March 30th: Lugones to San Esteban de Leces

I Was keen to get on the road this morning, and the ride out of town was awesome! The day started with quiet country roads, there was a trail through a walking park for like 3 kms, then more country roads, one lane wide… a little bit of climbing, and then the first sight of the Ocean!

I could smell it before I could see it, and the temperature dipped, and even though it wasn’t a milestone at the beginning of the trip, I was really looking forward to seeing a coast and water… it felt great… I took the more difficult hiking trail to stay closer to the coast for a while, before I met some hikers that said I should get on the road for the next bit… lucky that they did because I bumped into a couple of people waiting outside an Albergue, I was tired and I stopped to chat with them and decided to stay here for the night, 15 euros and some people to hang about with… another Canadian amongst them as well!

Notes from 2 years later: Hikers are fucking badass… one of the hikers was doing surgery on his blisters at the end of the night… he said he had to “manage” them everyday, and then walk over twenty kilometres. These hikers are out here for months, travelling in a week, what I can do in a day on my bike. I always thought biking was a perfect balance of pace of travel, slow enough to take in everything you pass, fast enough to keep you moving forward. I think that I’m still too scared to go even slower, and slower and the most frightened yet, to stand still.

A quick note on food… I have found my favourite Spanish food, and it is a sandwich at a specific supermarket, they have it warmed up and ready to go… I know this might be very uncultured of me… but it’s difficult to ask for something special or local when I barely speak the language and places are a bit intimidating to be in… especially with the local crowd eyeballing you the whole time… anyway, I am happy with my supermarket haul and I am not thinking much about the cultural experience im supposedly missing out on… I think jamon y queso on some tostada is culture enough…

No plan for tomorrows ride either… I have a calm now that I’m on the side of the ocean. I will cycle till I feel tired and then look for a place to stay… Now that I’m on the coast, there are lots of options, there is a campground about 60kms away that looks promising, but if I feel good when I get there, I might risk it and keep going… good night!

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