Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie

by Andrew P. Sykes

  I looked at the map of the Vía de la Plata given to me by the tourist office. Three long lines linked Seville with my destination, Monesterio: on the left was the pink walking/cycling route, in the middle was the white motorway and on the right was the red N-630. All three had a legitimate claim to call themselves the Ruta de la Plata. For a cyclist, the autovía was not even an option, but the N-630 most certainly was. In fact… surely the N-630 had more of a claim to call itself the Ruta/Vía de la Plata than the other two? The autovía was a modern-day construction. The walking/cycling route was surely a relatively modern path born out of the pragmatic desire to keep walkers (and a few cyclists) away from the main road, right? The N-630 was, I conjectured, the modern name given to a road that had existed in various states for hundreds of years. Perhaps even a couple of thousand years, dating all the way back to the Romans. The original Ruta/Vía de la Plata was the N-630!

  However plausible or implausible my reasoning, in terms of cycling the decision was an excellent one. The N-630 was a wide, good quality road almost devoid of traffic. All but a handful of cars, lorries and buses had decided to make use of the toll-free A66 motorway, leaving those who hadn't to trundle past Reggie and me in an amiable fashion. They were presumably on short journeys to and from the smaller towns and villages not served by the autovía. Even the ascent from sea level in Seville to around 500 metres at the northern border of Andalusia was sufficiently stretched out over 80 km that it could hardly be called taxing. The air was increasingly cool but the sky was blue and I was making real progress north. This had been no Mercedes day.

  THE THIRD DEGREE

  38°–39° NORTH

  13–16 April

  I was excited about moving into the next Spanish region, Extremadura, for no better reason than the fact that it wasn't Andalusia, where I had now spent over six weeks. But I had little idea as to what to expect.

  My guidebook referred to 'the harsh landscape of Extremadura cradling ornate conquistador towns built with riches from the New World' but as I dug a little deeper, one inhabitant of the region was given more than his fair share of column inches: the pig. This was no ordinary pig; this was the acorn-fed Iberian pig. In Monesterio there was even a museum dedicated to him. The town announced itself as the Ciudad del Jamón – the city of ham – but that's where the excitement finished. I didn't spot the museum but I did find a basic €25 room for the night and a small basic bar which served basic food. It was a basic kind of place.

  The most pig-like thing that I could find in Monesterio the following morning was Reggie. I pushed him out of the garage of the hostal and leaned him against an adjacent wall. He was still covered in mud from the previous day's foray along the rough tracks of the Vía de la Plata, north of Seville. I had noticed that since our encounter with the banks of the Río Guadalquivir, the gears were slipping and the brakes were scratching against the rims of the wheels. I put all this down to the mud and, 20 km into the day's ride, I eradicated most of it with the help of a jet wash in Fuente de Cantos. But even more exciting than this high-pressure clean-up was the sighting of my first group of Iberian pigs.

  From a couple of hundred metres, the pig farm created an idyllic rural scene: to the left, the farm buildings on a gentle slope. Beyond them a large expanse of undulating green hillside and to the right, some fenced-off brown fields containing lines of tent-like shelters. Huddling together in a group to one side of the 'tents' were around ten well-built muddy black pigs. I stood and watched them. The size of the animals suggested that they were nearer the butcher's hook than perhaps they realised. There was, however, something amiss. No acorns – or rather, no oak trees from which the acorns could fall. Since reading about their diet, I had envisaged these premier league pigs spending their days wandering around dense forests of oak trees, snuffling out acorns at their leisure. Perhaps they did elsewhere but not here in this oak-less, indeed treeless, landscape.

  —

  Much of the next two days of cycling was downhill. It was the reward following the long climb to Monesterio and my average speed on the bike climbed to over 20 km/h. With minimal traffic, the N-630 felt more like a wide cycle lane than the major highway it must once have been prior to the arrival of the autovía.

