Richard and Stew get shiny new postcards for reading my blog and answering the Delia style 'where are ya'. JP has already had online praise and I know it will just go to his head if I send him anything further. My laptop is still not wi-fi fixed and I am beginning to despair of getting anything before Barcelona.
Some interesting side information, as I've got a few minutes. People get fatter the further south you go in Spain. Must have to do with the affluence of the tourists, I suppose. DWP are still paying me, and although I do clearly deserve it, I thought you mere taxpayers might like to know that I've asked them to stop. I've been watching the GCN job alerts and there are at least two jobs I haven't seen advertised yet - you know who you are, people, get a move on.
I have lost loads of weight. You would think this would be just a brilliant thing, but with only one pair of trousers, I have also developed a truly offensive case of builder's crack - don't be afraid to check the Flickr account - we photoshop it out if it becomes a problem. Which, of course, is a gentle reminder that you should have a look at my Flickr pages every now and then - if you are able to answer a few simple questions by the time we get back, you won't be required to attend the slide night...
Final admin bit - my sim card has died. I am using a new number which I will email to everyone in the very near future. Stoatie has a new tattoo, according to a text that I very belatedly received (no reason why it got caught up, but it took a long while to get to me, according to the date it was sent). A picture would be very nice indeed!
Miss you all - more from the road soon!
Friday, June 15, 2007
15 June 2007
Map & pin: Granada; Carchuna; Adra; Almeria; Tabernas; Mojacar.
Again it’s been way too long between blog updates, but we are currently trapped for a few days in Mojacar effecting repairs (of which more below), so it’s a good opportunity to at least run through the highlights of a very busy and excellent week or so. Granada was every bit as good as expected – we spent a full day sightseeing and only managed to take in about half a dozen different places. The sightseeing pinnacle was definitely the Alhambra/Generalife – a Moorish castle, gardens and other assorted stuff perched on the top of the hill overlooking the city. Everything about the place combines elegance, beauty and style with extraordinary peace and tranquillity. The gardens all centre around running water and despite the intense heat of the sun, everywhere feels cool and relaxed. From the top of the towers you can see the Sierra Nevadas, the city, the groves of olive trees stretching away into the distance – truly awesome place.
Other particularly good bits included an exhibition by a painter called JP Morales (when I have an internet connection I will try to give you some more info, but look out for his extremely surreal and often tiny oils), the cathedral with a most impressive organ (tee hee) and the street parade we caught – some kind of festival going on in the city.
We also got on the piss with some fellow travellers at the campsite – Dan and Darcy who are doing a similar trip to ours but on motorbikes. A good laugh and hopefully we might catch up with them in Valencia or Barcelona – obviously they are travelling much faster than us but staying longer in many places and taking more time out for side trips.
The ride down from Granada was way easier than expected, which is always nice. Fantastic scenery, though. As we approached the coast, the road followed the bottom of a ravine winding for several kilometres through massive cliffs and mountains. It was breathtaking stuff – the rock seemed so old and strong, the cyclist so transient and tiny. Such was the scale of the thing that there seemed no point in taking pictures – they could not possibly convey the feeling of the place. Then, just as you felt you might be crushed, the cliffs receded, sky reappeared and out we popped onto the coast again. V cool.
Carchuna – don’t bother. Nothing there except a very expensive campsite and an average (by, admittedly, the very high standards around here) beach. Here and Adra are part of what is referred to as the ‘exotic coast’. The guidebook informed me that here many exotic and tropical fruits are grown. Fabulous, I thought, all those beautiful fruit trees, what an appealing prospect. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact, the entire area is pretty much endless greenhouses – ugly, dusty, dry and baking in the sun. On the upside, we did get the bonus of cooking with food found by the side of the road, which is always nice. At the campsite in Almeria we met an American guy who is studying the impact of the greenhouse agriculture on the region, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for his damning criticism of it sometime soon.
Since we hit Adra, I’ve been swimming every day, which is of course another bonus. This has been accompanied by a sharp increase in bugs – flies and mozzies operating on a rotational shift basis in each campsite. We’ve bought two types of mozzie repellent, but Neil still manages to look like a leper and we’ve had to start sleeping with the screens closed on the tent, which is very warm. The campsites in Adra and Almeria were right on the beach – less than 100m from tent door to lovely, lovely salt water. Tabernas was in the middle of nowhere and the only water we saw either fell from the sky or was sprayed up on us, disguised as filthy mud, by passing trucks. But then it is Europe’s only desert. Frankly, I’m becoming increasingly dubious about some of these claims – I’ve seen Europe’s biggest cathedral in at least four different places and the country around Tabernas, while very interesting, didn’t look much like a desert to my exacting Australian eyes.
Anyway, Tabernas was very nearly the scene of some tears. According to our guidebook, and to flyers Neil had been collecting, it was the site where many spaghetti westerns were filmed, including a number of the Sergio Leone classics, and studio/sets/shrines to Clint-type places could be visited and enjoyed. Based purely on the name, we selected one Texas Hollywood – it was rubbish. It was so bad, it actually went out the other side and became funny. We cycled through the desert on rocky, dusty roads to pay €15-odd each to look at an old film set, have a ride in a horse-drawn cart and watch a ‘wild west show’ conducted entirely in Spanish which consisted of three men playing cards and fighting in a bar. After going through the rollercoaster of emotions from extreme excitement to utter horror, anger and hostility, we arrived at a kind of mild hysteria which allowed us to appreciate how utterly we’d just been conned and genuinely laugh at a world that produces tourists as gullible as us. And Indiana Jones was filmed there too (no, I don’t know which one – I only glanced at the film stills in the bar)!
Anyway, all of this brings us to the here and now, which is trapped in Mojacar while Neil’s bike is repaired. The original snapped spoke was repaired in a rather slapdash manner, so that eventually the buckle returned and on the way down from Tabernas to the coast a further two spokes snapped and we had to limp into town and seek help. The ride down had been going fantastically well to that point. Great roads with little or no traffic, a light drizzle of rain so that it didn’t get too hot, lightning striking the mountains, Spain’s unfriendliest town (Sorbas – clear inspiration for The Hills Have Eyes), and a period of prolonged filth which left me and everything I own coated completely in mud. Still, it could have been a lot worse and at least it turned out we had alighted in just the right spot! We are staying in a wonderfully quiet and pretty campsite just outside Mojacar town itself, with almond trees all around us to assist in our mission to eat as much food we find on the ground as possible. The woman that runs the campsite is doing us a cheap rate, that has got cheaper the longer we stayed, and two old English brothers that are staying at the site have been immensely helpful. They found us a bike repair shop through a friend who lives locally and drove Neil into the next town to drop his wheel off. Unfortunately, it has taken three days to repair and Neil is off to collect it this afternoon. The brothers are, it goes without saying, utterly mad. A favourite saying, for example, seems to be that the world is run by women and socialists – not the one I’m living in, unfortunately – but have so far seemed largely harmless. We shall buy them some beers to thank them for their help before we head off tomorrow morning. Meantime, I’ve been enjoying a wonderful relax. The campsite has a pool that we’ve had pretty much to ourselves. On Wednesday I walked down to the seafront a couple of kilometres away and found an English bar that put the State of Origin on for me (yay you toadies). Neil joined me after his trip to the bike shop and we spent the rest of the day getting pissed, topped off by a wonderful vege dinner on a rooftop restaurant in Mojacar. There appears to be a massive expat community here but the place itself has very little to recommend it. Still, there’s a communal fridge at the campsite, so we’ve been able to keep cool food that we’ve been avoiding because of the heat and we’ve spent a few days laying about eating and drinking much like big fat Mediterranean cats.
05 June 2007
Map and pin: Conil de la Frontera; Punta Paloma; Algeciras (Gibraltar); Granada.
Last few days have been mad and packed full of really interesting stuff. First of all, we cycled about 55km to Punta Paloma – a very windy 55km. It is worth noting that there are a number of warning signs that cyclists might like to be aware indicate less than ideal cycling conditions ahead. These include massive wind farms, wind sock signs on the side of the road, hotel names like ‘Hotel Hurricane’ and millions of kite surfers. Yes, wind freaks, we’d arrived at the so called ‘wind coast’, world headquarters of wind surfing and kite surfing. It goes without saying that we had no idea we were approaching this and arrived at Punta Paloma gobsmacked to see the sky filled with giant kites and the palm trees horizontal. We set up camp and then wandered down to the beach to soak up the spectacle – and got our second delightful surprise: Africa. From the beach you could see the north coast of Africa rising up on the other side. How cool – I didn’t know it was so close. We had a couple of beers and a nice dinner. Sunday has become our main eating out night as the day in Spain is like Sundays when you were a kid – nothing (except restaurants/bars) is open.
The wind howled all night long and we set off the next morning nothing short of fearful, into what seemed like a strong wind. We were right to be afraid, and it wasn’t a strong wind – that was still to come. Turns out we were riding through the winds that blow between Spain and Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar and although we only did 30-odd km for the day it was absolutely killer. The wind, combined with mountains, was so strong that we had to push the bikes on a number of occasions not because it was too steep but because we were in serious danger of being blown off the road. It was amazing. Just when I was about to despair, having taken over an hour and a half to do less than 10km, we arrived at a bar near the summit of the highest mountain and had a quick beer. Then, bless the spirits of wind, it was all down hill to Algeciras.
We’d planned to camp there, but on arrival we were told that the nearest campsite was back where we’d stayed the night before and quickly changed our mind. Instead, we stayed in a really cheap pension and took the bus to Gibraltar for the evening. What a bizarre place. For the first time since we left England, someone actually checked out passports. Once you’re in, it is genuinely like you are back in England. All the signs are in English, the stores are English, the currency is pounds and pence, the pubs (and the pub food) are English. To be honest, it all seemed a bit run-down and sad. We met a local artist, though, who told us quite a bit about the island and what it was like to live there. We had a pub dinner and a few pints – bought a 50g pouch of tobacco (no, I haven’t quite given up smoking, it would seem) for £1.02!!!!! – bought some wine gums for Neil and wandered around for a while before taking the bus back to Algeciras. It was just €45 for a day trip by ferry to Tanger, and we were sorely tempted to nip over to Africa while we had the chance (just so we’d been) but decided against it. You can’t do everything and the costs for every extra day mount up – we’re already exceeding our budget on a regular basis and have pretty much concluded that we won’t be doing much further travel once we’ve finished this trip, but we’ll see how we go.
Algeciras seemed a very odd place – obviously a major port for travel/trade between Europe and north Africa, which was reflected in a very mixed population, fantastic variety in the food at the local markets and signs in several languages. It’s also home to a massive industrial area and it appeared from the flow of traffic that many locals work on Gibraltar.
Today, we trained it up to Granada – and thank fuck for that because just looking at the mountains through the window made me tired. Met a fellow Aussie traveller – retiree from Adelaide – who was excellent company and we exchanged travel tips. The campsite in Granada is really close to the city, which is brilliant, and we’re here for two nights before heading back down to the coast. According to the map, we’ve got to go over a couple of 1000+m mountains on the way back, so as well as sightseeing we’ve been building up our strength. Granada looks beautiful so far and tomorrow we’ve got a packed itinerary to get through, so I better go have a beer and get camp dinner sorted. My iBook is still not working on wireless, so I’m not sure when this will get posted but if we’ve got some spare time and a free wi-fi connection I’ll see what I can do.
02 June 2007
We appear to be beginning the descent into noisy campsite hell – I write this to the accompaniment of screaming children, loud Spanish pop music, barking dogs, scooters and even the occasional bray of a donkey, although I have no idea where the hell the donkey came from and I did take a walk around the campsite when we arrived. The donkey and the dogs can be quite soothing, but the overall effect is anything but. Last night we had several desperately shouty Spanish families, lead by chief shouter Willy Wanker (so named because he appeared to have his own oompah loompah – sorry, but even I wasn’t brazen enough to take a picture of them six foot away and shouting to each other) who forced me to have a 1am tantrum. I was reduced to shouting random abuse and slamming the pots of our tiny cookset together – the only thing I had that could make noise in any way competitive with several adult shouters, a troupe of monkey children playing with a giant tennis ball and loud Spanish television. At least they made the monkey children stop.
In fairness, you expect Friday and Saturday night at a campsite to be noisy and noise doesn’t generally bother me – let’s face it, I’m damned noisy myself. I think I was particularly pissed off because this was a deeply militant campsite where reception had impressed on me, through the use of words, gestures and pictures, the evil of using any kind of portable music player: antisocial behaviour far more hideous than shouting, playing ball games and watching loud television outside your caravan at 1am. It is probably also worth noting that people who stay in caravans cannot possibly know just how little noise a tent filters out – it’s like wearing ear trumpets as ear plugs.
But enough preliminary moaning, on to the main moan of the day: I have been robbed in the most annoying and disappointing way possible. You expect, travelling like this, that you will get stuff nicked – frankly I figure it’s inevitable. However. Today, while I was at the beach (yes, yes, I am aware that noting I was off swimming in the clear blue Spanish sea at the time is likely to lessen any sympathy I might be due) someone stole my repair kit from my bike. Spare tube, puncture repair kit and a set of allen keys (no idea how you spell that, so apologies if it’s wrong) – not the bag they actually live in, which is strapped under the seat, mind, just the three essential repair items. Total value: £10 maybe. The bike, it goes without saying, was chained up with my fuck off giant bike chain and lock. Okay, so I realise it’s not heart medicine or grandmother’s wedding ring or something, but that’s hardly the point. These three things could *only possibly be of use* to a cyclist. What kind of scumbag bastard cyclist steals another cyclist’s repair kit? Nothing else taken: Ernie and my bike computer still there, Neil’s quick release wheels untouched. Just the three cheap, essential items a cyclist – AND ONLY A CYCLIST – would need if they got a flat tyre.
Obviously, there is no point wishing a flat tyre on him/her as they now have at least one brand new puncture repair kit, and a snapped chain or similar seems a smidgen light as punishment goes. In truth, I hope they accidentally ride into a seemingly empty field and get gored by an angry bull that was only last week, much to the thief’s disappointment, spared by the crowd at the local bullfight because it had fought courageously – poetically leaving him/her to expire slowly from a puncture that no stolen repair kit can mend. Or something similar.
On top of this irritating theft, I discovered that I had lost my travel shampoo (bloody brilliant little shampoo cake from Lush – not tested on animals – with its own little travel tin). Neil, on being told that I couldn’t find it, made things infinitely better by responding: “Oh yes, you’ll have left that at the last campsite - I thought I saw that outside the showers but didn’t think it was yours.” Grrr indeed. There is a horse neighing now, as well.
Map & pin: Granada; Carchuna; Adra; Almeria; Tabernas; Mojacar.
Again it’s been way too long between blog updates, but we are currently trapped for a few days in Mojacar effecting repairs (of which more below), so it’s a good opportunity to at least run through the highlights of a very busy and excellent week or so. Granada was every bit as good as expected – we spent a full day sightseeing and only managed to take in about half a dozen different places. The sightseeing pinnacle was definitely the Alhambra/Generalife – a Moorish castle, gardens and other assorted stuff perched on the top of the hill overlooking the city. Everything about the place combines elegance, beauty and style with extraordinary peace and tranquillity. The gardens all centre around running water and despite the intense heat of the sun, everywhere feels cool and relaxed. From the top of the towers you can see the Sierra Nevadas, the city, the groves of olive trees stretching away into the distance – truly awesome place.
Other particularly good bits included an exhibition by a painter called JP Morales (when I have an internet connection I will try to give you some more info, but look out for his extremely surreal and often tiny oils), the cathedral with a most impressive organ (tee hee) and the street parade we caught – some kind of festival going on in the city.
We also got on the piss with some fellow travellers at the campsite – Dan and Darcy who are doing a similar trip to ours but on motorbikes. A good laugh and hopefully we might catch up with them in Valencia or Barcelona – obviously they are travelling much faster than us but staying longer in many places and taking more time out for side trips.
The ride down from Granada was way easier than expected, which is always nice. Fantastic scenery, though. As we approached the coast, the road followed the bottom of a ravine winding for several kilometres through massive cliffs and mountains. It was breathtaking stuff – the rock seemed so old and strong, the cyclist so transient and tiny. Such was the scale of the thing that there seemed no point in taking pictures – they could not possibly convey the feeling of the place. Then, just as you felt you might be crushed, the cliffs receded, sky reappeared and out we popped onto the coast again. V cool.
