15 December Barcalona! - Bethan's looking for a cathedral

15 December 2007 19:15:06

Stuff‏

hola,
hey hey we are in barcelona! at last - got a train in though. we stayed an extra day in monserrat after discovering that deri had lost his bank card, which is a bit of a pin in the arse but it´s better that it´s happened at the end of this stage of the trip rather than half way through or something, although it would´ve better have not happened at all of course.

found cheap accommodation in a youth hostel, only 16 euros each, barcelona is turning out to be super expensive, of course we expected it to be quite expensive but not this much, we just paid 14 euros for a small snack. extortionate!
we were planning on going to the cathedral, but would you believe it we couldn´t find it and ended up paying to get into the wrong cathedral, we thought that you´d be able to see it for miles, so will check the book later. does anybody know where it is ?????
we went to the aquarium though which at the time we thought was quite expansive but in comparison to food and stuff was ok. i really enjoyed it actually, they had one of those glass tunnels you walk under with loads of scary looking sharks in the tank above, their teeth were so freaky, and loads of other fish, i liked the strange looking ones, but watching all those fish swimming around has made me really tired.

loads of people here, and i mean loads, it feels a bit weird to be surrounded by so many people,..ahhhh! adios beth

13 December - Bethan messing about in Monserrat

13 December 2007 20:43:05

30k to barcelona

hola people ,
i am more cheerful today, after last night though i hardly know why, we got into iguadro about 3.30, obviously everything was closed, you would´ve thought that we´d be used to that by now wouldn´t you, and even though our map said that there was an albergue there, there wasn´t. had to stay in this really scuzzy hotel, scuzzy but expensive that is . 60 euros it cost us, and it was freezing, we each had to sleep in our sleeping bags underneath the blankets and sheets and stuff, because it was so cold.

left this morning and were planning to have a day off ride 10k and then stop but don´t know what happened because then the plan was to ride to barcelona, only 60k - about 30 n (barcelona, barcelona, - olympics theme tune). anyway we´ve ended up in monserrat which is a bit north of the road, but it´s a national park, went for a walk up the mountain but couldn´t get to the top, you couldn´t walk it without ropes, and then you´d have to be an experienced climber i´d think. we get go wandering off the path for a while though, onto what at first looked like a path, then found ourselves lost in the undergrowth. our coats held up well though, kept expecting to hear a loud snagging sound, it was silly to have continues on the ´path´ once it clearly was no longer a path and almost vertical, but we survived. we´re going upto the top of the mountain tomorrow morning before we set off on the cremerilla, which is like a one carriage train that goes vertically up the cliff face to the top. i saw 2 carriages earlier on, passing each other one going up an dthe other going down, to be honest they looked pretty precarious, but i really would like to go up. deri has agreed to it surprising easily though, and i haven´t told him that in the carriages you don´t ssit vertically but horizontally, so that when you come down you´re facing down the mountain, he says he only gets nervey about heights on top og man made structures, so don´t know if a railway track really qualifies. looks really impressive if not a bit scary.

we´re staying in an albergue here in monserrat, we are the only people here. the albergue is very nice, no kitchen, but monserrat is a bit of a strange town. it´s clearly a tourist town, and not really a town actually, you´ve got to pay to get in and there´s no road out, we didn´t pay coz we´re on bikes but how weird. it´s on top of a mountain, about 150m down from the summit, at about 1000meters - yes we rode up today, so who knows what happened to our day of rest. monserrat is in shade most of the day, from about 12 oclock noon onwards, which is silly really, why didn´t they build it on the other side of the mountain? and we can´t find a shop, although people obviously live here because we saw loads of children playing earlier on, there´s gift shops which are super expensive, but it is very picturesq. cracking on to barcelona tomorrow, should be relatively easy really as it seems all down hill from here. i´ve got to go and book us a place in the backpackers hostel once i´ve finished this, by the way mam, we can leave our bikes with osians ex-girlfriend so that´s really handy, althouigh we rae still going to try and get them serviced. deri is contemplating swimming in the sea, but i reckon that he´ll chicken out once we find out how cold it is.
...that´s it for now i think. just played the camino board game, which please take note, deri bought and i´ve carried all across spain - go figure. up until now i was beginning to despise those gtames, sticking in my bum as i sit down on the bike and generally just being awkward to carry around, but they didn´t turn out to be as bad as i´d thought they would be, although would have been preferable witha bottle of wine and turned into drinking games.
ok that´s about it, when you heaqr from me next i´ll be in barcelona, hooray!

