March 20th: Merida to Valdesalor

Today was many days lived in one… first I got my culture on and did a tour of the old Merida… saw some old stuff and statues of dead people and read something about stuff that happened that I guess is important… there was some Roman stuff and some Islamic stuff too but I don’t know how those overlapped exactly, anyway they really liked plays so the Romans built a massive amphitheater and a gladiator ring next to it as well… was cool!

Got a coffee in a nice little cafe, spirits lifted that I was able to find a place and order something without fumbling over my tongue… it was a beautiful day today, not a speck of cloud in the sky… so I decided to take advantage and start riding north on the cycle highway, with reassurance that I had many options to stop along the way… people mostly hike the Camino, so there is a rest stop almost every 20kms… the one I’m at today is a big room with 7 bunk beds in it, there’s a kitchen and a bathroom… and a beautiful little patio for communal meals that hikers make at the end of the day. The bed cost six Euros, I had to bike into this little town, find the one little grocery store and pay them for the room. Then make my way back to the Albergue. There are five hikers I’m sharing the shelter with, they aren’t very interested in chatting, they look pretty tired and have been travelling together for a while.

I did meet a young girl here, from Germany I think. She was getting off the Camino in the morning, she said that it wasn’t what she expected, and walking along rural roads and farmland was not the kind of hiking she was in to. I think it takes a lot of courage to say “not for me”, and go your own way, and it kind of gave me an affirmation that I’ve made some good choices for myself the past few days as well.

There’s also restaurants and cafes that have a special menu for the pilgrims… I was lucky to come across one of these places for lunch and had a full 2 course meal, scrambled eggs with green beans and salmon with chunky tomato salad all for 10 bucks! I tipped them three euro and they gave me a little keychain of the place :). A great social exchange all in all, and faith restored from my previous days dinner at Burger King debacle… 

There are definitely very steep highs and lows day to day emotionally and it’s hard to find a steady mind space… now that I’m not as worried about the road or places to stay, I’m going to try to work on all this built up stress that I feel constantly… and even though I am on the road, I can’t affect things in Toronto or Dubai or anywhere, my mind is acting like a stress magnet, almost to fill the vacant space left behind by not having much to do or think about for long stretches of the day… sometimes you just want to sit with yourself… just sit with yourself and nothing else… I got a lot of that in Toronto in february and I appreciate it more now… I am trying to find it on the bike, hopefully I will get better at it as the days go by, it’s only been 12 days so far but it seems like it’s been forever! 

I’m going to sleep extra early today, nothing to organize or plan tonight, belly full, washed and bathed, bike packed for the morning mostly, got snacks for the road… if I can start out with the sunrise tomorrow, I think I’m in for my first 100km day!

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