I woke up surrounded by 'stuff' – indeed, all the 'stuff' that I had methodically laid out on the terrace of my uncle's flat a few days earlier prior to carefully packing it into the panniers. That supreme level of organisation had now been abandoned so as to keep the ants at bay. Normally, I would use the porch area of the tent to store anything that wasn't of great value and that wasn't going to be rendered unusable the following day by a few drops of errant rain. That should have left me luxuriating in the expanse of the tent with just my clothes and valuables. Thanks to the ants, however, everything apart from Reggie was inside with me. It was a tight squeeze.
The coast between Conil de la Frontera and Cádiz left me scratching my head as to why anyone would choose to live or spend their holidays on the nearby Costa del Sol. This beautiful stretch of coastline, only a short drive to the west, was a much more attractive destination in so many ways: modest environmentally friendly development, low levels of traffic, immense blue skies, spectacular sunsets over the Atlantic, flocks of migrating birds, Julio Iglesias and the Madrid Philharmonic providing the campsite entertainment of an evening… OK, that last bit wasn't quite true; Julio never turned up.
The scenery did become a little more urban as I approached Cádiz. A large coastal natural park pushed me inland and through the town of Chicana de la Frontera. I then tentatively joined some suspiciously motorway-like roads through scruffy San Fernando before finally joining the long, straight causeway that joined Cádiz to the mainland. Built upon what was once an island, the old city of Cádiz took up a physically isolated position nearly 10 km from the southern end of the causeway. It was said to be the oldest city in Europe and since its formation over 3,000 years ago, it had seen its fair share of history: from the founding Phoenicians through Roman times to its key role in the relatively recent discovery of the Americas. There you go: three millennia of history in one sentence.
My own five-week stay in the city may not have gone down in the annals of Andalusian history but it had given me a thoroughly enjoyable and vivid glimpse into its people, language, life, culture and, admittedly, local beer, Cruzcampo. The final week of my visit had coincided with the pre-Easter semana santa (Holy Week) when great pasos, or floats, depicting biblical scenes of a tearful Mary or blood-stained Jesus were hoisted onto the shoulders of penitents and slowly paraded around the city through crowds of people and clouds of eye-streaming incense. On reflection, perhaps that was Mary's problem too. These events, held throughout the day and often in the middle of the night, had been described to me beforehand but nothing could have prepared me for the visual and auditory maelstrom. Spectacular is an overused word but for the Holy Week celebrations of Spain, it was most certainly appropriate.
Upon arrival in the old city, I checked the times of the ferry across the bay to nearby El Puerto de Santa María – it would save me a long journey around the perimeter of the bay of Cádiz – before embarking upon a leisurely circumnavigation of Cádiz to take in a few of my old haunts. I paused for lunch in the pretty square outside the language school where I had studied and I spotted some faces I recognised: the teachers, the barman, the woman who sold bread... but having already said my goodbyes I kept my distance and watched as they interacted with the new students, cajoling them into practising their stuttering Spanish just as they had done so patiently with me. I realised that these were the last familiar faces I would see for many weeks. I smiled and went to catch the boat.
My next stop, 15 km or so away, was Jerez de la Frontera, the sherry capital of Spain, where I had already booked a room at the local youth hostel. The man on reception at the Albergue Inturjoven Jerez didn't seem that pleased to see me. He was on the phone when I arrived and the conversation must have been an important one, as he continued to talk while giving one-word instructions to me, accompanied by loud clicks of his fingers and a fair bit of pointing: 'Pasaporte (click)... llave (click)... ascensor (click, point)...' etc.
'Muchas gracias,' I replied with muchas emphasis on the muchas.
Is it possible to click your fingers sarcastically? I wasn't sure. I fought the temptation to do so as I made my way to the lift; it was late in the day and I didn't fancy being thrown out into the street.
The seven-storey building had clearly been designed by an architect who was as disgruntled in his job as the receptionist. Its featureless façade contained not so much as a squiggle of ornamentation. The interior was similarly minimalist and, when I peered through the window of my third-floor room at the rear of the building, I could see an unkempt paved yard surrounded by a concrete fence topped off with a couple of metres of wire mesh. Had I mistaken the youth hostel for the local youth detention centre?
I escaped the building and, after a short stroll around the pedestrian centre of Jerez, my faith in Spanish society was more than restored. Small bands of colourfully dressed men playing lutes and singing in perfect harmony wandered the old, narrow streets, entertaining the locals and a handful of early-season tourists. Families were gathered on the terraces of restaurants, eating, drinking, chatting and laughing. It was a world away from the austere hostel.
By the time I emerged from my room the following morning, señor clicky fingers had been replaced by señorita happy and smiley. The large breakfast room had been taken over by several youth football teams on a weekend training camp. They were all wearing identical kits and chatting away in that lively manner that only Spaniards and Italians can ever achieve. It was a nice atmosphere in which to munch away at my own breakfast and it put me in a positive frame of mind for the long haul towards Seville across what I suspected to be upwards of 80 km of nondescript countryside.