11 December targerra - Bethan hasn't got a map

11 December 2007 19:39:37 i wouldn´t bother reading this it´s boring‏

hey people,
well not really a lot to report, we are in targerra, maybe something a bit different, but am losing track of place names. only 110 k - about that - away from barcelona!!!! so we thinking that we might get there in two days, well we know we could but don´t know if we want to. arrived at lleida yesterday, i think we did get the southernly end of that storm you´ve been having because the winds where fierce, luckinly though it was an easterly wind, so pushed us up all the hills, we did 50k in 2 hours!!! no exaggeration. although whenever the road changed tack the wind was nearly pushing me off the road, had to tilt at a 45 degree angle to counteract it, and truck surfing became altogether too dangerous - truck surfing is when you get into the slipstream of big trucks and they make you go faster. but when the trucks where passing the wind would go and then as i got caught in the slipstream and they took over me i´d get a big gust of wind that would all but blow me off my bike. anyway wind died down a lot today, so in one way it was a lot harder to ride. ok though.

i think we´ve done rather well in terms of distance and in terms of direction, often, definately when we didn´t have a map, obviously we´d ask people, and look at other poeples maps when we could, but often we have just headed in a particular direction, first it was east, then south, now east again, and judged direction on the sun. and when we´ve found a road that sounds a bit like the road we think we need but not quite the road we need we take it and hope for the best, and up until now it has worked out alright - for instance we took the NA-232, when we needed the N-222, or something like that, but we´re in the right place and going the right way, so must be doing something right. well isn´t this email boring, am going to find food now, see most of you pretty soon though.
beth

08 December Bethan on a motorway to Zaragosa road kill, grumpy people, although having a good time

08 December 2007 18:52:49

road kill, grumpy people, although having a good time

hola people,
well i´m writing this for the second time as i just wrote it all and the computer turned itself off - aaaarggghhhh!!! so apoligie sif this email is a bit disjointed i´m just trying to remember everything that i wrote.

we´re in zaragoza, had an easy day only 38k, not like yesterday when we rode close to 100k, although not as painful as a wek ago.
it´s a bank holiday weekend here, don´t ask me what bank holiday i couldn´t tell, but there´s loads of people about. in fact outside there´s probably the biggest queue i´ve ever seen, again don´t ask me what they´re queuing for, to see father christmas or jesus, ??? i´m not really up to date with religious customs so ?????? it´s something else though, about half a mile long, or half a kilometre rather, into this little mock-up castle/nativity thing. i mean no father christmas can be that good, what´s he giving out...gold coins???? and why would anybody join a queue that long, they really must have very empty lives

zaragoza is really nice, except we´re staying in this youth hostel with the most miserable woman on the front desk, she did perk up after we´d paid her though. the best thing about this youth hostel is that the doors open at 1 o clock, 2 and then 3, which would be good if we didn´t go to bed so early, but we´re pilgrims and it´s an unwritten law that pilgrims must go to bed early. in fact there´s loads of unwritten laws that pilgrims must obey, and you can spot them a mile off.

number 1 - pilgrims are always scruffy - purely practical clothes, although in santiago you could tell the pilgrims by their non-winter-like attire. number 2 - sensible shoes. number 3 - pilgrims usually smell, the sweet smell of success, or in other words a mix of BO and old feet - nice. number 4 - stupid, and i mean stupid tan lines! i really miss the camino actually, just in terms of meeting nice people, since leaving estrella we seem to have met an abundance of truly grumpy people, i´m not saying that we haven´t met any nice people at all, but for instance in the motel last night, we stayed in a motel last night - 53 euros, it was a bit expensive but we thought it was better to pay a bit extra for accommodation rather than die on the road...oh the road, i´ll tell you about the road in a minute, anyhow it was getting dark and we were on a really busy road, so we stayed in a motel. in the restaurant downstairs, or should i say truck stop cafe, there was a really unhelpful and grouchy man, and in the turismo in tudela the woman was so rude that she made us want to leave the town immediately without spending any money there, hence the riding of a 100k. everybody on the camino is pretty happy, even the ´miserable´ ones aren´t that bad in comparison, and we only met one hospitalero that was grumpy.

back to to the road, we were going down this N- road, which is a bit like an A-road at home, pretty fast but not a motorway, or so we thought....we´d been riding down the road for about 60k, quite happily, well, content anyway, although loads of road kill, some pretty badly mangled, cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, mice, voles, you get the picture - sorry if your eating or something, it was pretty grim. anyway, riding down the road, then suddenly, without warning or worse a way to turn off it just turns into a motorway, i mean we´ve had road that have just stopped when quite clearly they´re marked on the map, but this road just turned into a motorway with signs saying no bikes, no pedestrian etc. quite frankly spanish roads are a joke, either there are roads where there´s not meant to be, or more annoyingly vice versa - really now, they just stop, some go for miles and then end in the middle of nowhere. on the way into logroño we had to cross a field full of scrub to get on to another road, or as we found out today and yesterday, they just turn into motorways, like proper motorways, and people are beeping at us telling us to turn off, but it´s not as if we turned on, we were on an N road!!!! it´s the road that´s in the wrong not us!!