  The short 45 km ride to Zafra dented the daily average once again – it now stood at only 66 km – but at least the town looked more promising from the perspective of a tourist. The Hotel las Palmeras was a world away from the previous day's hostal. For one additional euro, I had a cracking second-floor room with a balcony overlooking the attractive, cobbled and traffic-free Plaza Grande.

  Sunglasses were on my mind though not, alas, on my nose. Pair number one had been left inadvertently at the campsite in Tarifa. In Seville I had bought a cheap replacement pair from the El Corte Inglés department store. Perhaps a little too cheap as, within 48 hours, one of the lenses had fallen out and I was back in the market for pair number three.

  Should I go for the cheap option again or should I 'invest'? As any cyclist worthy of the name will know, the best place to 'invest' is a dedicated bicycle shop. I went online and discovered that my LBS – local bike shop – in Zafra was Bicicletas Rodríguez. Rod's Bikes was on the southern edge of Zafra, a kilometre away from the centre. I was soon standing outside a rather impressive emporium dedicated to everything two-wheeled that didn't have an engine.

  Once inside, I didn't have to search for long to find what I was looking for. To the right of the door was a cabinet. Behind lock and key were four glass shelves upon which a small number of brightly coloured sunglasses had been placed. It's probably a closely guarded secret in retail management circles that anything placed inside a locked glass cabinet can have its mark-up doubled instantaneously, but I wasn't thinking of such marketing ploys as I visually inspected each pair of sunglasses in turn.

  '¿Gafas?' asked the sales assistant. He was referring to the glasses.

  'Si… Quiero gafas de sol.'

  '¿Inglés?'

  'Si.' My response didn't have the desired effect of him abandoning Spanish.

  '¿Para el ciclismo?'

  'Si.' But I was managing. I tried to keep things simple.

  'Quanto costa?' Err… And in Spanish: '¿Cuánto cuesta?'

  'Ciento veinte euros.' Mmm… €120. I was tempted to point out that only 24 hours earlier I was being offered free food. Not remembering how to say 'Have you anything cheaper?', I went for the more direct approach.

  '¡Es caro!' It's expensive!

  I was sensibly escorted away from the glass cabinet towards some more reasonably priced glasses.

  'Cuarenta euros y el quince por ciento de descuento hoy.' I'd arrived on a special day; everything in the shop was being discounted by 15 per cent. So… About £25. Yes, that was in my price range. The deal was done.

  I took another selfie to check out my new look. I was happy. The bright red sunglasses gave me the appearance of someone who was taking the whole enterprise of cycling across Europe seriously which, of course, I was. Most of the time.

  But, aside from red sunglasses, how does a traveller prove that they have elevated themselves to the ranks of a serious adventurer? By getting hold of a GoPro camera, of course. I had only used it a few times since purchasing it earlier in the year but had so far created cinematic masterpieces such as My Cycling Commute Meets The GoPro Hero 4 and the all-time classic Sunset At The Beach In Cádiz. The technology of the GoPro was outstanding but the camera could be a little fiddly to control. Hence, my departure from Zafra the following morning was delayed by considerable fiddling.

  I had to be very careful not to overwhelm the ability of my iPad mini to store any resultant film and edit it, so making anything in 4K Super HD quality was out of the question. I settled instead for standard 4:3 HD. If I were to set the camera to take one picture every 10 seconds, that would mean that, when played at a frame rate of 30 images per second, every hour of real time would be squeezed down to 12 seconds on screen. A four-hour journey – the time
I estimated it would take to cycle to Mérida – would play out in 48 seconds. Once uploaded to YouTube, in our digital world of limited attention spans, that might have a few people watching it to the end before giving in to the temptation of finding a cute cat video.

  I attached the camera to Reggie's handlebars, switched it on and set off.