Carchuna – don’t bother. Nothing there except a very expensive campsite and an average (by, admittedly, the very high standards around here) beach. Here and Adra are part of what is referred to as the ‘exotic coast’. The guidebook informed me that here many exotic and tropical fruits are grown. Fabulous, I thought, all those beautiful fruit trees, what an appealing prospect. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact, the entire area is pretty much endless greenhouses – ugly, dusty, dry and baking in the sun. On the upside, we did get the bonus of cooking with food found by the side of the road, which is always nice. At the campsite in Almeria we met an American guy who is studying the impact of the greenhouse agriculture on the region, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for his damning criticism of it sometime soon.
Since we hit Adra, I’ve been swimming every day, which is of course another bonus. This has been accompanied by a sharp increase in bugs – flies and mozzies operating on a rotational shift basis in each campsite. We’ve bought two types of mozzie repellent, but Neil still manages to look like a leper and we’ve had to start sleeping with the screens closed on the tent, which is very warm. The campsites in Adra and Almeria were right on the beach – less than 100m from tent door to lovely, lovely salt water. Tabernas was in the middle of nowhere and the only water we saw either fell from the sky or was sprayed up on us, disguised as filthy mud, by passing trucks. But then it is Europe’s only desert. Frankly, I’m becoming increasingly dubious about some of these claims – I’ve seen Europe’s biggest cathedral in at least four different places and the country around Tabernas, while very interesting, didn’t look much like a desert to my exacting Australian eyes.
Anyway, Tabernas was very nearly the scene of some tears. According to our guidebook, and to flyers Neil had been collecting, it was the site where many spaghetti westerns were filmed, including a number of the Sergio Leone classics, and studio/sets/shrines to Clint-type places could be visited and enjoyed. Based purely on the name, we selected one Texas Hollywood – it was rubbish. It was so bad, it actually went out the other side and became funny. We cycled through the desert on rocky, dusty roads to pay €15-odd each to look at an old film set, have a ride in a horse-drawn cart and watch a ‘wild west show’ conducted entirely in Spanish which consisted of three men playing cards and fighting in a bar. After going through the rollercoaster of emotions from extreme excitement to utter horror, anger and hostility, we arrived at a kind of mild hysteria which allowed us to appreciate how utterly we’d just been conned and genuinely laugh at a world that produces tourists as gullible as us. And Indiana Jones was filmed there too (no, I don’t know which one – I only glanced at the film stills in the bar)!
Anyway, all of this brings us to the here and now, which is trapped in Mojacar while Neil’s bike is repaired. The original snapped spoke was repaired in a rather slapdash manner, so that eventually the buckle returned and on the way down from Tabernas to the coast a further two spokes snapped and we had to limp into town and seek help. The ride down had been going fantastically well to that point. Great roads with little or no traffic, a light drizzle of rain so that it didn’t get too hot, lightning striking the mountains, Spain’s unfriendliest town (Sorbas – clear inspiration for The Hills Have Eyes), and a period of prolonged filth which left me and everything I own coated completely in mud. Still, it could have been a lot worse and at least it turned out we had alighted in just the right spot! We are staying in a wonderfully quiet and pretty campsite just outside Mojacar town itself, with almond trees all around us to assist in our mission to eat as much food we find on the ground as possible. The woman that runs the campsite is doing us a cheap rate, that has got cheaper the longer we stayed, and two old English brothers that are staying at the site have been immensely helpful. They found us a bike repair shop through a friend who lives locally and drove Neil into the next town to drop his wheel off. Unfortunately, it has taken three days to repair and Neil is off to collect it this afternoon. The brothers are, it goes without saying, utterly mad. A favourite saying, for example, seems to be that the world is run by women and socialists – not the one I’m living in, unfortunately – but have so far seemed largely harmless. We shall buy them some beers to thank them for their help before we head off tomorrow morning. Meantime, I’ve been enjoying a wonderful relax. The campsite has a pool that we’ve had pretty much to ourselves. On Wednesday I walked down to the seafront a couple of kilometres away and found an English bar that put the State of Origin on for me (yay you toadies). Neil joined me after his trip to the bike shop and we spent the rest of the day getting pissed, topped off by a wonderful vege dinner on a rooftop restaurant in Mojacar. There appears to be a massive expat community here but the place itself has very little to recommend it. Still, there’s a communal fridge at the campsite, so we’ve been able to keep cool food that we’ve been avoiding because of the heat and we’ve spent a few days laying about eating and drinking much like big fat Mediterranean cats.
05 June 2007
Map and pin: Conil de la Frontera; Punta Paloma; Algeciras (Gibraltar); Granada.
Last few days have been mad and packed full of really interesting stuff. First of all, we cycled about 55km to Punta Paloma – a very windy 55km. It is worth noting that there are a number of warning signs that cyclists might like to be aware indicate less than ideal cycling conditions ahead. These include massive wind farms, wind sock signs on the side of the road, hotel names like ‘Hotel Hurricane’ and millions of kite surfers. Yes, wind freaks, we’d arrived at the so called ‘wind coast’, world headquarters of wind surfing and kite surfing. It goes without saying that we had no idea we were approaching this and arrived at Punta Paloma gobsmacked to see the sky filled with giant kites and the palm trees horizontal. We set up camp and then wandered down to the beach to soak up the spectacle – and got our second delightful surprise: Africa. From the beach you could see the north coast of Africa rising up on the other side. How cool – I didn’t know it was so close. We had a couple of beers and a nice dinner. Sunday has become our main eating out night as the day in Spain is like Sundays when you were a kid – nothing (except restaurants/bars) is open.
The wind howled all night long and we set off the next morning nothing short of fearful, into what seemed like a strong wind. We were right to be afraid, and it wasn’t a strong wind – that was still to come. Turns out we were riding through the winds that blow between Spain and Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar and although we only did 30-odd km for the day it was absolutely killer. The wind, combined with mountains, was so strong that we had to push the bikes on a number of occasions not because it was too steep but because we were in serious danger of being blown off the road. It was amazing. Just when I was about to despair, having taken over an hour and a half to do less than 10km, we arrived at a bar near the summit of the highest mountain and had a quick beer. Then, bless the spirits of wind, it was all down hill to Algeciras.
We’d planned to camp there, but on arrival we were told that the nearest campsite was back where we’d stayed the night before and quickly changed our mind. Instead, we stayed in a really cheap pension and took the bus to Gibraltar for the evening. What a bizarre place. For the first time since we left England, someone actually checked out passports. Once you’re in, it is genuinely like you are back in England. All the signs are in English, the stores are English, the currency is pounds and pence, the pubs (and the pub food) are English. To be honest, it all seemed a bit run-down and sad. We met a local artist, though, who told us quite a bit about the island and what it was like to live there. We had a pub dinner and a few pints – bought a 50g pouch of tobacco (no, I haven’t quite given up smoking, it would seem) for £1.02!!!!! – bought some wine gums for Neil and wandered around for a while before taking the bus back to Algeciras. It was just €45 for a day trip by ferry to Tanger, and we were sorely tempted to nip over to Africa while we had the chance (just so we’d been) but decided against it. You can’t do everything and the costs for every extra day mount up – we’re already exceeding our budget on a regular basis and have pretty much concluded that we won’t be doing much further travel once we’ve finished this trip, but we’ll see how we go.
Algeciras seemed a very odd place – obviously a major port for travel/trade between Europe and north Africa, which was reflected in a very mixed population, fantastic variety in the food at the local markets and signs in several languages. It’s also home to a massive industrial area and it appeared from the flow of traffic that many locals work on Gibraltar.
Today, we trained it up to Granada – and thank fuck for that because just looking at the mountains through the window made me tired. Met a fellow Aussie traveller – retiree from Adelaide – who was excellent company and we exchanged travel tips. The campsite in Granada is really close to the city, which is brilliant, and we’re here for two nights before heading back down to the coast. According to the map, we’ve got to go over a couple of 1000+m mountains on the way back, so as well as sightseeing we’ve been building up our strength. Granada looks beautiful so far and tomorrow we’ve got a packed itinerary to get through, so I better go have a beer and get camp dinner sorted. My iBook is still not working on wireless, so I’m not sure when this will get posted but if we’ve got some spare time and a free wi-fi connection I’ll see what I can do.
02 June 2007
We appear to be beginning the descent into noisy campsite hell – I write this to the accompaniment of screaming children, loud Spanish pop music, barking dogs, scooters and even the occasional bray of a donkey, although I have no idea where the hell the donkey came from and I did take a walk around the campsite when we arrived. The donkey and the dogs can be quite soothing, but the overall effect is anything but. Last night we had several desperately shouty Spanish families, lead by chief shouter Willy Wanker (so named because he appeared to have his own oompah loompah – sorry, but even I wasn’t brazen enough to take a picture of them six foot away and shouting to each other) who forced me to have a 1am tantrum. I was reduced to shouting random abuse and slamming the pots of our tiny cookset together – the only thing I had that could make noise in any way competitive with several adult shouters, a troupe of monkey children playing with a giant tennis ball and loud Spanish television. At least they made the monkey children stop.
In fairness, you expect Friday and Saturday night at a campsite to be noisy and noise doesn’t generally bother me – let’s face it, I’m damned noisy myself. I think I was particularly pissed off because this was a deeply militant campsite where reception had impressed on me, through the use of words, gestures and pictures, the evil of using any kind of portable music player: antisocial behaviour far more hideous than shouting, playing ball games and watching loud television outside your caravan at 1am. It is probably also worth noting that people who stay in caravans cannot possibly know just how little noise a tent filters out – it’s like wearing ear trumpets as ear plugs.
But enough preliminary moaning, on to the main moan of the day: I have been robbed in the most annoying and disappointing way possible. You expect, travelling like this, that you will get stuff nicked – frankly I figure it’s inevitable. However. Today, while I was at the beach (yes, yes, I am aware that noting I was off swimming in the clear blue Spanish sea at the time is likely to lessen any sympathy I might be due) someone stole my repair kit from my bike. Spare tube, puncture repair kit and a set of allen keys (no idea how you spell that, so apologies if it’s wrong) – not the bag they actually live in, which is strapped under the seat, mind, just the three essential repair items. Total value: £10 maybe. The bike, it goes without saying, was chained up with my fuck off giant bike chain and lock. Okay, so I realise it’s not heart medicine or grandmother’s wedding ring or something, but that’s hardly the point. These three things could *only possibly be of use* to a cyclist. What kind of scumbag bastard cyclist steals another cyclist’s repair kit? Nothing else taken: Ernie and my bike computer still there, Neil’s quick release wheels untouched. Just the three cheap, essential items a cyclist – AND ONLY A CYCLIST – would need if they got a flat tyre.
Obviously, there is no point wishing a flat tyre on him/her as they now have at least one brand new puncture repair kit, and a snapped chain or similar seems a smidgen light as punishment goes. In truth, I hope they accidentally ride into a seemingly empty field and get gored by an angry bull that was only last week, much to the thief’s disappointment, spared by the crowd at the local bullfight because it had fought courageously – poetically leaving him/her to expire slowly from a puncture that no stolen repair kit can mend. Or something similar.
On top of this irritating theft, I discovered that I had lost my travel shampoo (bloody brilliant little shampoo cake from Lush – not tested on animals – with its own little travel tin). Neil, on being told that I couldn’t find it, made things infinitely better by responding: “Oh yes, you’ll have left that at the last campsite - I thought I saw that outside the showers but didn’t think it was yours.” Grrr indeed. There is a horse neighing now, as well.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Where at we are at
I've just added two posts below - one a long update that I've been writing on and off for the last couple of weeks, the other a list of everywhere we have stayed so far.
We're back in Spain and visiting particularly ace places at the moment - Sevilla for a couple of days, Jerez yesterday and today we are in Cadiz. Unfortunately, I have still not got my iBook problems sorted (airport card screwed) so posting is likely to remain intermittent for some time. I have also just uploaded some new pictures on to my Flickr page but as I am using Neil's laptop, which is sadly not my iBook (but works and therefore could be temporarily said to be in some small way at least as good, if possibly just for now not *better* than my iBook) which does not have the same Flickr uploader set up on it, the pictures have no caption information and probably no titles either. Sorry - I'll fix it when I can.
Bloody hell, this is hard work. Fortunately, El Puerto de Santa Maria, where we are currently camping, is a major shipping port for sherry, made both there and just up the road in Jerez, so when I finish this blog entry, and drink the rest of this beer, and catch the ferry across the bay, I'll be able to wind down with a nice glass of sherry. Lucky - it's so important these days to avoid stress.
I will continue to try to tidy things up and add some pictures to these posts. As a quick aside, friends of Owl-boy may be interested to know that he is the Dave of Portugal. Yup, you can't swing a cat without hitting a Joao in the country - the little buggers are everywhere, not to mention sainted all over the shop. Certainly made me giggle a lot.
Best post this now before I use all of Neil's battery and become even more unpopular...
PS JP, you rock for reading and posting a comment. The rest of you probably suck, but I'm willing to entertain unlikely excuses for why you might not be reading/commenting (possibly lack of content might even be one of them).
We're back in Spain and visiting particularly ace places at the moment - Sevilla for a couple of days, Jerez yesterday and today we are in Cadiz. Unfortunately, I have still not got my iBook problems sorted (airport card screwed) so posting is likely to remain intermittent for some time. I have also just uploaded some new pictures on to my Flickr page but as I am using Neil's laptop, which is sadly not my iBook (but works and therefore could be temporarily said to be in some small way at least as good, if possibly just for now not *better* than my iBook) which does not have the same Flickr uploader set up on it, the pictures have no caption information and probably no titles either. Sorry - I'll fix it when I can.
Bloody hell, this is hard work. Fortunately, El Puerto de Santa Maria, where we are currently camping, is a major shipping port for sherry, made both there and just up the road in Jerez, so when I finish this blog entry, and drink the rest of this beer, and catch the ferry across the bay, I'll be able to wind down with a nice glass of sherry. Lucky - it's so important these days to avoid stress.
I will continue to try to tidy things up and add some pictures to these posts. As a quick aside, friends of Owl-boy may be interested to know that he is the Dave of Portugal. Yup, you can't swing a cat without hitting a Joao in the country - the little buggers are everywhere, not to mention sainted all over the shop. Certainly made me giggle a lot.
Best post this now before I use all of Neil's battery and become even more unpopular...
PS JP, you rock for reading and posting a comment. The rest of you probably suck, but I'm willing to entertain unlikely excuses for why you might not be reading/commenting (possibly lack of content might even be one of them).
The rest of Portugal, in brief
26 May 2007
It’s our last night in Portugal, so before summing up I’ll quickly run through the last week in brief:
May 20 – Sagres to Lagos – this was a deeply, deeply unpleasant cycle. Thank your lucky stars I’m writing this a week later or previously inconceivable levels of obscenity and bile would currently be filling these pages. The first 10kms was straight into the most ridiculously strong wind imaginable. I shit you not, the road was lined with shredded wind socks. SHREDDED. This was a wind so strong, that if I stopped pedalling * down* a hill, it would blow me and my bike back up the hill. It was relentless and painful and best never spoken of again. Before we set off on this ride, we visited the end of the world (the lighthouse at Sao Vicente), which was excellent, and the castle at Sagres, which was shit. We stayed in Lagos for three days – it turned out to have a thriving Aussie traveller scene so we did way too much drinking and not a lot else. Apart from Aussies, the place was jam packed full of poms. Mainly old ones. The town had a cool museum but not much else. Prices are starting to rise.
May 23 – Lagos to Albufeira – what a shit hole. Apparently, this is where people go when they visit the Algarve. It could have been anywhere in the world that crappy English tourists descend on en-masse. No character, no nothing. Really expensive and yet tasteless and dull. We watched the Champions League final, but the Liverpool fans weren’t interested in being offended by our cheering and taunting. Afterwards, I met a bunch of people from Leeds; one family in the process of emigrating to Australia. The father is a huge rugby league fan (moving to Melbourne, I might add – someone hasn’t done their homework…) and spent most of the night telling us how his son, a decidedly unhard-looking 10 year old was going to be the greatest rugby league player in the world and will one day play for Australia. I expect it will all end in tears when he turns out to have a passion for nuclear physics or poetry. I was supposed to remember his name but I’ve forgotten it already. The Algarve is rubbish.
