The night before, we were flicking through the stations on Spanish TV for comedic purposes, when we came across a news program showing footage of a ski field somewhere nearby where it had been snowing. From what I can gather it was a bit unexpected – we seem to have arrived in the middle of a cold snap (even for winter:P). Whatever the case, it was a pleasant surprise to see cars with snow piled up on their roofs when I went out for my morning jog.
As we left Tolosa and started down the route to Pamplona, I was delighted to find that the entire valley was blanketed in snow. On our Michelin road map, the road we were taking was coloured green for 'scenic', and while I'm sure it would have been spectacular normally, with a dusting of snow, the scenery was just amazing. It was almost a safety hazard because I was so involved with looking around me that it took a palpable wrench to return my eyes to the road in front of me. Sadly my camera was out of batteries, so I have no way of proving how magnificent it looked (and I'm sure my photographic skills wouldn't have done the image sufficient justice in any case), but I can assure you that it was really a lovely backdrop.
For the first twenty kilometres or so, the road was almost pancake flat, following the valleys and going through the mountains (ie. Through a tunnel) if there was no other option. It was quite an impressive feat of engineering. I was expecting at any moment to see a long climb in front of me, but it didn't happen for quite a while. When the road did finally begin to climb, it did so almost in a rage at being held at such a low altitude for so many kilometres. From 200m above sea level, the road went up to 650m ASL in the space of about three kilometres.
It was really quite brutal. There was a road sign at one point reporting the gradient as 12% and it didn't get any easier than that. I was in my lowest gear, going 6km/h but panting the whole time like I was in the middle of the finishing kick of a mile race. To my pleasure I made it all the way up without stopping, but Luke only lasted about 200m before he had to start pushing his bike. It was raining (about half a degree colder and it would've been snow I reckon) as well, but it almost came as a relief because I was overheating! While I was waiting for Luke to catch up, I took off about half of my layers:O
We had a bit of a respite from climbing after that, enjoying a slight downhill into a town that we well and truly had earnt. Huddled in a bus stop over the map and some biscuits we suddenly benefited from some really top class Spanish hospitality. A couple came over and asked us where we were going, etc. etc. This is all guesswork, but I think the man said that he was a cyclist and often rode down to Pamplona and would be honoured to suggest a route to take to avoid the traffic. Of course we wanted to hear about it, so he tried to explain it to us verbally with limited success before they walked back to their car. I thought that was the end of it, but then as we got back on our bikes, we saw them driving slowly in front of us, the woman making an unmistakable 'follow us!' gesture. They then proceeded to lead us for about three ks getting us to where we needed to know. It was an amazing act of generosity, and really helpful because the route was not signposted well at all and we wouldn't have known where to go after we struck one of the massive, bike unfriendly highways that the route crossed.
Luke didn't believe that they'd taken us in the right direction for quite a while because the road we were on actually curved back the way we'd come, but I had faith and my faith was rewarded when it finally swung back the other way. It was another great route with basically no traffic at all, passing through farms and small towns. A few big climbs presented themselves though, and our already shattered legs felt each one. I was still able to ride all the way up, but I really felt it the whole time.
During one of our periodic banana/orange/biscuit/bread/generally carbohydrate loaded food stop, we spoke longingly of a long smooth descent all the way to Pamplona. After a final gut wrenching climb, Spain looked down on us benevolently and gave us exactly that! It was literally downhill for about ten kilometres and we were flying! At one stage my speedo was reading 51kph and Luke was way out in front of me. I felt a bit unsafe to be honest with my pannier rack wobbling significantly from side to side and didn't quite open the throttle as much as he dared, wary of the consequences of a fall at that speed. Still it was great fun and although it had passed 5pm, which meant we should've already stopped riding and started looking for a place to spend the night, we were just having too much fun to stop!
After the downhill finally leveled out, we did make one effort to find accomodation at this two star rural hotel. After following this horribly steep driveway for about 2.5km, we finally got there. I got off the bike and gave the doorbell a good press; then another; and another one; and another until I ended up holding it for about 60 seconds in frustration. There was a car there, so we knew someone was home, but they must've seen us on CCTV or something and decided we weren't worth it:P As we were about to leave, this guy came out and sheepishly said hi. I asked him for the price – 85 euros! No thankyou. Back we went down the steep driveway and just kept on riding.
By 6:00 it was actually getting quite hard to see, but we were on another of those fantastic stretches where cycling is effortless and town after town flew by without us thinking to stop. Finally at 7:00, after a last uphill that dented our enthusiasm a little bit, we stopped. Luke wanted to keep riding until Pamplona which was still about 20km away, but I didn't feel safe with the lights we had and I was hungry and tired, so we stopped at the tiny town at the top of the big climb. It was always going to be lean pickings with Pensions that far from a big city and sure enough, there was nowhere at all we could stay. “Excellent”, I said, “we can stealth camp.”
Luke wasn't at all keen on the idea, but we really had no other choice. It had started raining again and we were in quite a desperate situation, so setting up the tent somewhere didn't sound like too bad a proposition. I saw what looked like a disused road leading nowhere, so we went down there, and after a failed communicatory effort with a local man out walking his dog, we set up camp in an unsown field.
It was really quite a poor choice of campsite. The stealth factor was a lot lower than I had thought and the ground was very damp and muddy thanks to the rain. Still, once the tent was set up, you couldn't really tell and it was a massive relief to get under a roof, even if it was only made out of some polyvinyl compound.
Neither of us slept very well that night. Apparently at one point, someone came up to the tent with a torch and touched it before walking off again. I had a number of fitful dreams and felt a little homesick. Still, we got a few hours sleep, and saved ourselves a lot of money in the process. It's not something I want to repeat too often, but I'm now glad we brought the tents, because what else could we have done in that situation?
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