Day 37 - Looking for the sandpit

Belen to Salicas (100km) - Saturday 24th September



With the nightmare spot windy camp still fresh in our minds and legs, we set out today VERY prepared to camp. After a fairly late start due to general tardiness, Alan's front paw playing up, my insistence of hamburgers for breakfast and several (failed) attempts to find cereal bars and tortillas in the supermarkets, we were planning to take things easy. Incidentally the hamburgers were each the size of a large dinner plate... My eyes have never lit up as brightly!

Our predicament was one of distances, the next town (Londres) had the certain promise of hostals, but was far too close (15km) to consider stopping there. Other than a few dubious looking settlements about 80km further along, the town after that was 145km from Belen - manageable if we started at 8am and had no head wind, but not entirely realistic having only left town at 1pm!

So that left one option, get on the road and cycle as far as we felt we wanted to, knowing each km gained was one we wouldn't have to do tomorrow, then look for a spot to camp as evening sets in.

A brilliant plan that meant for a very relaxed day cycling through beautiful rolling scenery, with mountains on our right and a (thankfully not too windy) plain on our left. Ant was happy - plenty of trees here! Even the odd cow (Emma quakes in fear) was basking in the afternoon Sun on the side of the road.
The one catch was that we were cycling strongly... REALLY strongly. Despite the (obligatory!!!) head wind we were making good progress and both really enjoying churning the pedals. We kept going... And going ... And going... And as the Sun started to fall a little from the sky we realised it was probably a good time to think about camping, so we kept our eyes open for a good spot - far enough away from the road to be protected from prying eyes, but not too far to be ambushed by cows (and spiders... Shiver!!).


Another slight hiccup was the fence that stretched out on both sides of the entire road... If we were going to find a good camp spot it would definitely mean fence hopping!
So we kept on going - we would turn off the routa 40 after 90km, so why not see if the next road, routa 60, comes without fence. We got there, it didn't. But it was much more green with the odd hint of water and grass, which made Ant's camping ears prick up.

Then with the help of google, we realised there was a town in 4km... Lets get there, just on the off chance there's food and a bed. We got to the town. No food or bed, but two independent sources reported there was indeed a hostaleria in the next town along, 8km away. Why not! The Sun probably had about half an hour left in him, we definitely had 8km left in our legs, and if it turned out to not be fruitful then we probably had about 10minutes to find a camp spot and bed down. Cutting it tight, but we were feeling good.

So we hammered out the remaining 8km (which was actually only 5km!... Things you need to know about distances here... No one knows them! Even the road signs conflict each other  and sometimes lose all sense of direction! A highlight of the day was seeing Ant stop to check the map right next to the world's most helpful road sign that simply had an arrow pointing in our direction and a "?" Printed in big white type!)... And found the hostaleria.


Moreover they actually had a room, with a leaky but hot shower and a (possibly drunk!) attendant, smoking in front of the non-smoking signs. He could just about distract himself from the Simpsons enough to reach for a room key, but struggled to write or even say the wi-fi password! Oh well it was gone 7 on a Saturday night! And this did mean he had large bottles of beer to sell us... What a treat!

A few nights ago we were hoping for a hotel room and found a camping spot, tonight we went looking for a camping spot, and found a hotel room. Just like Winnie the Pooh and his sandpit. Pooh bear logic - it's sound man!