May 24 – Albufeira to Olhao – actually, the Algarve has been somewhat redeemed by Olhao and Faro, both of which are really pleasant, interesting places full, largely, of Portuguese tourists. We stayed in Olhao due to an absence of campsite in Faro. We took the train with our bikes between the two, which was really fun – travelling in our own little baggage compartment with the doors open and leaping about like mad things to get our bikes and stuff off when we got to our stop. I have concluded that the reason these places have not been destroyed by hideous English and other foreign tourism is because they have no beaches. Lagoon/wetlands cover the coastline (apparently supplying 90% of Portugal’s mussels and oysters – how’s that for a useless fact) producing waterfronts that look out over stretches of shallow water filled with fishing boats. Does make for delicious seafood, though, so we had dinner along the front just to make sure everything was up to scratch. It was. As US/UK films are screened in Portugal in English with subtitles, we also took the opportunity to catch Pirates and Spidey 3. I will probably bang on about both at some later point, but suffice to say for now that the former was better than expected, the latter not as good – Bruce Campbell probably saved it, though, from a more harsh assessment.
Today – so now we’re in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, our last stop in Portugal before another ferry whisks us back to Spain in the morning. As luck would have it, we’ve arrived on the weekend of the international speed boat championships, which we will shortly be going to watch. I know. You’re thinking: you sly dog Angela, I’ll bet you planned the whole trip so you could be in VRdSA on this particular weekend. But I swear to you, it’s pure coincidence. I mean, of course I dared to hope…
I’ve been thinking about my overall impression of Portugal, and I think my feelings are pretty damn positive on the country as a whole. Most of the Algarve was really, really shit and I would not recommend anyone even consider it for a holiday. Other than that, though (and Sines, don’t go to Sines), it’s been fun. The north in particular was beautiful and interesting; the people were helpful and friendly; the food and drink is great. I enjoyed both Porto and Lisbon, though I think the latter needs a week-long visit of its own to get better acquainted. Some places there was a tedious tendency for people to rip you off, or at least try, which does piss you off after a while. But then I grew up in a tourist town, so I have some sense at least of what locals probably think of us. Highlights (in no particular order): Porto; Viana do Costelo; Lisbon; Zambujeira do Mar; the end of the world; Sao Jacinto (Aviero).
Lowlights: the Algarve, generally; Sines; the place with no name in the middle of nowhere; Madalena.
Best campsite: near Lourical
Worst campsite: the place with no name in the middle of nowhere
In other completely unrelated news, my airport card in my laptop has completely packed it in, meaning that I am off wireless until I can find someone to install a new one. And I’ve lost a filling. I now need to find an English-speaking dentist. I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with any perceived difference in quality/competency/etc between a dentist who speaks English and one who speaks Portuguese/Spanish/etc. I am shit scared of the dentist and I need the dentist to know that so he/she can be extra, extra careful – I also need to explain very clearly that while there may be other cavities, etc, in there, or other dental matters which need addressing, I only want the filling that has fallen out replaced. I am hoping that the bit of the Spanish coast where all the expat English gather will have someone who can help me.
So, it would seem that my worst fears have been confirmed, regarding the airport card. In a bar with free wi-fi, iBee fell over repeatedly, but now that I’m back at the campsite, everything seems to be okay. Neil is already snoring in the tent, which at least conserves light, one of our major concerns. Barbelith has come through with some addresses of places I might try for Mac assistance at least. Bless you all, you brains trust of compassionate people. I can’t begin to explain how utterly fearful being ibee less would make me, but hopefully, this ill can be dealt with. At least I feel now that it’s not just complete death that he is facing, but a specific problem which might easily and comfortably be solved. I look forward not just to a good day’s cycling and seeing tomorrow, but hopefully a cure for whatever ails iBee.
19 May 2007
We’re in Sagres, which appears, disappointingly, not to be the home of the beer we have been so enjoying during most of our stay in Portugal. In fact, it doesn’t appear to be the home of much at all. Except for a large ant population that descended upon our tent, and Neil’s panniers in particular, during our absence and has left him in a foul mood for the evening’s tent time.
Bob, our tent, has had his first injury. Nothing too serious – from the safety of Neil’s bag, the phone monkey and a pair of clippers, conspired to burn a hole in Bob – although in truth the incident could have been serious, so all’s well that ends well. We were lying in the tent in Zambujeira do Mar (of which more in a moment) when a strange smell assailed us. I thought it must be gas, but it continued to get stronger. Then, reaching for a cotton bud from his bag, Neil discovered that the smell was coming from the foot of the tent and comedic panic ensued as we threw everything from the tent in a bid to not die in the world’s smallest hostel (tent) fire. Turned out that the phone monkey/nail clipper combo had burned a hole through Neil’s bag, his sleeping mat, the tent and the ground sheet. However patching has been carried out and hopefully Bob will soldier on and wear his scars with pride.
Oddly, this incident came at the end of a near perfect day – the 70-odd-km to Z-d-M had been relatively easy and we had actually taken a mystery road, when pretty much completely lost, that turned out to be that most magical of things – a shortcut that worked. We emerged onto the road we should have been on all along with a scant 5km to go to the campsite. Which was lovely. And easy to find. And close to the town. Which was lovely. And full of little restaurants and bars. We walked around the headland that overlooks magnificent rocky coastline and down onto the town’s main beach for a quick dip. The water was crisp but wonderful and there was just enough swell to make for a pleasant and refreshing swim. There was a small shop in the town able to supply us with the essentials and the beer was cheap. Overall a beautiful place and I would recommend it as one of the nicest spots I’ve seen in Portugal.
Today’ ride was a little more like hard work, although only about 10km further than yesterday. The road wound inland for a bit, which is the universal signal for HILLS. There was quite a lot of uphill work but it was pretty gradual so bearable in the end. Sagres itself is a bit of a nothing – a small town with lots of bars but no tourists at present so oddly forlorn. We watched the end of the FA Cup final, by chance (sucked in Man Utd and all your irritating fans), in a rather expensive bar, but then made up for it by having a delicious and v cheap omelette dinner in a small snack bar in the main square. Tomorrow, we shall visit the end of the world – Cabo Sao Vincente – and the fort of Sagres before pushing on to Lagos which our rubbish guide book claims has the best museum in Portugal. It should at least have a store where Neil can buy some new gloves and a spoke tool to straighten the buckle out of his wheel. Hopefully we can also buy a battery charger so that we might have light after the sun goes down, a revolutionary idea which might just change the way we live and aid our development somehow…
16 May 2007
The stench of oil and a plague of flying spiders – ah, Sines, how to describe thee. I’ll gloss over it for a moment and go back to our departure from Lisbon. After some small confusion over the departure point, we found the appropriate ferry and were on our way to costa da caparica, well except for the usual motorway avoidance issues and a 10km trip becomes 20km. A relatively sleepy spot, in the middle of nowhere, given that it’s terribly close to Lisbon. Still, there were a couple of nice bars and apart from the infestation of cats, the campsite was okay. Then it was on to the place with no name. I shall not speak of this, because I believe Neil is preparing an entry on that particular hellish-ness. Suffice it to say, we cycled over 100km for the first time in a single day and not by intention.
Genuine travel tip of actual value to anyone visiting Portugal or Spain!! I know that, largely, little of real lasting value has come from these pages so far, but if you still choose to visit Vigo and Ribadasella at least take away this – on a Sunday, many major tourist attractions are free before 2pm in Portugal and all day in Spain. So make a note – closed on Monday, free on Sunday between 10am and 2pm/all day. And it helps to pretend you are actually catholic, if you’ve the stomach for it, when you visit cathedrals, because you can easily queue jump by looking suitably pious. A look, which it probably goes without saying, we didn’t achieve.
Anyhoo, despite Sines being uniformly unpleasant, and I do mean unremitting, the campsite has been passable and has allowed me to clean all of my clothes. Oddly enough, I’ve become quite precious about hand washing. I mean, before now, I would have said that if you know it’s been cleaned, who cares what it looks like – right? Well, actually, handwashing makes me care. I realise attitudes may differ (and I accept that the answer to the last question for many people may have been different – its probably just me who doesn’t care if they look like shit), but handwashing is actually really hard work. When I spend half an hour scrubbing shit out of my clothes, I want the buggers to look clean. It’s not enough to know they * are * clean, I want that clean clothes non-scummy look. Who knew travelling would make me so vain. Sadly, I haven’t achieved that with today’s batch of washing, but I live in hope.
Things wrong with the world today – episode 1: you can’t buy anything small anymore. When you want just one, or at most two rolls of toilet paper, do you thing you can buy that? No. Can I get a tiny bottle of olive oil? Or of washing detergent? Jam? Shampoo? The concept of under-consumption is the anathema of modern retailing it would appear and we are reduced to ‘reprovisioning’ from hotel rooms, but that’s another story.
The big questions: who, and based on what information, decided that people who use campsites don’t want or need toilet seats? I mean, I know I’m your typical southern nancy city type, but still, if you’re going to provide toilets, is it really outrageous to think you might go the extra mile and give me a seat? Actually, I didn’t even think of it as the extra mile before now – I mean, I understand supplying your own toilet paper, but your own seat??
Neil was going to the supermarket on his bike for wine and other sundries. He’s been gone some time and had drunk several beers before leaving. I better save this and start combing the streets for road kill…
It’s our last night in Portugal, so before summing up I’ll quickly run through the last week in brief:
May 20 – Sagres to Lagos – this was a deeply, deeply unpleasant cycle. Thank your lucky stars I’m writing this a week later or previously inconceivable levels of obscenity and bile would currently be filling these pages. The first 10kms was straight into the most ridiculously strong wind imaginable. I shit you not, the road was lined with shredded wind socks. SHREDDED. This was a wind so strong, that if I stopped pedalling * down* a hill, it would blow me and my bike back up the hill. It was relentless and painful and best never spoken of again. Before we set off on this ride, we visited the end of the world (the lighthouse at Sao Vicente), which was excellent, and the castle at Sagres, which was shit. We stayed in Lagos for three days – it turned out to have a thriving Aussie traveller scene so we did way too much drinking and not a lot else. Apart from Aussies, the place was jam packed full of poms. Mainly old ones. The town had a cool museum but not much else. Prices are starting to rise.
May 23 – Lagos to Albufeira – what a shit hole. Apparently, this is where people go when they visit the Algarve. It could have been anywhere in the world that crappy English tourists descend on en-masse. No character, no nothing. Really expensive and yet tasteless and dull. We watched the Champions League final, but the Liverpool fans weren’t interested in being offended by our cheering and taunting. Afterwards, I met a bunch of people from Leeds; one family in the process of emigrating to Australia. The father is a huge rugby league fan (moving to Melbourne, I might add – someone hasn’t done their homework…) and spent most of the night telling us how his son, a decidedly unhard-looking 10 year old was going to be the greatest rugby league player in the world and will one day play for Australia. I expect it will all end in tears when he turns out to have a passion for nuclear physics or poetry. I was supposed to remember his name but I’ve forgotten it already. The Algarve is rubbish.
May 24 – Albufeira to Olhao – actually, the Algarve has been somewhat redeemed by Olhao and Faro, both of which are really pleasant, interesting places full, largely, of Portuguese tourists. We stayed in Olhao due to an absence of campsite in Faro. We took the train with our bikes between the two, which was really fun – travelling in our own little baggage compartment with the doors open and leaping about like mad things to get our bikes and stuff off when we got to our stop. I have concluded that the reason these places have not been destroyed by hideous English and other foreign tourism is because they have no beaches. Lagoon/wetlands cover the coastline (apparently supplying 90% of Portugal’s mussels and oysters – how’s that for a useless fact) producing waterfronts that look out over stretches of shallow water filled with fishing boats. Does make for delicious seafood, though, so we had dinner along the front just to make sure everything was up to scratch. It was. As US/UK films are screened in Portugal in English with subtitles, we also took the opportunity to catch Pirates and Spidey 3. I will probably bang on about both at some later point, but suffice to say for now that the former was better than expected, the latter not as good – Bruce Campbell probably saved it, though, from a more harsh assessment.
Today – so now we’re in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, our last stop in Portugal before another ferry whisks us back to Spain in the morning. As luck would have it, we’ve arrived on the weekend of the international speed boat championships, which we will shortly be going to watch. I know. You’re thinking: you sly dog Angela, I’ll bet you planned the whole trip so you could be in VRdSA on this particular weekend. But I swear to you, it’s pure coincidence. I mean, of course I dared to hope…
I’ve been thinking about my overall impression of Portugal, and I think my feelings are pretty damn positive on the country as a whole. Most of the Algarve was really, really shit and I would not recommend anyone even consider it for a holiday. Other than that, though (and Sines, don’t go to Sines), it’s been fun. The north in particular was beautiful and interesting; the people were helpful and friendly; the food and drink is great. I enjoyed both Porto and Lisbon, though I think the latter needs a week-long visit of its own to get better acquainted. Some places there was a tedious tendency for people to rip you off, or at least try, which does piss you off after a while. But then I grew up in a tourist town, so I have some sense at least of what locals probably think of us. Highlights (in no particular order): Porto; Viana do Costelo; Lisbon; Zambujeira do Mar; the end of the world; Sao Jacinto (Aviero).
Lowlights: the Algarve, generally; Sines; the place with no name in the middle of nowhere; Madalena.
Best campsite: near Lourical
Worst campsite: the place with no name in the middle of nowhere
In other completely unrelated news, my airport card in my laptop has completely packed it in, meaning that I am off wireless until I can find someone to install a new one. And I’ve lost a filling. I now need to find an English-speaking dentist. I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with any perceived difference in quality/competency/etc between a dentist who speaks English and one who speaks Portuguese/Spanish/etc. I am shit scared of the dentist and I need the dentist to know that so he/she can be extra, extra careful – I also need to explain very clearly that while there may be other cavities, etc, in there, or other dental matters which need addressing, I only want the filling that has fallen out replaced. I am hoping that the bit of the Spanish coast where all the expat English gather will have someone who can help me.
So, it would seem that my worst fears have been confirmed, regarding the airport card. In a bar with free wi-fi, iBee fell over repeatedly, but now that I’m back at the campsite, everything seems to be okay. Neil is already snoring in the tent, which at least conserves light, one of our major concerns. Barbelith has come through with some addresses of places I might try for Mac assistance at least. Bless you all, you brains trust of compassionate people. I can’t begin to explain how utterly fearful being ibee less would make me, but hopefully, this ill can be dealt with. At least I feel now that it’s not just complete death that he is facing, but a specific problem which might easily and comfortably be solved. I look forward not just to a good day’s cycling and seeing tomorrow, but hopefully a cure for whatever ails iBee.
19 May 2007
We’re in Sagres, which appears, disappointingly, not to be the home of the beer we have been so enjoying during most of our stay in Portugal. In fact, it doesn’t appear to be the home of much at all. Except for a large ant population that descended upon our tent, and Neil’s panniers in particular, during our absence and has left him in a foul mood for the evening’s tent time.
Bob, our tent, has had his first injury. Nothing too serious – from the safety of Neil’s bag, the phone monkey and a pair of clippers, conspired to burn a hole in Bob – although in truth the incident could have been serious, so all’s well that ends well. We were lying in the tent in Zambujeira do Mar (of which more in a moment) when a strange smell assailed us. I thought it must be gas, but it continued to get stronger. Then, reaching for a cotton bud from his bag, Neil discovered that the smell was coming from the foot of the tent and comedic panic ensued as we threw everything from the tent in a bid to not die in the world’s smallest hostel (tent) fire. Turned out that the phone monkey/nail clipper combo had burned a hole through Neil’s bag, his sleeping mat, the tent and the ground sheet. However patching has been carried out and hopefully Bob will soldier on and wear his scars with pride.
Oddly, this incident came at the end of a near perfect day – the 70-odd-km to Z-d-M had been relatively easy and we had actually taken a mystery road, when pretty much completely lost, that turned out to be that most magical of things – a shortcut that worked. We emerged onto the road we should have been on all along with a scant 5km to go to the campsite. Which was lovely. And easy to find. And close to the town. Which was lovely. And full of little restaurants and bars. We walked around the headland that overlooks magnificent rocky coastline and down onto the town’s main beach for a quick dip. The water was crisp but wonderful and there was just enough swell to make for a pleasant and refreshing swim. There was a small shop in the town able to supply us with the essentials and the beer was cheap. Overall a beautiful place and I would recommend it as one of the nicest spots I’ve seen in Portugal.
