March 21st: Valdesalor to Monfrigue National Park

Had a hearty breakfast and had a goal in mind for the day… I wanted to camp today. So I am off the Camino and came to explore a national park… not much exploring to do as there’s some sort of construction going on here but anyway, I tried… 

Today was another good day on the bike, did my first 100kms as the roads were nice and got some climbing in as well as looooong downhills on smooth open road… stopped in Caceres for my pilgrim stamp and then again in a place called Canaveral for lunch… I had spaghetti that was cooked in what I can only guess was ketchup… served me right for picking the most basic thing on the menu… anyway it was cheap and a well timed stop… I stopped again about an hour after that at a gas station and inhaled 2 ice creams and a can of the Spanish Pocari Sweat… 

Not much to report from the road today… it was an enjoyable ride, painful at times and very cruisy at others… I ate constantly while riding, I was extra hungry today through the whole day even though I had a big breakfast of oats, nuts, peanut butter and yoghurt… 

I had to get off the Via de la Plata to get to this national park and was hoping for a nice camp site, but it’s just a caravan kind of place, and I paid 12 euro for it too… should have probably just gone to the Albergue in the next town but it’s nice to have a night of just me and no random pilgrims… I was able to give Maria a wash, get some of the mud and grease off, but it doesn’t look like I did anything to it haha.

Set up camp and was looking at my bike and noticed a significant rip on the sidewall of my back tire… sigh… I patched it with bits of my tent repair patches and hopefully it will hold till I get to a bike shop in the next city… otherwise I will be joining the hikers on the Camino for a while… a bit worried about it but really can’t do anything till I get to Salamanca so trying not to think about it as much.

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