Finally got back on the road at 3pm, several days later than planned. I had a really great time in Valencia, I only wish it could've lasted longer..sigh.. (Travel plans are changing to incorporate another visit to Zaragoza).
Really wasn't in the mood to ride. I only got two hours sleep and the sad goodbye was haunting me :( The plan was to just do 30km to the closest camp site I could find, very achievable in three hours, but after struggling to find a good way out of the city, it was looking a bit touch and go. Then remnants of the celebration the night before on the streets led to a flat tyre, my first of the trip. I have plenty of spares, so it wasn't an issue, but funnily enough, I got interrogated by the police in the process (oh no, second altercation, I'm seeing a trend towards the wrong side of the law emerging:P). It was really more out of curiousity than anything else – they seemed to find it really cool and funny that someone would travel around on a loaded bike. Still, I had to give them my passport so that they could make sure I wasn't an illegal immigrant, sneaking into the orange basket of Spain on a bike:| They offered to drive me to the road I needed to get on (I was just navigating by compass) but I didn't think they wanted to wait around for me to swap out my inner tube, so I declined. It was very decent of them though – based on my two encounters so far, Spanish police seem pretty nice.
By the time I got my tyre back up and running (only ten minutes this time thank god), it was 5:30 and I knew I wasn't going to make it to the campsite before dark. A sense of apathy descended over me and I really didn't care. I'd just ride and put my lights on when it got too dark. Serendipitously, ten minutes later, I came across an open campground I hadn't known about, and was very happy to call it quits for the day after 23km.
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