August 18, 2016
Transition Zone: 2 hours drive, 100km, 5 hours by bike: such is the estimation of distance
Daylight is shortly after 6am. When I first look at my watch though, prompted by a feeling that it is time I should be getting up, it shows 07.07.
I watch the sun's glow hit the hilltop opposite while breakfasting and watch as the area of sunlight gradually moves down the hillside. And by the time I've taken down the tent and packed all on the bike ready for the road, the sun has reached where I'd camped and already it feels too warm to be standing still.
I'm moving for 8.30: the road climbs a couple kilometres more on from my big excavated cut through a hillside road that never was campsite; then for near enough the rest of the morning, curves in and out upon a ledge high up a hillside with a steep drop on the right.
There are many farmhouses along this stretch and I'm greeted by barking dogs. Each farm is enclose in a grove of pine trees. The countryside now in transition from arid brown mountaintop, to a greener country; indeed by afternoon I would've descended down to thick jungle clad hills.
The unsealed road is bumpy, so I ride no faster than a fast walking stride, and on sharp curving bends, the surface is loose powder deep enough that I grind to a halt as either the front wheel skids and I loose control, or the back slides sideways and the result is the same: a bit like riding in fresh snow.
It is all pleasant going until 11.30, whereupon having begun to descend, I run into road works.
First there's an old 1960s bulldozer emitting a lot of black exhaust smoke, noisily labouring along upon clinking metal tracks grading the surface in a wide hillside cutting. I pick my way round to the side, then beyond the next bend see a line of stopped vehicles; just about ever car, bus and truck that passed me during the morning.
"Hey gringo!" shouts a bus-driver in a jeering disrespectful manner, as I pass the queued vehicles "el camino estoy cerrado, porque bomb" he spreads his arms to demonstrate a cloud of dust caused by an explosion or such. Sure enough when I get to the front of the line, there's a cord across the road guarded by a hard hatted road worker. They've been rock blasting and the road below remains closed. I watch heavily laden tipper-truck after tipper-truck labouring up the hill to turn off upon a landfill to the side where the load is tipped, which should go on for however long it takes to clear the blasted area of rumble.
Soon I've an audience after a man come over and asks in very limited English, no more than three words, "From?" which annoys me. Just because I'm fair skinned, doesn't automatically mean I'm English speaking: we're in a Spanish speaking country after all.
The interrogation turns predominately Spanish to make sense of his non-verbal English, going through-where I've cycled from? where to? have I family? How much does the bike cost? By now I'm enclosed inside a curious group. A truck driver squeezes my rear-tyre, then asks what spares I carry, and when I answer, exclaims "Que wacko!" Then the first man has to get a selfie with me on his phone, which I allow, hoping I'll be left alone after this.
I ask a few questions myself, such as how far is it to the next town, Montegude. On my map as a place to stop a night to wash and charge batteries. Answer, two hours driving; then he glances at my bike, and says five hours. I ask how many kilometres? reply, one-hundred. Funnily I had already calculated the distance as being 77km. How can he round it up to a hundred.
He also told me the road would be closed until two this afternoon, but this was a lie, as it opens again shortly after twelve.
I would find out my estimation on how far to Montegude is spot on when I pass a signboard 18km further, Montegude 59.
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By late afternoon it was looking difficult to find a place to camp, as it is all steep uphill to my right and a drop to the left of the road, and thick jungle. But I come to a little used track which switchbacks down to the river in the valley bottom. So here I am having set up the tent.
As I write I hear a car has stopped and voices above at the road, there being a layby at the head of the track down. I'm out of sight though below the bank here.
Todays points to ponder.
1 The woman at lunchtime puts the plate on my table just as a Jack Russel dog comes in the door and vomits on the floor. The slimy regurgitated food looked just like what's on my plate.
2 Luckily the tree canopy has provided shade most of the day, except upon an open stretch of wide road I's on between two and three this afternoon: the hottest part of the day, further burning my sunburned left-leg.
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 12,272 km (7,621 miles)
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