Today’ ride was a little more like hard work, although only about 10km further than yesterday. The road wound inland for a bit, which is the universal signal for HILLS. There was quite a lot of uphill work but it was pretty gradual so bearable in the end. Sagres itself is a bit of a nothing – a small town with lots of bars but no tourists at present so oddly forlorn. We watched the end of the FA Cup final, by chance (sucked in Man Utd and all your irritating fans), in a rather expensive bar, but then made up for it by having a delicious and v cheap omelette dinner in a small snack bar in the main square. Tomorrow, we shall visit the end of the world – Cabo Sao Vincente – and the fort of Sagres before pushing on to Lagos which our rubbish guide book claims has the best museum in Portugal. It should at least have a store where Neil can buy some new gloves and a spoke tool to straighten the buckle out of his wheel. Hopefully we can also buy a battery charger so that we might have light after the sun goes down, a revolutionary idea which might just change the way we live and aid our development somehow…
16 May 2007
The stench of oil and a plague of flying spiders – ah, Sines, how to describe thee. I’ll gloss over it for a moment and go back to our departure from Lisbon. After some small confusion over the departure point, we found the appropriate ferry and were on our way to costa da caparica, well except for the usual motorway avoidance issues and a 10km trip becomes 20km. A relatively sleepy spot, in the middle of nowhere, given that it’s terribly close to Lisbon. Still, there were a couple of nice bars and apart from the infestation of cats, the campsite was okay. Then it was on to the place with no name. I shall not speak of this, because I believe Neil is preparing an entry on that particular hellish-ness. Suffice it to say, we cycled over 100km for the first time in a single day and not by intention.
Genuine travel tip of actual value to anyone visiting Portugal or Spain!! I know that, largely, little of real lasting value has come from these pages so far, but if you still choose to visit Vigo and Ribadasella at least take away this – on a Sunday, many major tourist attractions are free before 2pm in Portugal and all day in Spain. So make a note – closed on Monday, free on Sunday between 10am and 2pm/all day. And it helps to pretend you are actually catholic, if you’ve the stomach for it, when you visit cathedrals, because you can easily queue jump by looking suitably pious. A look, which it probably goes without saying, we didn’t achieve.
Anyhoo, despite Sines being uniformly unpleasant, and I do mean unremitting, the campsite has been passable and has allowed me to clean all of my clothes. Oddly enough, I’ve become quite precious about hand washing. I mean, before now, I would have said that if you know it’s been cleaned, who cares what it looks like – right? Well, actually, handwashing makes me care. I realise attitudes may differ (and I accept that the answer to the last question for many people may have been different – its probably just me who doesn’t care if they look like shit), but handwashing is actually really hard work. When I spend half an hour scrubbing shit out of my clothes, I want the buggers to look clean. It’s not enough to know they * are * clean, I want that clean clothes non-scummy look. Who knew travelling would make me so vain. Sadly, I haven’t achieved that with today’s batch of washing, but I live in hope.
Things wrong with the world today – episode 1: you can’t buy anything small anymore. When you want just one, or at most two rolls of toilet paper, do you thing you can buy that? No. Can I get a tiny bottle of olive oil? Or of washing detergent? Jam? Shampoo? The concept of under-consumption is the anathema of modern retailing it would appear and we are reduced to ‘reprovisioning’ from hotel rooms, but that’s another story.
The big questions: who, and based on what information, decided that people who use campsites don’t want or need toilet seats? I mean, I know I’m your typical southern nancy city type, but still, if you’re going to provide toilets, is it really outrageous to think you might go the extra mile and give me a seat? Actually, I didn’t even think of it as the extra mile before now – I mean, I understand supplying your own toilet paper, but your own seat??
Neil was going to the supermarket on his bike for wine and other sundries. He’s been gone some time and had drunk several beers before leaving. I better save this and start combing the streets for road kill…
Join the dots
Okay, map and pin people – and I know you’re out there – here’s something I should have done from the start, but with a completed country under our belt now seems as good a time as any to catch up. From now on I’ll try to include updates when I add stuff to the blog, but here is the list of places we’ve stayed (in order) so far:
Bilbao
Castro Urdiales
Laredo
Santona
Loredo
Santander
San Vicente
Ribadesella
Gijon
Luanco
Cudillero
Luarca
Barreiros
Ortiguera
Valdovino
A Coruna
Santiago
Pontevedra
Samil (Vigo)
A Guarda
Viana do Castelo
Porto
Madalena
Sao Jacinto (Avierro)
Figueira de Foz
Coimbra
Lourical
Nazare
Peniche
Santa Cruz
Lisbon
Costa da Caparica
??
Sines
Zambujeira do Mar
Sagres
Lagos
Alufeira
Olhao
Vila Real de Santo Antonio
Isla Christina
Punta Umbria
Sevilla
El Puerto de Santa Maria
Bilbao
Castro Urdiales
Laredo
Santona
Loredo
Santander
San Vicente
Ribadesella
Gijon
Luanco
Cudillero
Luarca
Barreiros
Ortiguera
Valdovino
A Coruna
Santiago
Pontevedra
Samil (Vigo)
A Guarda
Viana do Castelo
Porto
Madalena
Sao Jacinto (Avierro)
Figueira de Foz
Coimbra
Lourical
Nazare
Peniche
Santa Cruz
Lisbon
Costa da Caparica
??
Sines
Zambujeira do Mar
Sagres
Lagos
Alufeira
Olhao
Vila Real de Santo Antonio
Isla Christina
Punta Umbria
Sevilla
El Puerto de Santa Maria
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Ola from Lisbon. I've finally caved in and paid the €5 for wi-fi access, thus this long overdue update. Lisbon rocks. We arrived yesterday and spent today looking around the city. Despite yet more mad Portuguese drivers, the city is fantastic. A great mix of people, wonderful buildings, a proper city feel - I think it's my favourite place so far and I could probably live here.
A quick update on where we've been since my last entry below. We spent a night in Coimbra - it turned out to be the week of graduation celebrations, with pissed up students all over the city all night. It was ace.
From there we visited some roman ruins before staying in our best campsite yet. Once again, it was nowhere near the place it *claimed* to be located in, but my righteous anger was thwarted when the guy turned out to be too lovely to be snidey to and the campsite was in a beautiful woodland with chickens roaming free and a little town with one bar up the road.
Then it was on to Nazare - although, this was via a fuck-off detour once again caused by motorways. Damn you, motorists and roadbuilders, is it too much to ask that we have a couple of roads that cycles can go on?? We turned up in Leiria, having carefully planned our route (well, Neil had) only to discover that we couldn't take a road south and had to go out to the coast to camp for a couple of nights instead of going straight down. However, Nazare was typically seasidey and quite nice. And it had a funicular railway, so there's that. From there, we took a bus to Alcobaca and Batalha to see the cathedrals there - two of the top sites in Portugal, apparently. They were both magnificent - the former better inside, the latter more impressive out.
However, both were trumped for eerie beauty by Obidos, which we visited on our way to Peniche. A walled city which is perfectly preserved, capped by a castle and baking hot in the Portuguese sun. We wandered around for a couple of hours before Neil died from the heat and had to be revived. What to say about Peniche? The campsite was just over €3 a night - about it really. In complete opposition to all normal (and I use that word under advisement) Portuguese practice, everything shut at 5pm, including the prison that I was hoping to visit - it's a museum now, disappointingly.
Our stay in Peniche was followed by what shall hence forth be known as Fuck Off Thursday - single worst day for shitty stupid stuff so far. Started with a flat tyre due to a split valve before we even left the campsite - mine, of course. Then, when we had got about 17km up the road, we discovered that I did not have Solio! This required a 35km-odd round trip by Angela back to the campsite, where Solio was happily sitting on the ground soaking up the sun. After this, we toddled on to Santa Cruz where the day was capped with the discovery that I had managed to lose my only long sleeve shirt. Nice. We met a very groovy Portuguese man in Santa Cruz, however, who cheered me up no end by chatting to us for ages and telling us all about the area. The campsite was close to town the coast was beautiful and it turned out to be less evil a day than it had so far been shaping up.
I've posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr, but I don't have time to put them up on the blog at the moment, as I've only paid for an hour of internet and I'm almost out of time. Interesting side note - it is outrageously expensive to call Australia from Portugal. I get 9 minutes for €5 if I buy a phone card!
A further update soon is promised, but I must post this now in case I encounter any problems. Plus, there is Lisbon nightlife to be tasted, you know. Apologies in advance if there are any errors in this - I will re-read when I have time and correct, so don't bother emailing, you bastards.
4 May 2007
We’re still in Portugal, which is probably why I haven’t yet posted this: still no wi-fi access. I have bought a CD-RW which I will transfer the blog entries to and visit some kind of ‘internet café’ – how primitive. Tonight we’re in Figueira de Foz – we’ve seen sod all of it, to be honest, because Neil somehow misjudged the distance from Avierro to here by about 20km (under, it goes without saying) and we were absolutely knackered when we arrived. Set up camp, went to the supermarket for supplies, ate noodles and now we are chilling for the evening. Seems a nice enough spot, although the campsite charges for hot showers, which seems a bit rugged.
Spent a couple of nights just outside Avierro and took the ferry over the first day for a look around and today to head on south. Treated ourselves to a proper lunch out yesterday, and what a delightful treat it was. Superb seafood – I had whole grilled fish and Neil had squid and prawns grilled ‘on the spit’, as they say (in what is no doubt an appalling mis-translation on the menu). Neil is struggling a little in the seafood department because he won’t eat whole fishes, and apparently it has nothing to do with the eyes watching him. Made a nice change from cheese sandwiches, which is the most common lunch dish we have.
Not today, mind you – today we bought half a kilo of strawberries for 90c (euro) from a roadside stand. These were the ‘middle’ quality and were ridiculously delicious. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t opt for the luxury €2.25 a kilo grade or we would have exploded with strawberry goodness. Went to the porcelain factory and museum at Vista Alegre in the morning, which you’ll just have to take my word was very interesting – oldest porcelain maker in Portugal, you know, and world-renowned. A small but exquisite porcelain gift will be winging its way to Mum by the time this is posted – in fact, in an awesome stroke of good fortune, it may even appear to have been bought for mother’s day (if that is this Sunday in Australia, as it is in Portugal, and not about two months ago as it was in the UK).
We’ve set our old incredibly crap lamp free and invested in a new one, which is much brighter, lighter, more compact and sticks to the tent using magnets. Cool. Sunshine is still a bit intermittent to charge all our solar rechargers, but we’re just about getting by. I’m really loving Portugal, despite the weather being less upbeat than expected. The people are excellent, friendly and helpful everywhere we go. If I could just take their cars away, it would be a very pleasant country indeed – but more of that another time no doubt.
Tomorrow we head inland to Coimbra, and my fingers will be firmly crossed for a reasonably flat run – it’s not that far, but today was pretty taxing so a slightly gentler ride would be appreciated. Must conserve iBook battery. More soon.
1 May 2007
Wi-fi access so far in Portugal hasn’t been a patch on that in Spain, as you’ve probably guessed. All over Spain there were unsecured networks, free in bars and hotels, accessible all over the place. You just had to find a decent hotel with a square or a bar/café nearby and Bob’s your uncle. In Portugal, on the other hand, there appears to be a wi-fi service that has done deals with major chains of hotels, etc, and charges you exorbitant rates (€5 an hour) for access in lots of different places. Still, we’ll go hover outside some swanky hotel and see if we can’t hijack somebody else’s service.
Another valuable lesson has been learned. Despite my reservations, we decided to make a run for it straight to Porto on Saturday. About 65kms of great cycling was followed by 5kms of steep hills on really busy roads and then the usual disaster of trying to get into a major city – the road we have been using all day magically turns into a motorway (which bikes can’t go on) and we are left with no indication of how to proceed. Neil managed to ‘overlook’ a map in the book that would have helped us get in and we ended up spending another 15kms finally getting to a pension in the city. The new rule is that we stay no more than 40kms from any major city we intend to visit (I might add that this happens every fucking time – no-one gives a shit how you get into a city if you are not in a car). Admittedly, I already knew we should do this but backed down for some strange reason when Neil seemed all enthused for doing the journey in one day. Never again.
Anyhoo, Porto was wonderful – what a beautiful city. On first arrival, particularly on bikes, one is struck by the ridiculously hilly setting, but once you’ve got rid of your bikes, had a shower and a beer, it becomes apparent that this is actually a wonderful thing and adds to the charm of the place. Drank some great port, did some sightseeing, relaxed by the side of the river – it was all good and I highly recommend the place to anyone. It does seem very spread out, though, with little bars and restaurants scattered all over the place. Also, we struggled to find much in the way of nightlife although I’m willing to believe we just didn’t know where to look. According to one guide map, ‘young people’ head out to Foz for bars and clubs, but as I’d already seen that area on the way in, I couldn’t be asked to go out there exploring. On our second night we did some port tasting and had dinner on the wine cellar side of the river – it chucked it down rain on the way home, but fortunately we were quite pissed by then and didn’t really care. Bizarrely, we ran into the slightly creepy Germans who we had spent the night chatting with at the last campsite. What are the chances?
Today we are just around the coast in Madalena – camping for two nights so that we can wash and dry some clothes. The weather is terrible – it rained all night and most of this morning and the wind is really cold. If you can stay in the sun and out of the wind, it is okay, but I suspect we will probably be facing constant showers on and off for most of the day. Add to that the fact that we are out of gas for cooking and you’ve got a pretty sorry looking camp night two ahead. Still, tomorrow we’ll be off again and heading down towards Aveiro, hopefully along a nice flat coast road. Salad and cheese for dinner will be fine, but absence of hot drinks for 24 hours could cause serious problems. I’ll probably just eat coffee or something. Maybe if I stand a pot of water in what little sun there is for long enough…
27 April 20007
Bloody hell – was that two days ago? We’re in Portugal! Country 2 – although Spain is only in temporary abeyance, of course. Pontevedra to Samil (Vigo) was a bit of a bloody nightmare, to be honest. We made the 1,000km mark, it pissed down rain and was freezing cold. We ended up in Vigo around lunch time, the entire place was packed full of cunts driving like maniacs (you might think something like that would be difficult to distinguish, but then you’ve clearly never seen the drivers of Vigo). We had lunch in Vigo. Vigo sucks. I have absolutely no basis for saying that except that I had a really shit couple of hours getting into and out of the place. And they drive like cunts. It is probably a really nice city (there were certain indications of this that I was able to ignore through the caked on filth from the road, constant rain and freezing wind, and the drivers). However, in all good faith I cannot recommend it.
Samil, on the other hand, is ace. Basically, go straight through Vigo (trying not to get killed by the drivers – I think we’re all clear on what they are by now) as quickly as possible and get to the beach on the other side. When we arrived the sun came out, birds sang in the trees, the flowers opened – it was all a bit Disney, frankly. But hey, when you’ve been rained on and sprayed in shit by trucks for the last 50km, you’re genuinely susceptible to that crap, you know? Such a nice campsite man, as well. Beautiful beach but a depressingly large McDonalds – still haven’t seen that many of them, to be honest, so when you encounter one in anything other than a city centre, the resentment surfaces.
Pleasant walk along the beach followed by a couple of beers, camp dinner (I believe that night was packet soup with added fresh vegetables – mmmmm, delicious), then off to find a pub that had the champions league semi on. Nothing on the front appeared to be showing it, so we struck off a small country lane that alleged the presence of a bar. We were despairing when finally it appeared on the side road, the only warning a car park with no cars in. Turned out to be a fabulous, old-men-in-jumpers pub (I will detail my old men in jumpers approach to Spanish bars at a later point when time permits). Watched the football accompanied by many wonderful snacks and Spanish beer and then staggered back down the hill to the tent.