  Just outside the pedestrianised part of Zafra, I had a short conversation with another cyclist. He was about the same age as me, from Germany and, I assumed, on a pilgrimage. Unlike me, he was – perhaps religiously – sticking to the cycling route that I had abandoned. He said it had been tough going but he had persevered and managed so far. He was cycling a standard, well-worn bike, using old panniers, wearing a crumpled linen shirt, staying in pilgrim hostels every night and certainly not filming things with a GoPro.

  It was an interesting contrast and one that played on my mind as I cycled towards Mérida. I saw more faults in my approach than his. For no better reasons than his understated cycling 'look' and his unwillingness to choose the easier option of following the N-630, I suspected that he might be a priest and I wondered if I would bump into him again further north. I had more questions to ask about his motivation for cycling the Vía de la Plata. Although a non-believer myself, I had always found the concept of and belief in a god to be fascinating. He wouldn't be able to convert me but here was a guy who could, perhaps, enlighten me.

  It was the seventh cycling day of the journey to Nordkapp and it was downhill all the way. Save for a few small, fluffy white clouds, the sky was blue and there was little wind as I trundled under the force of gravity from 600 metres at Zafra to under 300 metres at Mérida, the ancient capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. It promised me more Roman ruins than you could shake a GoPro selfie stick at and, as I cycled over the very modern Puente Lusitania, I was able to see an extraordinarily well-preserved Roman bridge spanning the wide Río Guadiana a few hundred metres upstream.

  The deserted campsite 3 km on the other side of Mérida was not enticing. Would I be happy leaving all my worldly goods there while I returned to the centre to explore? Probably not. As there were numerous hostals and cheap hotels listed online for around €25, I was beginning to wonder why I was even bothering to look for campsites in the first place, given that they were invariably only a few euros cheaper. The Hostal Residencia Senero charged me €26 and, after checking in, I wandered off to the Plaza de España to watch it rain.

  The map that I picked up from the tourist office told me there were 31 points of interest in and around the centre of Mérida. They were ordered in what would have created a continuous yet tortuous extended tour of the city; the almost complete aqueduct at number 31 looked impressive in the photo although I wondered how many people ever made it that far. With limited time available, I decided to concentrate my attention on numbers 1, 2 and 3: the amphitheatre, the theatre and the Roman garden.

  One payment gave access to all three attractions and, according to the ticket, I was visitor number 569,124. I wondered how many of the previous 569,123 people had been just as impressed as me with what they had stumbled upon. There was, of course, much to stumble upon – watch your feet on those 'granite blocks which functioned as speed bumps' for example – but the extent to which the buildings were, or appeared to be, intact was remarkable.

  The theatre was, perhaps, the standout attraction. When in use by the Romans, it could seat 6,000 but, due to its simple yet brilliant design, none of those 6,000 would be further than a few tens of metres from the stage. I climbed to the top of the semicircular seating area and tried to imagine I was a citizen of the Roman Empire enjoying an afternoon of tragedy or comedy. I then remembered that I had only studied Latin for one year at school and the storyline became a bit hazy to say the least. My focus slowly drifted away from the imaginary scene being played out on the stage below me. From my elevated position I had a view across the ruins, the suburbs of Mérida and the large expanse of predominantly bare countryside beyond the city walls. Out in the fields, fat Iberian pigs were undoubtedly continuing to chomp through their piles of acorns. Here in the city, however, I was discovering that there was much more to life on the road in Extremadura than just snouts, trotters and future legs of jamón.

  THE FOURTH DEGREE

  39°–40° NORTH

  16–17 April

  I had, through my cycles around Europe, become somewhat of an expert in the quality of road signage. Briefly… Italian signs: dreadful – place names with seemingly random numbers placed next to them. Greek signs: not quite as bad as the Italian ones. Swiss signs: disappointing. French signs: the benchmark for excellence – clear, accurate and everywhere. But there was a new kid on the block: Spanish signs.