there´s about 330 k left to barcelona, either 6 easy days or 4 not so easy, we´re thinking that if we get to barcelona and are spending too much we might go walking in the pyrenees, in the volcanic bit, although there hasn´t been an eruption for over 11, 500 years, looks really nice though.

we´ve finally figured out how to eat vegetarian in spain, in santiago we had falafels and here we´ve had chinese, the trick is to go foreign, it really weird, spain has all these really nice vegetables, fresh, locally grown all that. and they insist on murdering them, either boiling them to death, or pickling them beyond recognition...what have they got against vegetables? you want to see what they do to asparagus, they treat it so badly it turns all white and mushy, it´s vile. oh well i´m rambling now aren´t i, hope everybody is well, i´ll be home in 10 days, oh my god that´s going to be weird, only a week and a half left. (yes mam, book the iceskating, who else is rhian inviting? will it be too cold to go sailing when i´m home?) i´m going to send this now to avoid losing it all again.
ok i´m done adios beth

06 December - Bethan is in calohorra heading south

06 December 2007 19:55:53

calohorra

hola people,
we are riding into the abyss, no map, no yellow arrows - but we managed to make it to calohorra, i think that´s where we are, in one piece and in the light, and we didn´t even leave until 2 o clock. got to estrella yesterday, pretty uneventful ride, except for some reason i was feeling very unenergetic and didn´t really want to ride, i expect it had something to do with entering the foothills of the pyrenees, we covered about 50k though. on our way we met this woman cyclist, well girl really, probably about my age. she was looking lost so went to talk to her, turned out she´d cycled from her house in nepal, NEPAL!!!! and has been travelling for 16 months, even through iraq - a woman on her own, how incredible is that. wasn´t really expecting much of estrella, except for the wine fountain of course, we´ve been hearing about it for weeks and we finally found it, in fact we would have left the camino sooner but stayed on it just long enough to reach the wine fountain, and it was glorious - hence the reason we didn´t leave today until 2.

anyway got to the albergue yesterday and the hospitelera man wouldn´t take any money off us, then we went for a wander around town and bumped into a random australian who forced, and i mean forced, 10 euros on us so we could get a chinese. in the albergue we met up with a woman who we´ve seen 5 times along the camino, who had started again because she couldn´t get a plane home to canada until after christmas, also met this really nice austrian girl, who accompanied us today the wine fountain, it was so good we had to go back for a second go. oh yes so we sat in the sun and drunk free wine and *** in t-shirts, it´s been so nice here the last couple of days, my tan lines are beginning to return, and i burned my face a bit the last two days, best december i´ve ever had!!!

well i say that we´ve left the camino, we sort of have, but we got an amazing albergue, only 6 euros and we get a private room, sheets on the bed and a bath, A BATH, we thought we´d have to pay big bucks to get a bath, but no - 6 euros....wow hay man!!! there´s also a settee, i haven´t sat on a settee for nearly two months, it´s so exciting, well maybe not exciting but so sweet, that´s sad isn´t it getting excited by a settee and a bath...oh well. one more thing about calahorra, i seen 6 storks sat on a crane when we rode in, and when we rode underneath them they all looked down at me, probably because i was looking at them. i don´t know why people are telling us to go north to jaca, that´s practically on the french border and getting into big mountains, so we´ve come south,

we are following the river ebro to the coast, well as far to the coast as we can get without hitting big mountain ranges, and then assessing the situation again. we will do the pyrenees and the picos, just maybe when we´ve got more time, and maybe a bit fitter. anyway don´t think much more has happened, going to continue to go south tomorrow - maybe thinking that we will go to seville now for new year, i´m just waiting to hear back off loretta so that could be a plan. ok

adios beth

15 December Barcalona! - via Monserrat Deri arrives by train

15 December 2007 19:30:27

Barcalona!‏

Hola!

So weve finally reached Barcalona! And in only about 2 weeks! We took ages to get to Santiago! Anyway! Back to where we kicked off! Tarrega....

We left Tarrega After fixing another puncture! in my front wheel (I pulled a thorn out of my tire as well so hopefully that wont happen again!) And we started to make our way, once, again oward Barcalona! It was quite easy going till we got to Igualda! There we stopped to have lunch an figure out what to do next! In the tourist office (which was actually closed but let us in) they said there wasnt another albergue for another 30k and that was up a mountain! So we dicided to stay in igualda... That was a bad choice! There were only three hotels (and nothing else) in the whole place! The cheapest was 60 and the most expensive was 94 euros! By the time we figured this out it was getting to late to ride on and hope we found a place in time so we went back to the hotel that cost 60. It was such a rip off! There was no heating! It was on a roundabout so traffic noises went on all night and the shower leaked when you used it (and was very small) and ended up soaking the freezing floor in water! It sucked! And (ive racked my brains about this and it the only possibility) I lost my cash card in the hotel! Though i didnt know til 2 days later!