It was, but – after around 50 of those 80 km – as I cycled along a wide band of spare tarmac by the side of the N-4 road, olive groves to my left and olive groves to my right, I turned a corner that changed my direction of travel from predominantly north-eastern to due north. A few moments later, and unbeknown to me at the time, I crossed the line of latitude that marks 37 degrees north. I had completed the first of my 35 degrees.
THE SECOND DEGREE
37°–38° NORTH
11–13 April
When you see a touring cyclist on the road, what do you think? An adventurer? An independent spirit? An explorer? (Let's not get carried away…) A vagrant in need of pity and free food? Hold that thought…
I was determined to adhere to a healthy diet on this journey to Nordkapp. The cycling may be about to provide me with regular exercise, but a regime of stodgy food and red wine had taken its toll on my energy levels in the latter stages of the previous cycles. Perhaps the sizeable town of Los Palacios y Villafranca would be the perfect place to stock up on some of my five-a-day. Lots of banks, estate agents, a few petrol stations, furniture shop and dozens of bars… Greengrocers? Not along the kilometre-long main avenida of Los Palacios.
Salvation came in the form of a few Portakabins bolted together in the middle of a large car park a few kilometres north. Oversized pictures of tomatoes on the side of the 'building' confirmed that I had found a greengrocer's, Spanish style. The establishment was staffed by women in green aprons busying themselves stocking the shelves. There appeared to be just one customer in addition to me: a man in his fifties who was selecting a few items as he wandered. I did likewise and presented my purchases – a banana, an apple and an avocado – to the woman at the cash till.
'Quanto costa?' I enquired in Italian. My Spanish had improved markedly during my five weeks in Cádiz, but I was still mixing up basic (and alas common) Spanish and Italian expressions. My linguistic faux pas didn't faze the woman serving me.
'Son gratis.' They were free. All the women were now chatting and laughing, and I wasn't sure whether it was at my expense or not.
'¿Por qué?' I was back on track with the Spanish, enquiring why.
'Porque…' started the response, rapidly followed by lots of Spanish that was beyond my linguistic pay grade. Sensing my confusion, the woman pointed at the man who I had thou
ght was another customer.
'¡El jefe, el jefe!' He was the boss and, for some reason, had just instructed the woman on the checkout to let me have the fruit for free.
'Muchas gracias, muchas gracias,' I responded but unsure as to why.
I sat outside and ate the fruit. Were these people taking pity on me because I was travelling by bike? Did I have the appearance of a vagrant in need of free food? I reached for my phone, took a selfie and checked the picture: I was looking well and even clean-shaven after having taken advantage of the facilities back at the hostel in Jerez. The kindness of strangers – how wonderful.
My guidebook informed me that there was a campsite to the south of Seville at Dos Hermanas. Having visited twice before, I wasn't planning to take a day off in Seville, but I did want to carry out a little more research into the Vía de la Plata, the pilgrimage route that I would be following for the next week. I would stay at Camping Villsom overnight before cycling 15 km into the centre of the Andalusian capital on Sunday morning. Finding a hotel in Seville for Sunday night would play havoc with my statistics – I was aiming to average 75 km per day over 100 days – but would afford me the time to plan my onward route.
Pitching the tent in an ant-free environment, I bought a can of meatballs and veg at the rudimentary on-site shop and, for the first time, assembled my new MSR Windboiler stove. I had purchased it for its compactness rather than its ability to remain lit even in storm force winds whilst clinging to the edge of a Himalayan peak. The upside of this was that it could boil a litre of water in well under a minute. The downside was that it wasn't great at simmering meatballs. The flame had two settings: off and fighter jet. Had there been any ants, they would have been cooked alive in the afterburn.
The following morning I fell into conversation with Paul from the Netherlands, the first touring cyclist I had met on the journey so far. In his seventies, he had travelled widely over the years, although he wasn't keen on 'following numbers', which I took to mean cycling routes. I refrained from mentioning the EuroVelos. He was softly spoken and smiled through much of our conversation; if he had grandchildren, I imagine they'd have adored him. Rather than cycle all the way from home, he had taken the train to southern Europe, carrying with him a folding bike. He had no timetable and only a vague plan of action that involved shorter rides out into the countryside near the place where he happened to be staying. He would then take the train a little further before returning to two wheels for more sedate exploration. It struck me as a wonderful way to spend some of the free time afforded by retirement. I could only hope that 30 years down the line, my knees would still cope with the pedalling and my back able to withstand consecutive nights on a thin camping mat. It was sometimes a challenge in my forties so please refrain from placing any bets.
As our conversation drew to a natural end and I turned to go back to my tent to pack away, he called me back.
'Remember that there will always be Mercedes days,' he explained.
'What's a Mercedes day?' I enquired.
'It's a day when it's probably raining, perhaps cold, the scenery is not that inspiring and you tell yourself you'd rather be somewhere else.'
