This campsite closes next Monday and is almost empty now. It wouldn’t surprise me if I am the only one left at the end – though I’ve been trying to plan a route back to Bilbao but that’s not till next week, or the end of this week.
Time, Being and Time. Time passes slowly when you are restless. After breakfast up on the lovely terrace and saying goodbye to the intrepid cyclists who were aiming to do 70k today and who saved me from solitude, I started reading Heidegger in manageable chunks, and swatting flies from my salty body and having innumerable showers and then ventured out on foot – twice. Orientated towards finding a supermarket and the beach I had failed to notice a residential convent next door – just the other side of the stone wall. There was a very catholic 19th century chapel, cool inside and the sign Reception over a door which I did not understand at the time. I did notice the stone path up the side of the hill in front with pillars containing plaster reliefs of the stations of the cross (just to remind you: Stations of the Cross (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) is a series of artistic representations, very often sculptural, depicting Christ Carrying the Cross to his crucifixion in the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus before he died, and the devotions using that series to commemorate the Passion, often moving physically around a set of stations. Thanks to Wikipedia), so of course I started to climb to the top, through all 14, through the recently burnt out undergrowth (it still smelled of charcoal).
What an amazing sight it must have been when the whole hillside caught file and those 14 pillars survived, just needed a fresh coat of whitewash. I’ve just noticed I can see the convent from where I am sitting by the tent, though a gate. There’s nothing going on there. I climbed up my personal Golgotha all the way to the top. What a change of mood from the beach and search for a supermarket. And what a strange story. Is this a very good metaphor for life, an uphill struggle, to an ultimate cruel death and being laid in a tomb? Its formalised – how many times did Jesus stumble? Like my 14 days in Spain, I’ve stumbled three times, coming to an abrupt halt with a struggle to keep Bertha upright. And why did the soldier give him vinegar, not water or wine? Vinegar seems to go well with the overall bitterness of the story. (Apparently it was used as a kind of painkiller to prolong death on the cross and Jesus refused it – which I had forgotten.)
Tomorrow I will ride up to Cape Finesterre – its not far – then back down the coast . It does look beautiful. It was good to rest today but some boredom crept in.
Day: September 2, 2013
From Asturias to Galicia
1st September
Some thoughts as I pack up in the morning, I have the advantage of getting the morning sun up here to dry everything off. I fell asleep quickly (after listening to Bruce Springsteen on my iPhone) at 10.30 but awoke again at midnight with children running around and chattering and laughing, but quickly settling shortly after midnight. Then I was awoken again at 4.30 but loud festival music thankfully distant. Why it started at that time I have no idea: did the wind direction change? It was bizarre.
Now at 8.30 I am up before the entire campsite, nearly packed and keen to get back on the road. I have felt an outsider here, a shadowing single figure on the outside of this site of happy families. Sometimes its right, when solitude doesn’t feel conspicuous, as at the last site, with a range of different people there, but sometimes it does not feel comfortable and I wonder where all the serious minded interesting lone travellers have found to stay that I haven’t.
Today I will ride up around the top corner of Galicia and not sure where I will aim for tonight. I even thought a hotel would make a chance. I even thought this model of holiday may have had its day.
At Muros campsite. What can I say? I rode 215 miles today in increasingly hot weather. I stopped off for a very quick lunch looking over a beautiful little port but with choppy seas. But I had lost my keys somewhere (I found them in the bike) and was anxious about the steep climb up back to the main road and sure enough there were obstructions but I ploughed on up not wanting to stop as hill starts are a performance on such a heavily laden bike. The journey was enjoyable though the GPS kept getting lost adding to the overall sense of confusion about where I was and what direction I was heading in. And there were tolls. I followed a car through the lane that seemed to let people through automatically but not me, so had to push Bertha back from the barrier and try another. By this time the temperature was showing 33 degrees. Now I have finally understood the weird thing happening with campsites. I had loaded a while back a Europe full of duff specialist-Dutch motorhome campsites. They are close to the much nicer Alan Rogers sites but when searching for the right address on the GPS I’ve got confused. So luckily I worked that out before I turned left to what looked like the huge and ghastly beach front site and kept on the road another few miles to the sharp uphill right (that I stopped on because of poor slow speed style) that led to this lovely campsite – where there is a field for free form camping, shared only so far with a Portuguese couple and a female cycling duo who are riding from Santiago de Compostella to Lisboa (they said). They are friendly, speak some English and share an incredibly narrow tent. They must be good friends. Now someone else is walking over the space looking for somewhere to park. Also sounding Portugese though driving a Spanish car. Ah they are coming next to me… I have the feeling I may stay here till the site closes on 9th September, or at least 4 or 5 nights. I am rather exhausted by all this rather lost riding. There is meant to be a ‘supermarket’ here on site, and a restaurant (I’m having coffee there now with breakfast croissant).
This is a different climate down here, much hotter and there are flies and cicada after dark.
From Arbon, Asturias to Muros, Galicia at EveryTrail
The night was warm and the morning also bright. I think there is enough to do to stay for a while. I’ve stopped reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom and taken up Being and Time instead. I was growing tired of the constant theme of cruelty in Lawrence’s writing.