  I defy anyone travelling along the N-630 in western Spain to ever feel that they had no idea where they were. Not only were the standard town/city/distance signs clear – and, as far as I had noticed, accurate – but every transition from comunidad (region) to comunidad and provincia to provincia was proclaimed via a large green sign. I was never in any doubt as to who was ruling over me.

  On a more practical level, I was always aware of just how far I had travelled thanks to the neat arrangement of distance posts that had been set up along the side of the road. Every 50 metres was marked with a simple white post. After every 100 metres there was an identical white post with a number counting up from 1 (100 metres) to 9 (900 metres). The passing of every kilometre was noted with a red-and-white sign reminding me that I was travelling along the N-630 and that I had reached, say, the 599 km point. Finally, every 10 km mark was celebrated with not just the road number and the distance travelled, but also the royal crest of the Spanish state. Now, that's the kind of clarity that doesn't just rival the French – it beats it hands down.

  Signage might have been amusing my mind but it wasn't warming my body. Thursday 16 April was turning out to be much colder than its recent predecessors so, following the short climb away from Mérida, I paused to layer up. On went my merino wool arm warmers, jumper, bright blue wool hat, neck-warming Buff and a pair of thick waterproof socks. It wasn't raining, but combined with a pair of summer cycling sandals, they ensured that my feet were warm and snug. My thoughts turned toward Scandinavia and especially Norway. If everything went to plan, I would be there in July but that was no guarantee of good weather. Wrapped up as I was, I wondered whether this level of thermal insulation would become the norm once I had passed through the Arctic Circle. Getting comfortable with cycling while dressed as the Michelin Man was, perhaps, no bad thing.

  The road continued to be comically quiet. Occasionally, the twisting route of the walkers' Vía de la Plata would cross the N-630 and a warning sign next to the road would alert me to human traffic ahead; the pilgrims were perhaps the most treacherous obstacle out there. However, near the town of Alcuéscar I did spot something travelling towards me on the other side of the road at relatively high speed. I say 'relatively', as the only things I had to compare it with were myself, the ramblers and the occasional sheep or fat pig. A brisk jogger would have had me moving aside so as not to get caught up in the turbulence.

  The approaching object turned out to be John from Birmingham, and he was riding a recumbent bicycle. He was the first fellow Brit that I had met so it was nice to chat freely without the barrier of language to impede us. I say 'chat' but it was more of an interview, as I seemed to be asking all the questions. Having spent a considerable length of time being a full-time carer for his now-deceased father, John had decided to sell his house, give up his job and go off cycling for a year. He'd caught the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander in northern Spain and was heading initially to Gibraltar but with the hope of getting as far as Greece over the next few months. He had cycled through the night, as he hadn't spotted a suitable place to string up his hammock; this guy had taken wild camping to the next level and was wild hammocking.

  My questions kept coming. Surely, I thought, at some point he would express an interest in what I was doing
, where I had come from, where I was going... Eventually, I gave up.

  'Well, good luck with the rest of your trip,' I said, as I began to move back onto my side of the road.

  'I have a question,' called out John. At last, I thought; he wants to know something about me and my own little adventure.

  'What do you think are the advantages of using a recumbent?' he enquired.

  I couldn't think of anything that would outweigh the disadvantage of being squashed by a truck driven by someone who hadn't seen me, but I took a guess at 'comfort'.

  'Yeah, spot on. See ya!'

  I didn't mind if fellow cyclists were a bit grumpy at times. On occasions, I certainly was. However, John wasn't grumpy in the least. He was a cheerful, affable chap but one who appeared to have little interest in anyone outside his recumbent bubble. He probably made it as far as Gibraltar and then Greece, but I wonder how much he learnt along the way. For me, there was delight to be had in travelling from A to B, seeing new places and experiencing new things. But there was also the joy of meeting new people, hearing their stories and exchanging experiences. It's what I'd had the opportunity of doing with Paul (of the 'Mercedes days') back in Seville and what I was hoping to do with the cycling German pilgrim if I bumped into him further north.