Beating About The Bush: Puerto...something to Puerto... something-else.

October 16, 2015

Beating about the bush, is an expression used when someone isn't telling you something. They talk and talk about the things connected to the matter without making you any the wiser. When a simple sentence would do; usually losing you in complicated detail. When what they want to say is straightforward.

Coming fast and thick, is another, inasmuch as bars serving good beer come fast and thick on today's ride. But for one there were none on the lonely way on the plain. Oh did I say plain? No today was no plain. There were hills, hills and hills. And another way of saying this is: the hills came fast and thick; which is me, beating about the bush. Because, but for three hills, the route was flat. Now, I'm running round in circles contradicting myself.

In Spain, the summit of roads crossing hills have names prefixed by "Puerto" And in some cases, there's a signboard to the side with the name complete with altitude and, there were signboards at two of today's cols. But I didn't note the names. They are not written on the Michelin map, perhaps because they're minor crossings, nor are they on a google map. So that's the reason for the missing information in this page's headline.

It is remarkable late. I have been awake for maybe twenty minutes, nothing more. Then I look at my watch and see 09.43. I'm instantly shocked that its so late. Though its a grey morning and therefore the lack of sunshine, which would usually have me up, is to blame. Not at all looking too promising: is it going to rain? I ask myself. The cloud is moving on a gentle breeze; then, a hole opens showing blue sky. A thousand metres of altitude here and it feels cold.

I am away within the hour, climbing up and around the final two steep switch-backs of the col I was riding up as it got dark the evening before, desperate to find a camp spot and knowing there'd likely be a wide and level layby at the summit where I could pitch, when I luckily found the track up to where I did camp before getting as far. And this morning I pass said layby with "Puerto something" and altitude 1380m, if I recall correctly. There are lots of such cols in Spain. Its not Tourmalet. Its nothing special. I just continue pass without pause. That hole in the cloud cover has rapidly spread with the sky now an amalgam of dirty rags with a glimmer of autumnal sun, but the sun mainly remaining hidden. And it remains shivering cold. Perhaps, why I don't hang around.

The countryside passes by quickly on the roll down, still afflicted by noisy poor braking. A sharp drop to begin with, curving out to almost horizontal with just enough of a slope to keep me moving rapidly pedalling in the big outer chain-ring. A hard gear on the flat. Finally there's a brake squealing downhill to today´s first town, El Barco de Avila, on a river with an old roman bridge, further up from the modern concrete road bridge I cross over. The town with a castle citadel crowning a lump of a hill by the riverbank at the aforementioned roman bridge.

I turn left away from the past, up a slope from the river and along the modern town street and straightaway am seduced to pull up outside a café oozing out "We're up all night get stoned. We're up all night to get boned. We're up all night to get lucky" from a small speaker above the door; thinking a lively party therein, so enter. A bar-room interior almost like an English pub, the music even louder now, with the bar enclosing a rectangle in the room's middle. There are three custumers, a man, late fifties about, stood at the street side of the bar with a coffee and gazing down at a local newspaper he's leafing through. The other two much younger men stand sideways facing each other by the backroom side of the bar and are in rapid talk, the bartender that side too joins in while working.

I draw the tender's attention: he seems not interested, gruff even as he breaks off from his friends to serve me coffee and a cake. I take a seat in a corner by the window front and ponder Michelin's map.

The other business in town is picking up some fruit. There's a butchers, a florist, pharmacy and continuing on the road out, there's a builders merchant with plant hire place, a farm machinery dealers, but no supermarket, not until the last building on the edge of town: a small locally owned supermarket in an apex-shed, with one checkout till, where the girl beams at me when I look at her a second too long and life goes slow as I gaze into her big brown eyes. She'd be about thirty, has an oval face, symmetrical nose and full lips and shoulder length auburn bob with a girlish curl in to her neck. Her eyebrows quiver and the warmth of her smile says it all "I can see that look in your eyes, you wicket man."

I have a bit of a rise to get over on the road on, which then mellows into a shallow upland valley of hill farming country with dry stone walled in fields of sparse yellow pasture, sheep, cattle and a few horses. And wooded hills.

And the sun shines in rich autumnal blue and the first browning of aged and soon to be decaying and falling leaves, when at a three o'clock lunch stop, I push the bike off the road, up a laneway between two stone walls, where I lean the bike a short way in. As I eat my sardine sandwich, the only other noise is a tractor further up in a field beyond the end of the lane. Then a stooped old man strolling pass on the road, stops and looks up at me and when I return his gaze, he greets my and continues on his way.

Not long after lunch, about half four, the valley closes in and I'm climbing and soon there's a small town, Casas del Puerto, off the road, down on the left in the narrowed valley's edge, and the road on is a steady seven per cent up to a gap between hills. I've passed the town and am within a kilometre of the pass, when a silver Toyota Lexis, passes and pulls in to a halt in a layby in front of me. The driver's side door opens and out steps a man in uniform. Garda Civil. He puts up his hand for me to stop.

"Buen dia" he greets me amically "Como stas? Buen?" I reply that I am okay "Hablas espanol?" I reply yes, enough. He then brings up the matter that I'm not wearing a cycle helmet. And continues "si me companeros," with accent on "eros" ending typical of how people talk in Spain. Well, I don't know quite how to write what he said, suffice to say that, he being off duty, but, if his colleagues stop me, they'll likely give me a ticket for not wearing a helmet. You should buy one immediately. I reply that I will, at a bike shop in Avila, the next big town. He gets back in the car and drives off.

I had planned on making it beyond Avila today; but what with, the late start, I'm running out of time as it is after five when I've crossed the col and start descending with forty kilometres to go (remember it is dark at eight). And coming down the hill, I see the way below, a wide valley plain, so now I'm looking for a place to camp. Though not long. I come to an old road curse, curve I mean, off the side where the modern road goes straight. This is better than anticipated, as the exit back onto the modern road, is blocked with a pile of dumped old road number marker stones, so I won't be disturbed by a vehicle using it as a rest layby. I pitch on the old tarmac, green with moss and grasses with a few hours daylight to relax reading my book before cooking dinner.

So there you go. I didn't beat about the bush.

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 11,501 km (7,142 miles)

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