The cycling has only got better since we broke the 1,000km mark – from Samil to A Guarda was fantastic – all rolling coasts and gentle hills. The road hugged the coastline giving magnificent views of hills, rocks and proper, proper sea. Wind behind us all the way, lunch on a headland with rock pools full of crabs and shellfish, the landscape littered with lighthouses and seaside convents. Then we reached A Guarda, which seemed so beautiful, nestled between two mountains looking across to Portugal. Sadly, things came a bit unstuck thanks to misinformation in the guidebook – Officino de Tourismo Galicia, I’m looking at you. Basically, the campsite claimed to be open all year round and it was shut. The only other campsite nearby – about 5kms, allegedly – turned out to be imaginary, as far as we could tell. We certainly never found the fucker. What we did find, however, was a windy mountainous road that ran straight into a vicious headwind. Once again, the hardest cycling of the day was actually done trying to find somewhere to stay.
I was all for just camping next to the campsite (why should anyone in the town benefit financially from the misinformation provided by the tourist info office, I ask??) but Neil wanted to get a pension for the night. Still a bit soft, when it comes to camping I’m afraid. A Guarda itself was okay – there is a watchtower on the hill in the town (which was completely impregnable, so obviously very effective as a watchtower, though slightly less so as a tourist attraction). The main attractions are the ruins of a roman village and a cathedral which are both up a mountain overlooking Spain and Portugal. Very cool and we had the whole place to ourselves to wander around.
With nary a glance from anyone at something so flimsy as a passport, we took the ferry from A Guarda to Caminha – for the outrageous fee of 75cents each with bicicletas, I might add – and we’re in Portugal. Instantly, the drivers make those of Vigo seem like advertisements for road safety. I sense a public service announcement looming on these blog pages in the coming weeks. Still, the road itself was wonderfully flat, ridiculously bumpy and had a wide hard shoulder which you could ride on with lots of space if little comfort. Our first stop was in Viana do Castelo, which is a lot bigger than I expected and also quite impressive. Double thumbs up for an excellent tourist office with a great tourist office dude – fluent English, really friendly and offered some suggestions on things we might like to do – a great bookshop with a solid collection of English-Portuguese phrase books and dictionaries and even (gasp) an English language guide to Portugal, and the cheapest beer we’ve had so far.
Our campsite is actually out on a headland, separated from the town by a working port so we had to take the ferry home from town after sightseeing - €1.50 each with bicicletas, twice the price of country-hopping, for the love of Thor. V cheap campsite, though, so we made some of the excessive fare price back that way. Took the bicicletas up to the massive Templo de St Luzia via a funicular railway and then cycled back down the hill. Sadly, what should have been a fun freewheel was somewhat marred by cobbled-bastarding-roads, as they are commonly known. Neil gets a particularl pain-face on when we have to ride over them for extended periods of time – I’ll try to get a picture. Overall, my first Portuguese stop has been very pleasant. Sat around chatting at the campsite with an only slightly creepy German couple (very nice really, just the references to frolics with Portuguese ‘young people’ that made me watch for hammer-shaped shadows on the tent during the night). The local people generally seem really nice and look at me only slightly askance when I start speaking poor Spanish, swear loudly in English when I realise I’m using the wrong language, then start spouting random vaguely Portuguese-sounding words – as I have done in most transactions or conversations of any kind so far. It’s morning now (Saturday 28 April) and we’re trying to decide whether to make a run straight through to Porto or camp for a couple of nights before we get there. We spend two nights in each decent-sized city and now (through painful experience) try to avoid our full day in town falling on a Monday when everything of interest is shut. It’s not that far, but we also look like filthy Dickensian urchins, smeared from head to foot, and on all our clothes, with soot-like black grease so a camping stop would give us an opportunity to clean up somewhat. Oh well, you get used to the grease after a while…
25 April 2007
RAIN. Six kilometres from the 1000km mark, two days from the Portuguese border and it is absolutely pissing it down. Bastard. We’re holed up in a room in Pontevedra watching the rain come down but in roughly an hour we’ll be packing our bikes and getting nice and drippy. Fortunately, it’s only 30km to Vigo and our next campsite, so hopefully we can make the journey without going mad. Yes, I did say campsite. Won’t that be fun.
Nice town Pontevedra, although its charm is somewhat dampened by the aforementioned rain. Lots of historic buildings and a cathedral built in the shape of a clam, roughly. We had a delicious dinner last night and a bit too much to drink, which should both prepare us nicely for today’s cycling.
Public service notice: cats and hedgehogs of Spain – stay away from the roads. It is * not * safe. You are dying in your droves. I know the other side of the road can seem exotic, romantic even, but it’s not worth it. I implore you to believe me – the grass is * not* greener on the other side. The best, most friendly, exciting and fulfilling cat/hedgehog environment is on the side of the road * you are already on*. Crossing kills: stay where you are.
The most disappointing word in Spanish so far is ferreteria. Rather than a place where ferrets run wild, filled with tiny ferret-sized furnishings and fittings and equipped with many many brightly coloured pipes, wheels and other fun things for ferrets to do, it is in fact a hardware shop. Poor form.
A quick update on where we've been since my last entry below. We spent a night in Coimbra - it turned out to be the week of graduation celebrations, with pissed up students all over the city all night. It was ace.
From there we visited some roman ruins before staying in our best campsite yet. Once again, it was nowhere near the place it *claimed* to be located in, but my righteous anger was thwarted when the guy turned out to be too lovely to be snidey to and the campsite was in a beautiful woodland with chickens roaming free and a little town with one bar up the road.
Then it was on to Nazare - although, this was via a fuck-off detour once again caused by motorways. Damn you, motorists and roadbuilders, is it too much to ask that we have a couple of roads that cycles can go on?? We turned up in Leiria, having carefully planned our route (well, Neil had) only to discover that we couldn't take a road south and had to go out to the coast to camp for a couple of nights instead of going straight down. However, Nazare was typically seasidey and quite nice. And it had a funicular railway, so there's that. From there, we took a bus to Alcobaca and Batalha to see the cathedrals there - two of the top sites in Portugal, apparently. They were both magnificent - the former better inside, the latter more impressive out.
However, both were trumped for eerie beauty by Obidos, which we visited on our way to Peniche. A walled city which is perfectly preserved, capped by a castle and baking hot in the Portuguese sun. We wandered around for a couple of hours before Neil died from the heat and had to be revived. What to say about Peniche? The campsite was just over €3 a night - about it really. In complete opposition to all normal (and I use that word under advisement) Portuguese practice, everything shut at 5pm, including the prison that I was hoping to visit - it's a museum now, disappointingly.
Our stay in Peniche was followed by what shall hence forth be known as Fuck Off Thursday - single worst day for shitty stupid stuff so far. Started with a flat tyre due to a split valve before we even left the campsite - mine, of course. Then, when we had got about 17km up the road, we discovered that I did not have Solio! This required a 35km-odd round trip by Angela back to the campsite, where Solio was happily sitting on the ground soaking up the sun. After this, we toddled on to Santa Cruz where the day was capped with the discovery that I had managed to lose my only long sleeve shirt. Nice. We met a very groovy Portuguese man in Santa Cruz, however, who cheered me up no end by chatting to us for ages and telling us all about the area. The campsite was close to town the coast was beautiful and it turned out to be less evil a day than it had so far been shaping up.
I've posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr, but I don't have time to put them up on the blog at the moment, as I've only paid for an hour of internet and I'm almost out of time. Interesting side note - it is outrageously expensive to call Australia from Portugal. I get 9 minutes for €5 if I buy a phone card!
A further update soon is promised, but I must post this now in case I encounter any problems. Plus, there is Lisbon nightlife to be tasted, you know. Apologies in advance if there are any errors in this - I will re-read when I have time and correct, so don't bother emailing, you bastards.
4 May 2007
We’re still in Portugal, which is probably why I haven’t yet posted this: still no wi-fi access. I have bought a CD-RW which I will transfer the blog entries to and visit some kind of ‘internet café’ – how primitive. Tonight we’re in Figueira de Foz – we’ve seen sod all of it, to be honest, because Neil somehow misjudged the distance from Avierro to here by about 20km (under, it goes without saying) and we were absolutely knackered when we arrived. Set up camp, went to the supermarket for supplies, ate noodles and now we are chilling for the evening. Seems a nice enough spot, although the campsite charges for hot showers, which seems a bit rugged.
Spent a couple of nights just outside Avierro and took the ferry over the first day for a look around and today to head on south. Treated ourselves to a proper lunch out yesterday, and what a delightful treat it was. Superb seafood – I had whole grilled fish and Neil had squid and prawns grilled ‘on the spit’, as they say (in what is no doubt an appalling mis-translation on the menu). Neil is struggling a little in the seafood department because he won’t eat whole fishes, and apparently it has nothing to do with the eyes watching him. Made a nice change from cheese sandwiches, which is the most common lunch dish we have.
Not today, mind you – today we bought half a kilo of strawberries for 90c (euro) from a roadside stand. These were the ‘middle’ quality and were ridiculously delicious. It’s probably for the best that we didn’t opt for the luxury €2.25 a kilo grade or we would have exploded with strawberry goodness. Went to the porcelain factory and museum at Vista Alegre in the morning, which you’ll just have to take my word was very interesting – oldest porcelain maker in Portugal, you know, and world-renowned. A small but exquisite porcelain gift will be winging its way to Mum by the time this is posted – in fact, in an awesome stroke of good fortune, it may even appear to have been bought for mother’s day (if that is this Sunday in Australia, as it is in Portugal, and not about two months ago as it was in the UK).
We’ve set our old incredibly crap lamp free and invested in a new one, which is much brighter, lighter, more compact and sticks to the tent using magnets. Cool. Sunshine is still a bit intermittent to charge all our solar rechargers, but we’re just about getting by. I’m really loving Portugal, despite the weather being less upbeat than expected. The people are excellent, friendly and helpful everywhere we go. If I could just take their cars away, it would be a very pleasant country indeed – but more of that another time no doubt.
Tomorrow we head inland to Coimbra, and my fingers will be firmly crossed for a reasonably flat run – it’s not that far, but today was pretty taxing so a slightly gentler ride would be appreciated. Must conserve iBook battery. More soon.
1 May 2007
Wi-fi access so far in Portugal hasn’t been a patch on that in Spain, as you’ve probably guessed. All over Spain there were unsecured networks, free in bars and hotels, accessible all over the place. You just had to find a decent hotel with a square or a bar/café nearby and Bob’s your uncle. In Portugal, on the other hand, there appears to be a wi-fi service that has done deals with major chains of hotels, etc, and charges you exorbitant rates (€5 an hour) for access in lots of different places. Still, we’ll go hover outside some swanky hotel and see if we can’t hijack somebody else’s service.
Another valuable lesson has been learned. Despite my reservations, we decided to make a run for it straight to Porto on Saturday. About 65kms of great cycling was followed by 5kms of steep hills on really busy roads and then the usual disaster of trying to get into a major city – the road we have been using all day magically turns into a motorway (which bikes can’t go on) and we are left with no indication of how to proceed. Neil managed to ‘overlook’ a map in the book that would have helped us get in and we ended up spending another 15kms finally getting to a pension in the city. The new rule is that we stay no more than 40kms from any major city we intend to visit (I might add that this happens every fucking time – no-one gives a shit how you get into a city if you are not in a car). Admittedly, I already knew we should do this but backed down for some strange reason when Neil seemed all enthused for doing the journey in one day. Never again.
Anyhoo, Porto was wonderful – what a beautiful city. On first arrival, particularly on bikes, one is struck by the ridiculously hilly setting, but once you’ve got rid of your bikes, had a shower and a beer, it becomes apparent that this is actually a wonderful thing and adds to the charm of the place. Drank some great port, did some sightseeing, relaxed by the side of the river – it was all good and I highly recommend the place to anyone. It does seem very spread out, though, with little bars and restaurants scattered all over the place. Also, we struggled to find much in the way of nightlife although I’m willing to believe we just didn’t know where to look. According to one guide map, ‘young people’ head out to Foz for bars and clubs, but as I’d already seen that area on the way in, I couldn’t be asked to go out there exploring. On our second night we did some port tasting and had dinner on the wine cellar side of the river – it chucked it down rain on the way home, but fortunately we were quite pissed by then and didn’t really care. Bizarrely, we ran into the slightly creepy Germans who we had spent the night chatting with at the last campsite. What are the chances?
Today we are just around the coast in Madalena – camping for two nights so that we can wash and dry some clothes. The weather is terrible – it rained all night and most of this morning and the wind is really cold. If you can stay in the sun and out of the wind, it is okay, but I suspect we will probably be facing constant showers on and off for most of the day. Add to that the fact that we are out of gas for cooking and you’ve got a pretty sorry looking camp night two ahead. Still, tomorrow we’ll be off again and heading down towards Aveiro, hopefully along a nice flat coast road. Salad and cheese for dinner will be fine, but absence of hot drinks for 24 hours could cause serious problems. I’ll probably just eat coffee or something. Maybe if I stand a pot of water in what little sun there is for long enough…
27 April 20007
Bloody hell – was that two days ago? We’re in Portugal! Country 2 – although Spain is only in temporary abeyance, of course. Pontevedra to Samil (Vigo) was a bit of a bloody nightmare, to be honest. We made the 1,000km mark, it pissed down rain and was freezing cold. We ended up in Vigo around lunch time, the entire place was packed full of cunts driving like maniacs (you might think something like that would be difficult to distinguish, but then you’ve clearly never seen the drivers of Vigo). We had lunch in Vigo. Vigo sucks. I have absolutely no basis for saying that except that I had a really shit couple of hours getting into and out of the place. And they drive like cunts. It is probably a really nice city (there were certain indications of this that I was able to ignore through the caked on filth from the road, constant rain and freezing wind, and the drivers). However, in all good faith I cannot recommend it.
Samil, on the other hand, is ace. Basically, go straight through Vigo (trying not to get killed by the drivers – I think we’re all clear on what they are by now) as quickly as possible and get to the beach on the other side. When we arrived the sun came out, birds sang in the trees, the flowers opened – it was all a bit Disney, frankly. But hey, when you’ve been rained on and sprayed in shit by trucks for the last 50km, you’re genuinely susceptible to that crap, you know? Such a nice campsite man, as well. Beautiful beach but a depressingly large McDonalds – still haven’t seen that many of them, to be honest, so when you encounter one in anything other than a city centre, the resentment surfaces.
Pleasant walk along the beach followed by a couple of beers, camp dinner (I believe that night was packet soup with added fresh vegetables – mmmmm, delicious), then off to find a pub that had the champions league semi on. Nothing on the front appeared to be showing it, so we struck off a small country lane that alleged the presence of a bar. We were despairing when finally it appeared on the side road, the only warning a car park with no cars in. Turned out to be a fabulous, old-men-in-jumpers pub (I will detail my old men in jumpers approach to Spanish bars at a later point when time permits). Watched the football accompanied by many wonderful snacks and Spanish beer and then staggered back down the hill to the tent.
The cycling has only got better since we broke the 1,000km mark – from Samil to A Guarda was fantastic – all rolling coasts and gentle hills. The road hugged the coastline giving magnificent views of hills, rocks and proper, proper sea. Wind behind us all the way, lunch on a headland with rock pools full of crabs and shellfish, the landscape littered with lighthouses and seaside convents. Then we reached A Guarda, which seemed so beautiful, nestled between two mountains looking across to Portugal. Sadly, things came a bit unstuck thanks to misinformation in the guidebook – Officino de Tourismo Galicia, I’m looking at you. Basically, the campsite claimed to be open all year round and it was shut. The only other campsite nearby – about 5kms, allegedly – turned out to be imaginary, as far as we could tell. We certainly never found the fucker. What we did find, however, was a windy mountainous road that ran straight into a vicious headwind. Once again, the hardest cycling of the day was actually done trying to find somewhere to stay.
I was all for just camping next to the campsite (why should anyone in the town benefit financially from the misinformation provided by the tourist info office, I ask??) but Neil wanted to get a pension for the night. Still a bit soft, when it comes to camping I’m afraid. A Guarda itself was okay – there is a watchtower on the hill in the town (which was completely impregnable, so obviously very effective as a watchtower, though slightly less so as a tourist attraction). The main attractions are the ruins of a roman village and a cathedral which are both up a mountain overlooking Spain and Portugal. Very cool and we had the whole place to ourselves to wander around.