After leaving Igualda as fast as we could we followed the road for a while but it once again turned into a motorway and we had to find another road! This other road happened to take us up a mountain! Monserrat!

The "Serrated Mountain"! This made me happy asi kinda wanted to go there anyway and by the time we had a choice to get back on track toward Barcalona we were halfway up anyway so i talked bethan nto riding the further 11k to the town of Monserrat!

It really is a beautiful town! And an amazing mountain!

The "town" Is set 700m up the mountain. Almost dug out of the side of this really steep mountain- And what isnt dug out is supported by huge girders! The town is really pretty with a lot of amazing views! But it turns out the town is there only as a stopping point for a train that goas almost vertical up the mountain! There is a tourist office, hotel, resturant and cafe- and an albergue! Oh an a couple of musems. There is not even a shop!

Anyway! I talked bethan into climbing the mountain an leaving later in the day! Once we got up there we realised how big it was an decided to explore everything and get a train later! So we did! We climbed right to the top! I could see the white peaks of the pyrnees and turn around and see the sea! It was awsome! And! As we were sitting at the top, looking around, we heard a scratching noise so i walked to the edge of the viewing platform (there was a big compass with places and arrows pointing the direction to the view) I looked down a sheer drop (the kind where your stomach drops and your hands tingle) And see a mountain climber with ropes and everything making his way toward me! Thats absolutely crazy! He climbed all the way to the top-it took him four hours of climbing!

Anyway once we got back down the mountain i went to get some money an realised id lost my card! *****! Anyway panicked a bit but its all sorted now. I just have to borrow money off bethan til i get a new card for christmas! Anyway after all the panick and spending lots of time on the phone (It sucks being on hold, when your in spain and you know its costing you loads!) we stayed another day in Monserrat And cought the train this morning! But the train station was about 7k away- down the mountain! That was ****cold! Didnt go down anywhere near as fast as i have other mountains- my brakes were nearly frozen an werent working at their best, And after i hit the first patch of ice on a corner (A corner that led to drop where the cars at the bottom looked like ants) I took a bit more care! And i couldn feel my hands or my face! But we stopped halfway in a monostery where they let us sit on a radiator whilst we waited to get a pilgrim stamp!

Anyway got to Barcalona on the train and came in thrugh the tube system so didnt get to see the city till we were in it (I was looking forward to getting to the top of a hill and seeing it before me and then speeding down- Just like Santiago with mont de gozo!)

Anyway! Got alright price for the night (16 each) And went to the cathederal (the wrong one- why didnt anybody tell me there were 2?! An the one we saw was rubbish!) And to an aquarium like proper tourists! We are gonna try an sort everything else out (and hopefully go see the good cathederal) tomorrow! Anyway! Ill be home soon! 5 days? Speak to you/ See you soon! I cant wait!

Deri

11 December - Deri falls off his bike ....Tarrega?

11 December 2007 18:45:17

Tarrega?‏

Hola!

I cant quite remeber the name of wherever we are at the moment! Were Back on the camino though! Well kinda anyway! We got Lleida and got to the tourist info place and found a really nice woman who reall tryed hard to help us! Gave us all sorts of maps (One of which, of all Cataloña, has all the albergues highlighted along the way to barcalona with green highlighter so its pretty easy- just look at the highlighted places and ride as far as we want!) And good places to go and visit along the way and lots of helpful things like that!

And we found the Albergue there (youth hostal really) And they were really nice as well and forgot to charge us and gave us breakfast! It was all good! So yeah! Now were on the "Camino Libre" that leads all the way to Barcalona!

Anyway! Zaragoza was very pretty and the cathederal is the biggest (though not the most impresive) ive seen so far! The crowds there were ridiculous though- I havnt seen crowds that big in a while- ver scary! I guess its just a taster of what christmas shopping in manchester is gonna be like! There was a q that stretched to the horizon of people who wanted to kiss a statue of the "Virgen" !!!!?

When we left Zaragoza- heading to Lleida- it was all pretty flat and the wind was silly- but going our way- We managed to make 50k in under 2 hours- hows that for fast! And today was easy- had a map! with a lot of places we could go so no stress and so far its pretty acurate! Though i wont trust it completely!

The most exiting thing that happened over the past 2 days really is i fell off my bike The people on the camino are so nice! When i fell off my bike i landed pretty well so wasnt hurt at all but the car passing the other way just slowed down an stared at me as i got up an dusted myself of- cheers for the support ya ******! I could be hurt ya know!? Anyway thats it really! sorry!

I think our route tomorrow takes us through a national park (with an albergue in the middle!) and there is 1000 somthing m mountain in the middle so i might talk bethan into takin a day off to climb a mountain- weve got plenty of time to Barcalona! Wish us luck!

Deri