October 29, 2024
October 29, 2024 - Cáceres to Cañaveral
Windy enough to blow the socks off your feet
Hostel Cañaveral , Avd Doctor Luis Boticario nº 12, 10820 Cañaveral, Spain
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BREAKFAST in the lobby restaurant was plain and simple but tasty and good. The owner (he took over from his parents and now his 18 year old son also works there) was there and we chatted a mix of Spanish and English, comparing our countries and their respective outlooks on various matters.
Not that we were dragging our feet, but the weather forecast had been 0.1 mm of rain per hour from 8 am until 11 am. If we dawdled a wee bit we might just miss some of the rain. So around 930 am we were packed up and out the door to a somewhat breezy morning. But dry... to this point.
As with other older town centres, it was a bit tricky to find our way out of town, but once we were on the thin pink line, it was clear sailing-ish. Initially the road was very busy so we veered over to the dirt path, but it soon deteriorated into more mud and puddles. Back on the paved road, the traffic disappeared for the most part once we were past the motorway. Now things would move merrily along.
To this point the only evidence of the 0.1 mm of rain per hour were the dark clouds off to the east. Then it got very dark in the east. followed by a few drops of rain. Thinking we were through the majority of the rain we continued along only to be met by increasingly heavy rain and stronger winds. Luckily, though, it was about 18 C so we were plenty warm enough for the time being.
In time the rain got heavier until it was a steady drizzle - all told there must have been upwards of 5-10 mm of rain. We were wet, the ground was wet, and the drizzle was falling. As a result, photos were very few - both because I was nervous about getting our gear wet and drab skies make for drab photos.
As we continued to become wetter, the wind picked up. First it was coming from our left, but eventually the road oriented itself such that we had a direct headwind that was fairly fierce. I would say it was 20 to 30 km/hr with gusts of 40 or 50 km/h. We had to pedal to get down some hills and some gusts almost stopped us in our tracks. Luckily, our terrain was mostly downhill, even if coasting was tricky. The area was spectacular with broad views across a reservoir which was rather low in water levels. At one point we crossed the Rio Tajo so I mentioned to Alex that if we had a canoe we could paddled our way to Lisbon as the river became the Tejo in Portugal.
We slowly made our way and eventually we saw a signpost showing 12 km away. Then 5 km away, but now the road turned uphill and the wind tunnel facing us had us crawling along. But all of a sudden there was the signpost for town. We'd made it. As we rolled along we saw two Camino peregrinas walking so we got off of the bikes to walk the rest of the way to the albergue. We were able to check in then headed to a restaurant up the street for lunch where we ran into the peregrinas again (New Zealand and South Africa) so we joined them at their table for lunch. The weather and terrain had made their day difficult, too. Walking for them started at 615 am and ended around 130 pm. Yikes.
We returned to our room, which was a private room, whle the others went up to the dorm rooms where they were expacting other pilgrims they had met from Italy, France, Germany and Spain. Quite an interesting mix, I'm sure.
Rain was in the forecast for early evening so I headed out to find some food for tomorrow's breakfast. This village is tiny so all I could find was a little convenience store but was able to get some fruit, juice, pastries and snacks for the road. Hopefully we happen upon a cafe some time tomorrow for a little more. The rain started as I headed back to the albergue so was glad to be back inside for the evening. Today's forecast was wrong, but let's hope tomorrow's forecast for sunshine and low winds to be true.
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Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 224 km (139 miles)
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