'So, why a Mercedes day?'
'Because it's when you wonder why you didn't just buy an air-conditioned Mercedes instead. I've never bought one because I know that the next day will be so much better.'
I smiled, shook his hand and wished him well. I wondered how many Mercedes days I would experience over the coming months. I had certainly had to endure them in the past but, just as Paul had said, the next day was always so much better.
—
Seville was the same, rather beautiful, Seville that I had discovered on my previous visits. I found a central hotel, the Convento la Gloria which, as the name suggested, was a former convent. The decoration suggested that the nuns had left quite recently and in a hurry, as biblical scenes and statues of the Virgin Mary were still dotted around the place, looking down upon my every move. Away from her prying eyes, my preoccupation for the afternoon was to seek out as much information as I possibly could about the Vía de la Plata.
Plata is the Spanish word for silver and the name is often translated as the 'Silver Way', but its origin is in the Arab word balat, which refers to a paved or cobbled path. It was built by the Romans and is now considered one of the main pilgrimage routes to Santiago, which is why I had been able to access quite a bit of information about cycling along it from the dedicated Vía de la Plata website. A suggested itinerary split the route from Seville to the northern coast at Gijón into 12 days, ranging between 46 km and 105 km. I envisaged only using the first nine of these sections as far as Benavente, at which point I would head east. The first suggested leg was to the town of Monesterio and it would be 105 km. That was no bad thing, as my average since leaving Tarifa had slumped to only 67 km per day. A longer day in the saddle was needed and, after my rest day, I was up for the challenge.
A charming woman at the oficina de turismo had provided me with a map indicating interesting diversions en route and a business card for the Amigos del Camino de Santiago de Sevilla Vía de la Plata (Friends of the Vía de la Plata). Their office was in the western part of central Seville. Adopting a flagrant disregard towards oneway signs, I located it within a few minutes in a covered alleyway off the Calle Castilla. How wonderful it would be to start my journey along the pilgrimage route by having an in-depth chat with a group of real experts! I'd tweeted to say I'd be visiting and they'd rapidly retweeted, perhaps thrilled at having a prestigious cycling writer come to pay them a visit. They might even want to take a photograph. (Had I shaken off the vagrant look?) It was all potentially very exciting.
The office was shut.
Horario:
Mañanas: Miércoles de 10,00 h. a 12,00 h.
Tardes: de Lunes a Jueves de 19,00 h. a 21,00 h.
I could hang around to see them at 7 p.m. or come back on Wednesday at 10 a.m. The office itself wasn't the tourist-friendly welcoming point that I had envisaged. They'd gone more for the inner-city youth club design, with a painted metal door and bars across the window.
I stood for a few moments, and looked up and down the street. I wasn't even sure which way I should be going.
'¡Buen camino!'
The comment – the traditional good luck salutation to pilgrims – was directed at me by a man who was clearly out for a long walk; wherever he was heading, I needed to be heading too.
'¡Perdón!' I called as I tried to catch him up. '¿Dónde es el camino?'
His name was Antonio and he patiently answered my questions as to where exactly I should be heading, using the kind of map that I wish I had invested in. It even included dotted-line variants for when the cycling path deviated from that of the walkers. He pointed to one of the seashell signs that I should be looking out for, wished me well and off we went at our different speeds.
As the seashell signs were primarily intended for walkers rather than cyclists, they were easy to miss. With a few twists and turns, I eventually made it to the Río Guadalquivir, having travelled the epic distance of about… 2 km from the centre of Seville. I had already lost count of the number of times I had stopped cycling to search for a directional seashell.
'¡Buen camino!'
It was another walker. He read bemusement on my face and explained I should follow the yellow arrows. Whereas the seashells were official, the yellow arrows were very much unofficial. Most had been daubed or sprayed on the ground, a building or anything else that happened to be handy (a confused cyclist?). They were much more useful than the seashells in that they indicated the direction when it wasn't all that clear.
Alas, on the other side of the bridge over the Río Guadalquivir, the arrows directed me down a steep bank and towards a rough track running alongside the river. I looked ahead of me; there was no alternative access route to the track so, reluctantly and very hesitantly, I pushed Reggie down the bank, fighting to counter the effects of gravity on his fully lade
n frame. We eventually made it to the bottom, where I remounted and started to cycle along the track. Within a couple of hundred metres, it had degenerated into freshly churned mud. Not wishing to return to the main road and climb the steep bank that I had earlier descended, I persevered. For much of the time I pushed; where I dared, I rode. Was this a taste of things to come?
After another 5 km and with my enthusiasm for the Vía de la Plata waning considerably, the track passed under the motorway – the Autovía Ruta de la Plata – and across the N-630, subtitled on the signs as the Ruta de la Plata. I paused under the awning of a BP petrol station to ponder the situation. My high hopes of being able to cycle along quality off-road paths had been dashed. It was developing into a Mercedes morning.
Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie Page 2