With nary a glance from anyone at something so flimsy as a passport, we took the ferry from A Guarda to Caminha – for the outrageous fee of 75cents each with bicicletas, I might add – and we’re in Portugal. Instantly, the drivers make those of Vigo seem like advertisements for road safety. I sense a public service announcement looming on these blog pages in the coming weeks. Still, the road itself was wonderfully flat, ridiculously bumpy and had a wide hard shoulder which you could ride on with lots of space if little comfort. Our first stop was in Viana do Castelo, which is a lot bigger than I expected and also quite impressive. Double thumbs up for an excellent tourist office with a great tourist office dude – fluent English, really friendly and offered some suggestions on things we might like to do – a great bookshop with a solid collection of English-Portuguese phrase books and dictionaries and even (gasp) an English language guide to Portugal, and the cheapest beer we’ve had so far.
Our campsite is actually out on a headland, separated from the town by a working port so we had to take the ferry home from town after sightseeing - €1.50 each with bicicletas, twice the price of country-hopping, for the love of Thor. V cheap campsite, though, so we made some of the excessive fare price back that way. Took the bicicletas up to the massive Templo de St Luzia via a funicular railway and then cycled back down the hill. Sadly, what should have been a fun freewheel was somewhat marred by cobbled-bastarding-roads, as they are commonly known. Neil gets a particularl pain-face on when we have to ride over them for extended periods of time – I’ll try to get a picture. Overall, my first Portuguese stop has been very pleasant. Sat around chatting at the campsite with an only slightly creepy German couple (very nice really, just the references to frolics with Portuguese ‘young people’ that made me watch for hammer-shaped shadows on the tent during the night). The local people generally seem really nice and look at me only slightly askance when I start speaking poor Spanish, swear loudly in English when I realise I’m using the wrong language, then start spouting random vaguely Portuguese-sounding words – as I have done in most transactions or conversations of any kind so far. It’s morning now (Saturday 28 April) and we’re trying to decide whether to make a run straight through to Porto or camp for a couple of nights before we get there. We spend two nights in each decent-sized city and now (through painful experience) try to avoid our full day in town falling on a Monday when everything of interest is shut. It’s not that far, but we also look like filthy Dickensian urchins, smeared from head to foot, and on all our clothes, with soot-like black grease so a camping stop would give us an opportunity to clean up somewhat. Oh well, you get used to the grease after a while…
25 April 2007
RAIN. Six kilometres from the 1000km mark, two days from the Portuguese border and it is absolutely pissing it down. Bastard. We’re holed up in a room in Pontevedra watching the rain come down but in roughly an hour we’ll be packing our bikes and getting nice and drippy. Fortunately, it’s only 30km to Vigo and our next campsite, so hopefully we can make the journey without going mad. Yes, I did say campsite. Won’t that be fun.
Nice town Pontevedra, although its charm is somewhat dampened by the aforementioned rain. Lots of historic buildings and a cathedral built in the shape of a clam, roughly. We had a delicious dinner last night and a bit too much to drink, which should both prepare us nicely for today’s cycling.
Public service notice: cats and hedgehogs of Spain – stay away from the roads. It is * not * safe. You are dying in your droves. I know the other side of the road can seem exotic, romantic even, but it’s not worth it. I implore you to believe me – the grass is * not* greener on the other side. The best, most friendly, exciting and fulfilling cat/hedgehog environment is on the side of the road * you are already on*. Crossing kills: stay where you are.
The most disappointing word in Spanish so far is ferreteria. Rather than a place where ferrets run wild, filled with tiny ferret-sized furnishings and fittings and equipped with many many brightly coloured pipes, wheels and other fun things for ferrets to do, it is in fact a hardware shop. Poor form.
Monday, April 23, 2007
God's final test complete
We're in Santiago de Compostela - the third holiest city on earth, apparently. Over a week ago, when I was complaining about the distance from A Coruna to Santiago, Neil turned to me and said, in a loud booming voice (alright, obviously it was Neil so it was neither loud nor booming, but you get the idea): "This is god's final test for you, Angela." Frankly, I thought that was deeply creepy, and told him so. It turned out to be pretty prescient as well, because it was an absolute bitch of a cycle through a mountain range, faced by the added challenge of climbing with a dead iPod battery accompanied by some of the hottest temperatures so far. Anyway, we made it so nyah, nyah god - test passed.
Anyway, this is going to be a very quick up date because we are sitting in a bar using free wi-fi, sipping beer and enjoying the sunshine, and my iBook battery is nearly dead. We've pushed our average up to around 70-80km a day. Flatter days we do over 90km, hillier ones we do around 50-60km. We took a disastrous short-cut a couple of days ago - but I'll leave that for Neil to tell you about as it was his genius idea (suffice it to say, painful lessons have been learned). A Coruna absolutely rocked and was easily my favourite city so far - a port on one side, a beach on the other and a beautiful headland of parks and lighthouse in between. Lots of tiny little bars and great places to eat, people were lovely, and everything you could possibly want is easy to get to. Hopefully when I get more time I'll post something longer.
This is our second night in Santiago and we're heading off again tomorrow. Yet another lesson learned - nothing is open on a Monday. Sightseeing-wise, that is. Still, this is an amazingly beautiful city and I'll put some new pictures up as soon as I've downloaded them off the camera.
We've nearly broken our first thousand kms, and should be in Portugal in the next few days. Camping is going great and the bikes are running well. Injury-wise, nothing *too* serious yet - Neil got heat rash yesterday and I burnt my lip drinking coffee from my travel mug. We have cracked and bought inflatable travel pillows, though. In six months time we'll probably have acquired entire bedroom suites which we'll lash to the back of our bikes with curtains, or something.
I think my battery is on the way out, so I'll post this now - sorry about the lack of interesting pictures, but I'll race over to Flickr now and see if I can get some up before battery death overtakes me...
Anyway, this is going to be a very quick up date because we are sitting in a bar using free wi-fi, sipping beer and enjoying the sunshine, and my iBook battery is nearly dead. We've pushed our average up to around 70-80km a day. Flatter days we do over 90km, hillier ones we do around 50-60km. We took a disastrous short-cut a couple of days ago - but I'll leave that for Neil to tell you about as it was his genius idea (suffice it to say, painful lessons have been learned). A Coruna absolutely rocked and was easily my favourite city so far - a port on one side, a beach on the other and a beautiful headland of parks and lighthouse in between. Lots of tiny little bars and great places to eat, people were lovely, and everything you could possibly want is easy to get to. Hopefully when I get more time I'll post something longer.
This is our second night in Santiago and we're heading off again tomorrow. Yet another lesson learned - nothing is open on a Monday. Sightseeing-wise, that is. Still, this is an amazingly beautiful city and I'll put some new pictures up as soon as I've downloaded them off the camera.
We've nearly broken our first thousand kms, and should be in Portugal in the next few days. Camping is going great and the bikes are running well. Injury-wise, nothing *too* serious yet - Neil got heat rash yesterday and I burnt my lip drinking coffee from my travel mug. We have cracked and bought inflatable travel pillows, though. In six months time we'll probably have acquired entire bedroom suites which we'll lash to the back of our bikes with curtains, or something.
I think my battery is on the way out, so I'll post this now - sorry about the lack of interesting pictures, but I'll race over to Flickr now and see if I can get some up before battery death overtakes me...
Friday, April 13, 2007
Ups and downs
Soooooo, it feels like we’ve done quite a lot since my last update. As I write this, we’re sitting in Luanco, which is a peaceful seaside village – the cathedral bell chimes in the background, over the sound of waves gently lapping at the harbour wall beneath us. We’re staying here tonight – in a cheap but nice hotel as the nearest camp ground turned out to be three kms away and Neil needs bike repairs (more below). We’ve had a slightly less fun and more gruelling couple of days, to be honest.
Northern Spain: hilly one day, hillier the next
We’ve been putting in 60-70kms a day and yesterday’s ride from San Vicente to Gijon was really rough. Of 72km, around 71.5km were uphill. We made the schoolboy error of not eating anything before we set off and then couldn’t find anywhere that we could even buy a sandwich and a coffee for about 15-hilly-km, by which time I was starting to feel seriously fatigued. We stopped for too long for lunch, cooled down, and then discovered that the hardest part of the ride was yet to come – cycling through the most serious hills yet. Gijon was okay, but didn’t really have much to recommend it, and this morning on the way out of the city Neil snapped a spoke.
On the upside, since my last entry we have visited Santillana del Mar, which is an amazingly beautiful old village of cobbled stone streets and churches.
Neil with cows, in no way demonstrating the beauty of Santillana del Mar
We passed through Comillas, a village that managed to so far overshoot picturesque as to actually become eerie, with magnificent ocean views, gothic ruins converted into a cemetery, an extraordinarily beautiful university and some delightful churches. I’m glad we didn’t meet the locals because they would no doubt have wanted us to ‘join them’, if you know what I mean.
Gothic ruins, Comillas
We had the most delicious garlic prawns in a tiny little restaurant in Santander, and the village of San Vicente was great – yet another pretty seaside town with a really good campsite and everything a camper could need. The weather in San Vicente was lovely and I think it was the warmest night we’ve spent in a tent so far. We didn’t accidentally cycle up the picos de europas, but we did get to see breathtaking views of them from the tops of the many smaller hills we rode up, which was nice.
The true majesty of these mountains is that we're not riding up the fuckers.
As always, there are more (and probably more interesting) pictures on my Flickr pages, and Neil will be setting up some Flickr pages soon as well. He has also promised to contribute his first blog entry soon...
I cracked and bought a jumper, but Neil bought an extra pair of trousers, so we’re about even. We both bought little sleeping mat thingies, which make camping more comfortable, although Neil is absolutely rubbish to share a tent with – constantly shifting about in his noisy sleeping bag. I’m thinking of drugging him in the evenings – or drugging myself, depending on the drugs available.
There is an extraordinary amount of building going on all along the coast – massive residential developments from the look of them in places all along the Cantabrian coast and now into Asturias. Even tiny little villages have got huge construction projects going on. It seems most likely that these are meant to be holiday homes as the areas don’t seem to have the industry to support a massive influx of full time residents. No indication of who is buying them either – Spanish people or foreign investors. If anyone can shed some light on what’s going on, I’d be very interested to hear about it. Both Bilbao and Santander seemed like very affluent cities, albeit in the parts where tourists roam, with very swanky shops and a very well-heeled class of both local and visitor. These regions seem to be experiencing something of a boom, but I’ve no idea where all the money is coming from – evidently Spain’s economy is much, much stronger than I thought.
Simon news alert: Look what was hanging in the hallway of the pension we stayed at in Gijon. Unfortunately, our landlady spoke not a word of English and understood only the bare minimum of my Spanish, but she seemed really nice. (I think if you click on the picture you will get a bigger image.) The text is all in English, but there is a name and phone number for local contact details so they must be linked up somehow. Very doggy country, but the first galgo we've seen was actually in Gijon - very happy he looked, too.
Introducing new Travel Trivia - fascinating 'facts' and information we have gleaned on our travels, as denoted by the presence of this icon. Here are a few to start you off!
Northern Spain slopes slightly upward from east to west. This may not be visible to the naked eye, however we know it to be an incontrovertible fact because of the ratio of up to down bits we have cycled. The best and most photogenic views in northern Spain are exactly halfway down hills. All villages are at the bottom of hills, which means that you will always have one more uphill climb to get there and the first thing you face in the morning is the climb out.
The best roads are flat roads. Those of you who don’t know the meaning of pain, as defined by cycling 7km uphill in a single stretch, might think that downhill roads are the best, but you are wrong. And have clearly never been to northern Spain. Uphill and downhill exist in a precarious balance, with uphill slightly in the ascendant (no pun intended). Every time you ride downhill, no matter how momentarily wonderful it might seem, there is a larger uphill not far away. EVEN IF YOU HAVE JUST RIDDEN UP A HUGE HILL, riding down a similarly sized hill will only mean that ANOTHER LARGER HILL is looming.
The only English language newspaper available on an up-to-date daily basis in northern Spain is the Daily Telegraph. Two theories have so far been advanced. Neil argues that this indicates something about the kind of English-speaking people most likely to live/travel in the region. I find this explanation entirely too depressing and choose to believe that it is something to do with Telegraph group having the distribution deals tied up for the area. I also find it depressing that it’s the Telegraph – any Spanish people picking up a copy to brush up their English are going to think we’re a bunch of right wing tossers and I certainly don’t want to read the bloody thing with my coffee.
The people of Ribadesella are all liars. When we arrived, we were told by the normally reliable tourist information centre that the only campsite was ‘1km’ from town. This was a lie. It was 3km from town up the longest, steepest hill of the day. There were even signs saying how far it was. When we asked at the campsite how much it was to get a taxi back from town, we were told that it was about €5 and only ‘1.5km’ away. Again this is clearly a lie as there was only one road between the two. We were also nearly run over walking to and from town because the walking path between the two ended about 500m from the bottom of the treacherous hill at the start of a particularly dangerous section of twisty road with no room to walk and steel railings on either side. Do not stay in Ribadesella – it is not very nice, the bars aren’t very good and the people lie.
My favourite Spanish word so far is hamburguesa. Say it out loud, it just sounds so damned cool. Neil had his first one last night (although not from an actual hamburgeuseria, sadly) and said it was delicious.
Northern Spain: hilly one day, hillier the nextOn the upside, since my last entry we have visited Santillana del Mar, which is an amazingly beautiful old village of cobbled stone streets and churches.
Neil with cows, in no way demonstrating the beauty of Santillana del Mar
Gothic ruins, ComillasWe had the most delicious garlic prawns in a tiny little restaurant in Santander, and the village of San Vicente was great – yet another pretty seaside town with a really good campsite and everything a camper could need. The weather in San Vicente was lovely and I think it was the warmest night we’ve spent in a tent so far. We didn’t accidentally cycle up the picos de europas, but we did get to see breathtaking views of them from the tops of the many smaller hills we rode up, which was nice.
The true majesty of these mountains is that we're not riding up the fuckers.As always, there are more (and probably more interesting) pictures on my Flickr pages, and Neil will be setting up some Flickr pages soon as well. He has also promised to contribute his first blog entry soon...
I cracked and bought a jumper, but Neil bought an extra pair of trousers, so we’re about even. We both bought little sleeping mat thingies, which make camping more comfortable, although Neil is absolutely rubbish to share a tent with – constantly shifting about in his noisy sleeping bag. I’m thinking of drugging him in the evenings – or drugging myself, depending on the drugs available.
There is an extraordinary amount of building going on all along the coast – massive residential developments from the look of them in places all along the Cantabrian coast and now into Asturias. Even tiny little villages have got huge construction projects going on. It seems most likely that these are meant to be holiday homes as the areas don’t seem to have the industry to support a massive influx of full time residents. No indication of who is buying them either – Spanish people or foreign investors. If anyone can shed some light on what’s going on, I’d be very interested to hear about it. Both Bilbao and Santander seemed like very affluent cities, albeit in the parts where tourists roam, with very swanky shops and a very well-heeled class of both local and visitor. These regions seem to be experiencing something of a boom, but I’ve no idea where all the money is coming from – evidently Spain’s economy is much, much stronger than I thought.
Simon news alert: Look what was hanging in the hallway of the pension we stayed at in Gijon. Unfortunately, our landlady spoke not a word of English and understood only the bare minimum of my Spanish, but she seemed really nice. (I think if you click on the picture you will get a bigger image.) The text is all in English, but there is a name and phone number for local contact details so they must be linked up somehow. Very doggy country, but the first galgo we've seen was actually in Gijon - very happy he looked, too.
