March 23rd: Guijuelo to Salamanca

Went to bed past midnight and was very sore in the morning… had a shower just to take extra advantage of the hotel room and packed up and headed down for some hotel breakfast… which was just toast with some ham and cheese and a coffee…

Got on the road around 9:30am and I knew it would be a pretty chill day today… I was able to download the Dune audiobook overnight so put that on and cruised on some farm roads and then a very quiet country road… I had a stronnnng tailwind and flat or descending roads… I still managed to walk my bike on some long 4-5km steady inclines… I just didn’t want to fight the road or my bike today… I had time so I just walked… walking is nice too sometimes…

Got into Salamanca around siesta time which means everything was shut… I walked around till siesta was over and found a barbershop that would take me as a walk in… I got a hilarious haircut, and I knew it while it was happening but I let it happen anyway… something probably from the Shantaram audiobook I also have been listening to, suffering through terrible Indian accents by the narrator, but something about surrendering to the experience… the world will not end and hopefully someone will get a good laugh at the expense of my pride….

Got a really handy meal of a rice dish at an easy looking deli, the guy said it was something special to Salamanca and it was yummy! Went to a bike shop and picked up some tubes with sealant in them that might be the silver bullet to flats for the rest of the trip… I really need to change my back tire but I’m putting it off very irresponsibly.. same with my brake pads… maybe tomorrow is the day… I have 65kms to Zamora and 2 days to do it in so I will have a spare afternoon in the next few days…

I still had another few hours to kill in the city and walked about a bit more, got another coffee, got shoo-d off some restaurant patio in a very unpleasant exchange… including hand gestures and all… full culture immersion today….

Salamanca is a college town and a very stark contrast in demographics from what I’ve come across so far… felt good to be around some liveliness and chatter and kids making out at sunset points and all in all a nice town to walk about in, people not caring as much about my absurd bike and my general unusual appearance.

Oh and I also had a wonderful 2 hours at a laundromat during Siesta! Forgot that’s where I spent that time… washed allll my clothes and reorganized the bags to some extent… was great! Laundromats here are awesome and Siesta time really means nobody is around… I even gave the security cameras a quick show by dropping my pants to maximize the dirty load… 

Ended the day with dinner with my warm showers host and her friend went past midnight and now sleep, still no fixed plan for tomorrow, I can chill and ride to the next place even starting around 11-12 like I did from Merida… only riding 40 odd kms so I should be ok!

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