After having my first half decent run in quite a while, I returned to my tent to find a guy in a white van tooting his horn quite aggressively. “What's this guy's game?” I wondered. He didn't look like a cop, but it sounded to me like he was trying to get everyone to move on. I asked the Frenchman, who had gone up and spoken to him just before. Sounding surprised, he told me that he was the Boulanger (baker) of course! “What a fantastic idea”, I thought as I ran after the van and bought two delicious baguettes for a euro.
I had a fun chat(in French) with the French guy, who did a bit of cycling himself with his wife. He was so generous, he kept on trying to give me things. First it was some bread (which I declined) and then it was some oranges (which I accepted) and then a yellow safety vest, which he told me I simply must have if I go anywhere near Portugal. He had another three to fall back on, so I reluctantly took that too, before saying my goodbyes.
Almost unbelievably, today was yet another day of beautiful weather. I don't understand how it can be this nice when it's snowing in Madrid! I'm certainly not complaining though! The cycling seemed to match the weather. It felt really easy and I was covering ground at a terrific rate. After forty km though, my front brake started to act up, and things got quite a bit harder, especially uphill. My attempts at fixing it were unsuccessful, so I tried to not let it get to me and kept going.
By 55k, I started to get really thirsty. It just kept getting warmer and I had no liquid at all in my drink bottles. Luckily I had the oranges though, and after eating all four of them, I felt a bit better. The sun was just beating down on me. As I ate the oranges, I checked the thermometer to discover that it was getting close to thirty degrees! Wow! I'd already taken off most of my upper garments, but I was still hot, so I went the whole hog and stripped down to my bibs. I'm looking forward to seeing the tan:P It would be quite amusing to see the outline of the suspenders and the high waist still in pasty white, while everything else is brown. Sadly I don't think I'm going to have too many more days like that though.
Setting off again, I discovered that the road had turned into the autovia and was about to go through a tunnel. Uh oh. There was no way of going back now though, so I chose the slightly less dangerous option and rode on, flinching slightly as the cars boomed through the tunnel past me at 80kph. Another two tunnels like that and I was mercifully able to get off that road and find my way back onto the N-340.
I was still making really good time, and decided I'd ride for 100km and then look for a place to stay, not really having a destination in mind for today and kind of hoping to come across one of the 'free standing' parks again. At a little past four I hit the century mark, and swung down to the beach. There were a few camping vans parked around, but no-one in them that I could ask for guidance, so I very casually kept on riding along the beachfront. Five o'clock came and went, and still feeling like I had plenty of time, I went into a small supermarket, which although not quite as ostentatious as some of the ones out there, was still very much pitched at British holidaymakers (marmite, baked beans and other British specialties on the shelves). The storekeeper didn't even bother responding to me in Spanish (I was struggling, so I didn't mind) and we had a friendly chat about where I might best camp. He ended up recommending I go to the tourist office, which was just down the road.
The relaxed mood went out the window when the woman there told me the closest place was 18km away. It was 5:45, so I really had to get a move on! Racing the sun, I pushed as hard as I could against the troublesome front brake. It was a very tough ride, up a lot of hills, and after racking up 120km, I was seriously considering just pulling off the road and camping somewhere because I was just knackered. The campground was only a few kilometres further though, so I kept going and found it exactly at the eighteen km mark (there were no signs, so I thought she might have just made that number up:P).
An Irish fellow at the reception made a mockery of my attempt to conduct the booking in process in Spanish (not even Spanish natives speak that fast I swear!), I think purely so that we could talk in English. It was a good chat though, and the place wasn't too expensive either (11 euros).
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