Introducing new Travel Trivia - fascinating 'facts' and information we have gleaned on our travels, as denoted by the presence of this icon. Here are a few to start you off!Northern Spain slopes slightly upward from east to west. This may not be visible to the naked eye, however we know it to be an incontrovertible fact because of the ratio of up to down bits we have cycled. The best and most photogenic views in northern Spain are exactly halfway down hills. All villages are at the bottom of hills, which means that you will always have one more uphill climb to get there and the first thing you face in the morning is the climb out.The best roads are flat roads. Those of you who don’t know the meaning of pain, as defined by cycling 7km uphill in a single stretch, might think that downhill roads are the best, but you are wrong. And have clearly never been to northern Spain. Uphill and downhill exist in a precarious balance, with uphill slightly in the ascendant (no pun intended). Every time you ride downhill, no matter how momentarily wonderful it might seem, there is a larger uphill not far away. EVEN IF YOU HAVE JUST RIDDEN UP A HUGE HILL, riding down a similarly sized hill will only mean that ANOTHER LARGER HILL is looming.The only English language newspaper available on an up-to-date daily basis in northern Spain is the Daily Telegraph. Two theories have so far been advanced. Neil argues that this indicates something about the kind of English-speaking people most likely to live/travel in the region. I find this explanation entirely too depressing and choose to believe that it is something to do with Telegraph group having the distribution deals tied up for the area. I also find it depressing that it’s the Telegraph – any Spanish people picking up a copy to brush up their English are going to think we’re a bunch of right wing tossers and I certainly don’t want to read the bloody thing with my coffee.The people of Ribadesella are all liars. When we arrived, we were told by the normally reliable tourist information centre that the only campsite was ‘1km’ from town. This was a lie. It was 3km from town up the longest, steepest hill of the day. There were even signs saying how far it was. When we asked at the campsite how much it was to get a taxi back from town, we were told that it was about €5 and only ‘1.5km’ away. Again this is clearly a lie as there was only one road between the two. We were also nearly run over walking to and from town because the walking path between the two ended about 500m from the bottom of the treacherous hill at the start of a particularly dangerous section of twisty road with no room to walk and steel railings on either side. Do not stay in Ribadesella – it is not very nice, the bars aren’t very good and the people lie.My favourite Spanish word so far is hamburguesa. Say it out loud, it just sounds so damned cool. Neil had his first one last night (although not from an actual hamburgeuseria, sadly) and said it was delicious.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Feet up in Santander
Easter Monday and we're lazing in bed in a hotel in Santander taking advantage of the free wi-fi. We're using the city to re-stock and recharge - a week of travelling has highlighted some absences in our kit which we will spend today trying to sort out. Some sort of travel blanket, for one. We've currently got nothing to sit on when camping/having lunch, etc, and the ground has been very cold and wet in some places. It's also bloody cold when you are sleeping in sleeping bags on it, so the travel rug could form a handy base layer for our tent floor.
The camping has been good so far - costs us about €12 a night and gives us a (sometimes) hot shower. So far we appear to be the only people stupid enough to be camping as it is a bit early in the season. We've been rained on a little bit, but not too badly, and it will only get warmer from now on anyways. The sites we have been staying at have been filled with the most outrageously elaborate caravans. They have annexes and little sheds with fully plumbed-in kitchens and all sorts - I've lived in shabbier flats than these little mansions on wheels. Ultimately though they are still caravans and therefore rubbish (although when seen through the mist of freezing rain from the door of a two man tent they can look strangely appealing).
Dinner in Santono on our first night camping. Notice complete absence of other tents because this is right on the beach front and it was ridiculously cold. Menu: starter - fresh bread, olives, cheese; main - noodles with olives, bread; dessert - mini oreos, coffee. There are some more Santono pictures on Flickr - just for a change we got lost when we arrived and couldn't find the tourist office, which the pic on Flickr will confirm is the size of a palace and which we had ridden past about five times. With a beach on one side and a small fishing port on the other, I found it a much nicer spot than Laredo. Quieter and with little of note to see but very attractive and welcoming nonetheless. The tourist office recommended we walk through this impressive tunnel bored through a mountain to see the ocean lookout at the other end - which turned out to be a really crap view of the ocean and far less impressive than the tunnel itself. I choose to believe it was formerly a smugglers' tunnel or something because the thought of all that effort expended for that view is a bit depressing. Maybe they should just promote the tunnel as the attraction.
From there it was on to Loredo (not to be confused with Laredo) via Somo. Prime cycling weather - the evil tanning effect begins already (not on Grrr, obviously, who is impervious to sun, deflecting it with suncream and his special white tan-repello skin) - there were hills but only one difficult climb (about 3km) and we broke the 50kph barrier coming down the other side (you have to keep the speed down a bit with the panniers unfortunately).
Bosch factory at Colindres on the road to Somo - see Dad, you could make it a business trip!
Lunch stop on the road to Somo.
Somo was a dump so we ended up staying in Loredo, which was a tiny village next door. We walked into the village to have a beer and watch the football. Locals seemed fascinated by our latest exciting game, Translate the menu!, where we sit there with the dictionary working out what the food is. We're getting better on the food front, although I still struggle with the notion that a 'vegetal' sandwich is quite likely to contain ham or turkey. In fact, everything is quite likely to contain ham in some form or another. I tried some rabas (squid) which is a local speciality which was delicious, and we're building a vocab of food words that should mean we don't starve. We prepare our own food when we're camping anyway, and the local fruit, veg, cheese, bread, olives, etc, are all really cheap and lovely.
Easter bunny failed to materialise, which was a bit disappointing. Lots of Easter going on in Spain but it seems to be focused more on the cross, nails, death and resurrection, vestments and marching aspects than the chocolate bits. Unfortunately.
Easter procession in Santander - note presence of vestments and religious symbols but disappointing absence of chocolate bunnies.
Grrr is currently watching Bob the Builder in Spanish so it is probably time to get up and get moving. We're taking the bikes out without panniers on today which will absolutely rock. They weigh a tonne fully packed and handle so much differently, so I'm really looking forward to riding a normal bike again. We'll stay here again tonight and treat ourselves to a nice dinner of fresh local seafood. I like Santander a lot more than Bilbao - seems more like a proper working city and we're planning to take a little boat ride around the bahia today (it only costs about €5). First of all - hi ho, hi ho, provisioning we go.
The camping has been good so far - costs us about €12 a night and gives us a (sometimes) hot shower. So far we appear to be the only people stupid enough to be camping as it is a bit early in the season. We've been rained on a little bit, but not too badly, and it will only get warmer from now on anyways. The sites we have been staying at have been filled with the most outrageously elaborate caravans. They have annexes and little sheds with fully plumbed-in kitchens and all sorts - I've lived in shabbier flats than these little mansions on wheels. Ultimately though they are still caravans and therefore rubbish (although when seen through the mist of freezing rain from the door of a two man tent they can look strangely appealing).
Dinner in Santono on our first night camping. Notice complete absence of other tents because this is right on the beach front and it was ridiculously cold. Menu: starter - fresh bread, olives, cheese; main - noodles with olives, bread; dessert - mini oreos, coffee. There are some more Santono pictures on Flickr - just for a change we got lost when we arrived and couldn't find the tourist office, which the pic on Flickr will confirm is the size of a palace and which we had ridden past about five times. With a beach on one side and a small fishing port on the other, I found it a much nicer spot than Laredo. Quieter and with little of note to see but very attractive and welcoming nonetheless. The tourist office recommended we walk through this impressive tunnel bored through a mountain to see the ocean lookout at the other end - which turned out to be a really crap view of the ocean and far less impressive than the tunnel itself. I choose to believe it was formerly a smugglers' tunnel or something because the thought of all that effort expended for that view is a bit depressing. Maybe they should just promote the tunnel as the attraction.From there it was on to Loredo (not to be confused with Laredo) via Somo. Prime cycling weather - the evil tanning effect begins already (not on Grrr, obviously, who is impervious to sun, deflecting it with suncream and his special white tan-repello skin) - there were hills but only one difficult climb (about 3km) and we broke the 50kph barrier coming down the other side (you have to keep the speed down a bit with the panniers unfortunately).
Bosch factory at Colindres on the road to Somo - see Dad, you could make it a business trip!
Lunch stop on the road to Somo.Easter bunny failed to materialise, which was a bit disappointing. Lots of Easter going on in Spain but it seems to be focused more on the cross, nails, death and resurrection, vestments and marching aspects than the chocolate bits. Unfortunately.
Easter procession in Santander - note presence of vestments and religious symbols but disappointing absence of chocolate bunnies.Grrr is currently watching Bob the Builder in Spanish so it is probably time to get up and get moving. We're taking the bikes out without panniers on today which will absolutely rock. They weigh a tonne fully packed and handle so much differently, so I'm really looking forward to riding a normal bike again. We'll stay here again tonight and treat ourselves to a nice dinner of fresh local seafood. I like Santander a lot more than Bilbao - seems more like a proper working city and we're planning to take a little boat ride around the bahia today (it only costs about €5). First of all - hi ho, hi ho, provisioning we go.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
We're on the way
Okay, so there's been a bit of a gap in blog proceedings. The last week in short: pissed, packed, pissed again, cleaned house, pissed once more, ferry from Portsmouth (raining), arrive Bilbao (raining), lurgie (three days). There are some pictures on my Flickr page from Portsmouth, Bilbao and the Eddie - pictures like this...
...although most of them are more picturesque and contain less (and indeed fewer) pissed people.
Anyway, because I don't have free wireless access *everywhere* I stop (I currently do in this hostel in Laredo) I'll be doing up entries and posting them when I can. So back to yesterday's progress report...
Wednesday 04 April, 2007
First proper day of riding today – Bilbao to Castro Urdiales (C-U), 50km. Admittedly, it would have been slightly shorter had we not got lost riding out of Bilbao and added a few kms, but hey, it was only raining lightly at that point and who could have guessed the horrors ahead.
Spanish people have been amazing so far. As clearly demonstrated by the fact that we can’t even find our way out of a town we rode into *the same way* just three days earlier, we are a bit rubbish at navigation. Fortunately, all we need to do is stand on a corner with our bikes and look bewildered for people to flock to help us. I kid you not, people were pulling their cars off the road to leap to our assistance. This has already happened several times, but star man so far is the stranger in Portugalete who drew us a map to Castro Urdiales, gave us the names of the towns we needed to pass through on the way to ensure we were on the right track and even identified a handy cycle path (bidegorri) that we could follow for 10kms of the journey. He even came running after us to make sure we knew that the cycle paths were always red. What a nice man.
Grrr on the cycle path
The journey itself was less fun. Of the roughly 30kms from Portugalete to C-U, I’d guess that around 25kms were uphill. Up-serious-fucking-hill. Hills so steep we struggled to push our bikes up them. Yes that’s right – we pushed our bikes. We’re not proud, people, if we need to push to get there, we’ll push. One of the few short downhill sections, which should have been a thing of joy, was accompanied by a hail storm that forced us to hole up in a disused bus shelter half way down, and we only missed the rain of frogs through good timing – which we know because there were still frogs on the road when we cycled through that bit.
Still, we’re here now, and though I was freezing cold, soaking wet and sick to death of cycling up hills, I was prepared to hate C-U but it looks very pleasant indeed. We’re snugged away in a pension by the castle, showered and warm (Neil broke the heater, but then fixed the heater, so what could have been an incredibly ugly and violent scene was narrowly avoided), and soon we will hit the town for a couple of cervezas and hopefully a hot meal.
This is how nice Castro Urdiales turned out to be!
Overall, cycle conditions have been absolutely brilliant. There are massive cycle paths running along lots of major roads and all through the centre of cities and towns, and drivers seem to treat you with real caution – giving you a wide berth and waiting patiently behind you on twisty roads rather than trying to squeeze past. Although maybe that’s just us, as we no doubt look like something you'd automatically give a wide berth. Weather is much worse than expected – v cold, rainy (haily!) and windy. We are looking forward desperately to a day of sun which the forecasters seem to keep shifting to the day after tomorrow, every day.
Ready to leave Castro_Urdiales
Don’t know when I’ll post this, but quick admin issue – our onetel addresses are not working, apparently. Neil and I both have yahoo addresses that we will be using from now on – if you don’t have the addresses, could you please stick a comment on the blog, saying who you are, and I’ll email them out to you. I sent an email out this morning to some people but no doubt missed some people off. Also, Graeme could you please email me your snail mail address – one Guggenheim postcard is waiting to wend its way to you but doesn’t know where to go.
Back to today, 05 April
We cycled about 35kms today from C-U to Laredo where we're stopping tonight. Today's ride was much nicer - still hilly but not as bad as yesterday and without unpleasant stuff constantly falling from the sky. A couple of pictures are up on Flickr and I'll try to add more soon. We've actually got some sunshine outside so it's time to head out for a relax on the sea front. Some exciting news just in by email though: my esteemed DTI former colleague Jonathan and I have won a coveted Hilary's Award for outstanding work on the always immensibly readable DTI News. I know some of you may be unfamiliar with this prize, but let me assure you that it is *even better than it sounds*. In may gracious acceptance blog I'd like to say that it was largely down to the hard work of Jonathan (which it was) and that it is truly, TRULY, an honour. So, congratulations Jonathan and me - cervezas all round!
...although most of them are more picturesque and contain less (and indeed fewer) pissed people.Anyway, because I don't have free wireless access *everywhere* I stop (I currently do in this hostel in Laredo) I'll be doing up entries and posting them when I can. So back to yesterday's progress report...
Wednesday 04 April, 2007
First proper day of riding today – Bilbao to Castro Urdiales (C-U), 50km. Admittedly, it would have been slightly shorter had we not got lost riding out of Bilbao and added a few kms, but hey, it was only raining lightly at that point and who could have guessed the horrors ahead.
Spanish people have been amazing so far. As clearly demonstrated by the fact that we can’t even find our way out of a town we rode into *the same way* just three days earlier, we are a bit rubbish at navigation. Fortunately, all we need to do is stand on a corner with our bikes and look bewildered for people to flock to help us. I kid you not, people were pulling their cars off the road to leap to our assistance. This has already happened several times, but star man so far is the stranger in Portugalete who drew us a map to Castro Urdiales, gave us the names of the towns we needed to pass through on the way to ensure we were on the right track and even identified a handy cycle path (bidegorri) that we could follow for 10kms of the journey. He even came running after us to make sure we knew that the cycle paths were always red. What a nice man.
Grrr on the cycle pathThe journey itself was less fun. Of the roughly 30kms from Portugalete to C-U, I’d guess that around 25kms were uphill. Up-serious-fucking-hill. Hills so steep we struggled to push our bikes up them. Yes that’s right – we pushed our bikes. We’re not proud, people, if we need to push to get there, we’ll push. One of the few short downhill sections, which should have been a thing of joy, was accompanied by a hail storm that forced us to hole up in a disused bus shelter half way down, and we only missed the rain of frogs through good timing – which we know because there were still frogs on the road when we cycled through that bit.
Still, we’re here now, and though I was freezing cold, soaking wet and sick to death of cycling up hills, I was prepared to hate C-U but it looks very pleasant indeed. We’re snugged away in a pension by the castle, showered and warm (Neil broke the heater, but then fixed the heater, so what could have been an incredibly ugly and violent scene was narrowly avoided), and soon we will hit the town for a couple of cervezas and hopefully a hot meal.
This is how nice Castro Urdiales turned out to be!Overall, cycle conditions have been absolutely brilliant. There are massive cycle paths running along lots of major roads and all through the centre of cities and towns, and drivers seem to treat you with real caution – giving you a wide berth and waiting patiently behind you on twisty roads rather than trying to squeeze past. Although maybe that’s just us, as we no doubt look like something you'd automatically give a wide berth. Weather is much worse than expected – v cold, rainy (haily!) and windy. We are looking forward desperately to a day of sun which the forecasters seem to keep shifting to the day after tomorrow, every day.
Ready to leave Castro_UrdialesBack to today, 05 April
We cycled about 35kms today from C-U to Laredo where we're stopping tonight. Today's ride was much nicer - still hilly but not as bad as yesterday and without unpleasant stuff constantly falling from the sky. A couple of pictures are up on Flickr and I'll try to add more soon. We've actually got some sunshine outside so it's time to head out for a relax on the sea front. Some exciting news just in by email though: my esteemed DTI former colleague Jonathan and I have won a coveted Hilary's Award for outstanding work on the always immensibly readable DTI News. I know some of you may be unfamiliar with this prize, but let me assure you that it is *even better than it sounds*. In may gracious acceptance blog I'd like to say that it was largely down to the hard work of Jonathan (which it was) and that it is truly, TRULY, an honour. So, congratulations Jonathan and me - cervezas all round!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Oh happy day - a two picture update
Me with my passports. Both of em. And they thought they could keep me out...
