To Uncastillo: Waiting out a thunderstorm

September 22, 2017

We were awakened at about five this morning by a flash of lightning. For what seemed like an hour, the window it up almost constantly from fresh flashes that seemed to come only a few seconds apart. We can only dimly hear rumblings of thunder though - we're in a well insulated room on a lower floor of a thick walled stone building, centuries old. It's a very secure-feeling place to weather out a storm.

By the time we go downstairs for breakfast, the brunt of the storm has moved on to a distant ridge. We still hear thunder, but it's much more intermittent. Afterwards I go out for a short walk through the town to check out the situation first hand.

In Sos del Rey Catolico, during a short break in the weather.

Even (or especially?) in gloomy conditions like this morning's, Sos is a fascinating, mysterious place to wander.

I believe this is in the direction of the pass we have to pass through on the way out of town. Doesn't look that promising at the moment.

The weather is picking up again - time to hurry back to the hotel.

Nothing I saw outside or in the day's forecast encourages us to hop on our bikes, so we drop our plans for a morning loop to Nearby Sanguesa and the hills to the north. Instead, we'll watch for the best break we can find and make a dash for Uncastillo, only fourteen miles away - starting with a climb back up to Puerto de Sos. In the meantime, we're staying put - the forecast for the next hour in Uncastillo is for heavy thunderstorms and a terrifying inch and a half of rain.

We clear out of our room at noon, but it's still raining pretty steadily so we decide to hang out in the lounge for awhile. We have company - British couple traveling by motorcycle, also waiting hoping for a break. We have a nice conversation, the first one with strangers in almost a week.

Finally, at about 12:30 it eases off outside to a light mist. All of us de ide to make a dash for it, thinking ithis may be the best we can hope for. We've only got 14 miles ahead of us, so we don't need that much time. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Our ride begins with a four mile, eight hundred foot climb on the old road to Uncastillo, an old byway made obsolete by the new highway we arrived on yesterday. The surface is fine though, and it's a fine cycling route that follows a small ravine toward the summit of the ridge. It's very quiet - we don't see a single car on our way up. As we climb, the weather gradually improves and we even start getting some decent visibility - to the north it looks like we can see as far as the Pyrenees.

After joining the main road, we ride along on the summit for about two miles, and then drop the final miles to Uncastillo. We arrive at our hotel dry, not believing our luck. For a day that started out so unpromisingly, we had a surprisingly fine ride.

Total elevation gain: today, 1,100'; for the tour, 23,700'

Looking back at Sos from the old road to Uncastillo. It's great to see the sky lightening up a bit.

The old road to Uncastillo is only four miles long, and eventually empties into the main road. Along the way though it's great, and mostly looks like this. We didn't see a single car on it.

Looking north toward the Pyrenees from the old road to Uncastillo

Nearing the summit. Up until now it's been very quiet; but here we hear the steady throb of fast-spinning blades.

The visibility has steadily improved all afternoon. They're faint in this photo, but I'm sure we're seeing the Pyrenees rising up behind the nearest ridges.

Dropping into Uncastillo, with the castle visible above the trees

The bell tower of San Martin's Church, Uncastillo. We're just beginning to see some fall coloration in the trees.

The ruins of San Lorenzo church, Uncastillo

We check into our hotel a it after two. This is another high quality, modestly priced posada, in the heart of the historical town. Our host greets us warmly, clears a pair of his bikes out of his small garage to make room for ours, and then orients us to the town. We'll find out later that he's a serious bike traveler himself, and hardier than ourselves. He gives us a short slideshow of his arduous trek across the high saline desert in Bolivia, and we're suitably in awe of his accomplishment.

For lunch, we go to a nearby small, modest restaurant that he recommended, after first checking out another we had done research on but found to be closed. There weren't a lot of options on the menu, but enough that we pieced together a meal that satisfied us. Afterwards we took our tour of the town, and we're quite charmed by it. We found it every bit as interesting as it's neighbor Sos was. I'm really glad that we managed to fit in overnight stays at them both - there is really too much to see to just stop by on the way to somewhere else.

On our way out to dinner we met up with another British couple stepping out of our hotel on their way to dinner. They planned to go to the restaurant we found to be closed earlier, believing they had a reservation there. We were aiming for a bar that our host had also recommended. We never did find the bar though, after about a half hour of futile wandering. We finally gave up and headed back to the same restaurant we had eaten lunch at. When we entered, we again encountered the British couple - they were wrong about the reservations they thought they had, because that restaurant was still closed.

That's the risk with visiting small, untouristed places no one has heard of. You just have to be flexible.

These are our hotel owner's bikes. He cleared them out of his garage to make room for ours, and then just leaned them against the nearest wall.

Rachael picked up this great new tee at the restaurant where we ate lunch today. It's commemorative of this year's silent film festival, an annual event in Uncastillo for the last seventeen years.

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Today's ride: 14 miles (23 km)
Total: 433 miles (697 km)

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