among the many Friday evening shoppers, browsing and choosing what to put in the basket before queuing up at check-out, as tomorrow would be the weekend and I wanted to buy enough till Monday. Outside I sat awhile and had a well earned snack of crisps and a can of beer. Whether it's the salt or what, I find I crave potato crisps, especially with beer.
A kilometre further and I was cycling over a long bridge over the Rio Erbo, where I saw the endless pipelines in all directions and jetties of a chemical plant upstream on the opposite riverbank, and following the river around, I found the road for a town called Arce, shown on the map where a green outlined road, a supposedly scenic route began, and a likely good place to camp as it was now after seven. Arce was only four kilometres more along the river and joined up to Flix by industrial sprawl including the power station seen earlier on the opposite riverbank. The scenic route climbed out of town above the river valley, and as the road had recently been rebuilt, there were lots of sections of old road which passed outside the crash-barrier and around the outside of new cuttings, in which, I soon found a place to camp, hidden from the road and looking back along the valley, the way I'd come.
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