The spoils of Grrr's beer money frog - 134 shiny pounds. And we're going somewhere that has cheaper beer than London!! (Okay, I am aware that *everywhere* has cheaper beer than London, but still.)Two days to go - booked the train to Portsmouth and the first two nights accommodation in Bilbao today. We are... So. Fucking. Going.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Things to do in an empty house
Getting very, very close to d-day now. All our stuff has gone into storage - thank Zeus for my lovely iBook, the internet and the radio (although my desire to take to Eamonn Holmes' face with a cheese grater is almost overwhelming). The high point of this morning so far has been bluetoothing my entire address book from my iBook to my phone. Technology is just so cool these days. My life, on the other hand, is clearly not.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out for a drink last weekend. Morning Bride were, as always, brilliant and it was great to bump into a couple of people I haven't seen in a while as well. Feel like the liver has taken a beating over the last couple of weeks with all the going away celebrations - I keep telling myself that for the next six months I'll be living the 'my body's a temple' lifestyle so what the hell, but the condition of said temple could be seriously compromised by departure time at this rate. (Yeah, yeah - temple isn't a word usually used to describe it, I know.) What the fuck, it's been way too much fun anyway. So happy to see everyone and will really miss you all. I'm still not even vaguely clear on what happened to JP, though - I know I've spoken to him since, but I just don't understand!! If you're reading, mate, I'm meeting up with Stew next week for a final farewell, so maybe you could come along to that and actually, you know, speak to me. I *believe* there has even been some suggestion that Stew might pay for dinner...
So the house is empty and I've been tucked up in my sleeping bag for the last couple of nights. Pleased to report that it's very snug indeed, which is good news considering London has been bloody cold for the last week or so.
My passport application is in, albeit later than expected because I cocked it up. No really. I managed to completely overlook the fact that I required a countersignatory until the morning of my appointment. As I am the only person tragic (or paranoid) enough to actually carry my passport number around with me, I had to reschedule and call on civil service star Sarah to come to my rescue. Which, of course, she did. She even rewarded my sea sponge-like organisational skills with this extremely groovy new compass.
Speaking of which, could everyone send luck and healing vibes Sarah's way. She's been training to run in the London marathon and has achieved super-human levels of abstinence from all the fun things in life since the start of the year. Now, with just a couple of weeks to go, she's tweaked some of her bits and is waiting to hear if she can run. She's worked really hard, so any spare good thoughts winging her way would be much deserved.
If Sarah makes it to the starting line, she will be running to raise funds for Crisis, a charity helping the homeless, and can be sponsored via this link.
Come on, who wouldn't want to sponsor this girl. (Yes, that is a fountain in Trafalgar Square but I hasten to add that this photo was taken some time before the aforementioned marathon training regime commenced. She hasn't been in fountain-swimming condition for *months*.) I'll post an update as soon as there's news on those running bits, so get ready to sponsor.
I may not post often, but I sure do post long. The house is ridiculously cold right now but the real estate agents have called to say they will be bringing someone round to look at the place and I don't want it to be all warm and toasty when they get here. Nothing against any future occupants, you understand, this is all about making things difficult for the estate agent scum. That name again: David Daniels. Fear them, all you decent, intelligent renters, for they are to civilised human beings as Fosters is to actual beer. I know, I know - that's real big and clever, you say, freezing your toes off to inconvenience some random scum bag. Fuck you, it is big and clever and my tiny toes are warmed by the thought of even this pathetically small inconvenience I might cause them. Soon, I shall be heading out to watch the cricket anyway - may the Aussies stuff South Africa for many good reasons but mostly to irritate my barman Sean. If you didn't know me, you could start to think I'm bitter and twisted. Well, it makes me happy.
Passport should arrive Thursday and then it's off to Portsmouth for the ferry on Friday. Farewell local drinks at the Eddie tonight from about 7.30pm-ish. I know, it really is taking the piss, isn't it - how many going away drinks can two people legitimately have. The answer, clearly, is an *infinite number* of going away drinks. Frankly, I'm about to crack open a can of Red Stripe and have a going away drink with myself. My filthy, hobo-beer drinking appearance (Grrr's description of Red Stripe, not mine) should help further deter potential renters and I don't even have to go to any effort because it's what I look like anyway.
Next update before we leave for Portsmouth - 6 days to go. Woo hoo!
Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out for a drink last weekend. Morning Bride were, as always, brilliant and it was great to bump into a couple of people I haven't seen in a while as well. Feel like the liver has taken a beating over the last couple of weeks with all the going away celebrations - I keep telling myself that for the next six months I'll be living the 'my body's a temple' lifestyle so what the hell, but the condition of said temple could be seriously compromised by departure time at this rate. (Yeah, yeah - temple isn't a word usually used to describe it, I know.) What the fuck, it's been way too much fun anyway. So happy to see everyone and will really miss you all. I'm still not even vaguely clear on what happened to JP, though - I know I've spoken to him since, but I just don't understand!! If you're reading, mate, I'm meeting up with Stew next week for a final farewell, so maybe you could come along to that and actually, you know, speak to me. I *believe* there has even been some suggestion that Stew might pay for dinner...So the house is empty and I've been tucked up in my sleeping bag for the last couple of nights. Pleased to report that it's very snug indeed, which is good news considering London has been bloody cold for the last week or so.
My passport application is in, albeit later than expected because I cocked it up. No really. I managed to completely overlook the fact that I required a countersignatory until the morning of my appointment. As I am the only person tragic (or paranoid) enough to actually carry my passport number around with me, I had to reschedule and call on civil service star Sarah to come to my rescue. Which, of course, she did. She even rewarded my sea sponge-like organisational skills with this extremely groovy new compass.
Speaking of which, could everyone send luck and healing vibes Sarah's way. She's been training to run in the London marathon and has achieved super-human levels of abstinence from all the fun things in life since the start of the year. Now, with just a couple of weeks to go, she's tweaked some of her bits and is waiting to hear if she can run. She's worked really hard, so any spare good thoughts winging her way would be much deserved.
If Sarah makes it to the starting line, she will be running to raise funds for Crisis, a charity helping the homeless, and can be sponsored via this link.
Come on, who wouldn't want to sponsor this girl. (Yes, that is a fountain in Trafalgar Square but I hasten to add that this photo was taken some time before the aforementioned marathon training regime commenced. She hasn't been in fountain-swimming condition for *months*.) I'll post an update as soon as there's news on those running bits, so get ready to sponsor.I may not post often, but I sure do post long. The house is ridiculously cold right now but the real estate agents have called to say they will be bringing someone round to look at the place and I don't want it to be all warm and toasty when they get here. Nothing against any future occupants, you understand, this is all about making things difficult for the estate agent scum. That name again: David Daniels. Fear them, all you decent, intelligent renters, for they are to civilised human beings as Fosters is to actual beer. I know, I know - that's real big and clever, you say, freezing your toes off to inconvenience some random scum bag. Fuck you, it is big and clever and my tiny toes are warmed by the thought of even this pathetically small inconvenience I might cause them. Soon, I shall be heading out to watch the cricket anyway - may the Aussies stuff South Africa for many good reasons but mostly to irritate my barman Sean. If you didn't know me, you could start to think I'm bitter and twisted. Well, it makes me happy.
Passport should arrive Thursday and then it's off to Portsmouth for the ferry on Friday. Farewell local drinks at the Eddie tonight from about 7.30pm-ish. I know, it really is taking the piss, isn't it - how many going away drinks can two people legitimately have. The answer, clearly, is an *infinite number* of going away drinks. Frankly, I'm about to crack open a can of Red Stripe and have a going away drink with myself. My filthy, hobo-beer drinking appearance (Grrr's description of Red Stripe, not mine) should help further deter potential renters and I don't even have to go to any effort because it's what I look like anyway.
Next update before we leave for Portsmouth - 6 days to go. Woo hoo!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Emergency venue change
Bollocks bollocks bollocks - The Princess Louise is apparently closed for refurbishment. After extensive consultation the new venue will be...
The Angel
St Giles High Street
Soho
WC2H 8LE
St Giles High Street
Soho
WC2H 8LE
Same bat date and time. Sorry for the hassle - your confusion is as nothing to my sense of betrayal that the Princess Louise could desert me as a meeting place after nigh on a decade of faithful patronage. Refurbishment, *spit*. It's perfect just the way it is.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Gatherings
So, I've left it too late and been too piss-poor on the organisation front to achieve anything close to the originally mooted big going away party. (Not to mention an unfortunate clash with another event on the only Saturday left!) However, it would be nothing short of rude to flee without some kind of celebration and as I haven't got around to seeing everyone I need to so far, may I present two gatherings that I'd really love any and all to attend.
Clearly, I haven't done anything nearly so clever as reserve space or whatnot, so I imagine we'll be looking to do the traditional 6pm bolt up the stairs. Whether you've only got time for a quick half or can stay the session, I'd really love to see anyone who can make it along. Don't think of it as a drink up for me, just think of it as a drink up.
This cosy, informal gathering will be followed on the Saturday by the event we've all been waiting for:
Full details and a sample of Morning Bride's fine wares can be found on the band's MySpace page or their very own website.
I'm posting this right now because it's my own pathetic procrastination that will probably see me sat alone in a pub this Friday for these shoddily and hastily organised leaving drinks - the time for action has, well, pretty much passed.
Friday 16 March 2007
5pm-ish onwards
Princess Louise
Holborn
WC1V 7BW
5pm-ish onwards
Princess Louise
Holborn
WC1V 7BW
Clearly, I haven't done anything nearly so clever as reserve space or whatnot, so I imagine we'll be looking to do the traditional 6pm bolt up the stairs. Whether you've only got time for a quick half or can stay the session, I'd really love to see anyone who can make it along. Don't think of it as a drink up for me, just think of it as a drink up.
This cosy, informal gathering will be followed on the Saturday by the event we've all been waiting for:
Full details and a sample of Morning Bride's fine wares can be found on the band's MySpace page or their very own website.
I'm posting this right now because it's my own pathetic procrastination that will probably see me sat alone in a pub this Friday for these shoddily and hastily organised leaving drinks - the time for action has, well, pretty much passed.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Retiring times and acquisitions
It's hard to describe how much better a Sunday is when you don't have to go to work on a Monday. It's longer, fuller, richer, more relaxing. Take today - I got up about 7.30 (actually, that's not completely true - I came home pissed and slept on the couch so I didn't really have to get up at all, I kind of just had to roll towards the television), had a fried egg, fake cheese and tomato sauce bap with coffee (generously provided by Grrr) and watched the DVD I rented for last night, which we didn't watch last night because we accidentally spent the evening in the pub. Then I washed the dishes and the sheets (separately), made a hommus, burnt some old business cards and played with my new camera. The second half of Chelsea v Spurs is now on, followed by England v France then I might possibly watch a bit of Plymouth v Watford before heading off for Nine Inch Nails in Brixton. And I don't care how spannered I get or what time I get home because I don't have to go to work tomorrow. This is a good quality Sunday
Anyway, on a less gloaty and more travel-related note, we're in full acquisitional mode and things are coming together nicely - seems ironic that in order to travel with as little as possible we find ourselves buying more stuff than we have for years! I won't go in to details on the new underwear and cycling socks; or maybe I will but not in this post. Today I will focus on some cool stuff we have bought.
For the next six months, this will be our new home. Yup, it's the Vaude Taurus Ultralight 2 person tent. Weighing in at under 2kg and less than 50cm long when packed, it's excellent for carrying on the bike, but I suspect will prove very snug with two people wedged into it. At least Grrr's thin. We are yet to practice putting it up, which is something we need to address in the near future. Unfortunately, the tent is slightly larger than our garden and I fear the cops would move us on if we tried to pitch it in the park - perhaps ninja-style night pitching in random public spaces will be in order.
For all our energy needs: our groovy new Solio charger. Solar powered - fully charged in about four hours of full sunshine - it can be used to recharge our mobile phones, the DS, iPod, Walkman, etc. Sadly it doesn't have quite the kick to fill up my iBook and won't be able to charge the camera battery (I don't think - still trying to find out if we can get a connector for that!) but it certainly cuts down on all the chargers and leads we normally cart around to support our pathetically gadget dependent lifestyles - and it's lovely free, green energy! Working alongside our solar battery charger, we're pretty much green energy fiends for this trip.
To record the majesty of our journey (no, really), we've got this little beauty - the Canon Ixus 900 Ti. It rocks. Wanted something really compact and easy to carry on the bike, but which had some manual functionality and decent performance in low light or reasonably close. Obviously, the 10million megapixels is bollocks - I'm not really going to blow my pics up so they can be seen from space - but I've been mucking about with it for a week or so and I'm impressed so far. Took it to the British Museum for a test run at indoor, often low light conditions and some of the pictures are great. The digital macro setting was good for close up work and with adjustable ISO you can bring camera shake right down without a tripod. I've not taken many outdoors shots as yet, and as always it has a million pre-programmed settings that you are never going to use (Foliage??), but double thumbs up at this stage. And it has a viewfinder - which I find helpful as I'm still struggling to get into the habit of composing a picture with the camera held a foot from my face (tragic, I know).
Here's a pic I took of a candle last night:
I don't think I've ever bought this much stuff at one time in my life - and I have to admit, I can somewhat see the lure of consumerism. Getting all this stuff has been genuinely exciting and fun - even if every decision is agonised over seemingly endlessly (I am too ashamed, utterly ashamed, to admit how long it took us to decide on the tent...). Still, we're going to have not a hell of a lot for the next six months, so I'm content to soak up the joy of acquisition for a couple of weeks. The big questions remain: what kind of stove and what kind of cookware. Compelling, I think you'll agree.
Heads up to any London readers - I'll be having a drink this Friday, March 16, probably at the Princess Louise from about 5.30pm. If I haven't been in touch with you, stick a comment below and I'll make sure I let you know the final details as soon as I know them. And don't forget the Morning Bride gig on Saturday!
Anyway, on a less gloaty and more travel-related note, we're in full acquisitional mode and things are coming together nicely - seems ironic that in order to travel with as little as possible we find ourselves buying more stuff than we have for years! I won't go in to details on the new underwear and cycling socks; or maybe I will but not in this post. Today I will focus on some cool stuff we have bought.
For the next six months, this will be our new home. Yup, it's the Vaude Taurus Ultralight 2 person tent. Weighing in at under 2kg and less than 50cm long when packed, it's excellent for carrying on the bike, but I suspect will prove very snug with two people wedged into it. At least Grrr's thin. We are yet to practice putting it up, which is something we need to address in the near future. Unfortunately, the tent is slightly larger than our garden and I fear the cops would move us on if we tried to pitch it in the park - perhaps ninja-style night pitching in random public spaces will be in order.
For all our energy needs: our groovy new Solio charger. Solar powered - fully charged in about four hours of full sunshine - it can be used to recharge our mobile phones, the DS, iPod, Walkman, etc. Sadly it doesn't have quite the kick to fill up my iBook and won't be able to charge the camera battery (I don't think - still trying to find out if we can get a connector for that!) but it certainly cuts down on all the chargers and leads we normally cart around to support our pathetically gadget dependent lifestyles - and it's lovely free, green energy! Working alongside our solar battery charger, we're pretty much green energy fiends for this trip. 
To record the majesty of our journey (no, really), we've got this little beauty - the Canon Ixus 900 Ti. It rocks. Wanted something really compact and easy to carry on the bike, but which had some manual functionality and decent performance in low light or reasonably close. Obviously, the 10million megapixels is bollocks - I'm not really going to blow my pics up so they can be seen from space - but I've been mucking about with it for a week or so and I'm impressed so far. Took it to the British Museum for a test run at indoor, often low light conditions and some of the pictures are great. The digital macro setting was good for close up work and with adjustable ISO you can bring camera shake right down without a tripod. I've not taken many outdoors shots as yet, and as always it has a million pre-programmed settings that you are never going to use (Foliage??), but double thumbs up at this stage. And it has a viewfinder - which I find helpful as I'm still struggling to get into the habit of composing a picture with the camera held a foot from my face (tragic, I know).Here's a pic I took of a candle last night:
I don't think I've ever bought this much stuff at one time in my life - and I have to admit, I can somewhat see the lure of consumerism. Getting all this stuff has been genuinely exciting and fun - even if every decision is agonised over seemingly endlessly (I am too ashamed, utterly ashamed, to admit how long it took us to decide on the tent...). Still, we're going to have not a hell of a lot for the next six months, so I'm content to soak up the joy of acquisition for a couple of weeks. The big questions remain: what kind of stove and what kind of cookware. Compelling, I think you'll agree.
Heads up to any London readers - I'll be having a drink this Friday, March 16, probably at the Princess Louise from about 5.30pm. If I haven't been in touch with you, stick a comment below and I'll make sure I let you know the final details as soon as I know them. And don't forget the Morning Bride gig on Saturday!
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