Trying to find Cape Finisterre

Here’s the map. More to follow: Up to Finisterre at EveryTrail

Last night I ventured up to the terrace bar for a drink and to write up some notes. When the young guy working as a waiter put something to nibble (tuna and some twirly pasta) on my table I decided to risk dinner. I was hungry. I went for the mirage of the aroma of cooking meat and the warm buzz of company. I learnt – never again. The food ‘marinated pork and potato’ turned out to be daunting in volume and poor in quality – the potatoes were actually chips. I was challenged to finish even half of it.
Afterwards, with the sun just setting I walked down to the beach. Now, unlike earlier in the day when it was hot, bright and crowded, now it was beautiful, deserted, the tide just up and on the turn, a lovely light just before the sky lost any colour, the quiet lapping of the water around the rocks. This moment, like the walk up to the stations of the cross seemed to say to me that there are moments of involvement to be found but they are unlikely to be in searching for involvement in what others seem to find attractive. I first sensed this about 40 years ago and still don’t seem to confidently believe it.
This morning I am still suffering from last night’s dinner. I rode up to Finisterre, the most westerly part of the peninsular in search of 1. A supermarket to buy some fresh produce after a week of not seeming to find any and 2. What I imagined as the lonely lighthouse on a crag with ample parking and few people. I can tick off number 1 – I could even park right outside the door but not the second. Despite two attempts, all roads seemed to end in the congested and cobbled little town sea front awash with people walking out in front of the bike and other people trying to park anywhere. There were also many pilgrims to be seen who had obviously gathered to much spiritual momentum on their walk to Santiago that they were unable to stop walking and hopefully managed to stop just in time before the ended up in the sea.
On the way back I got my always mysterious helmet cam to work for the first time on the trip. As a triumphant finale I manage to turn up into the steep and narrow street leading to the campsite under smooth control – unlike my first arrival.
Once back here at lunchtime, I see the place is filling up again, with three new tents in the field down here, two guys with the radio on (strains of double-stopped violin, ‘music clasique’ says one of them without turning it off, then a family of three – the third being a small annoying girl. Then interestingly a couple riding a Honda Pan (Pan European – if you are not in the know) with GB plates. They turn out to be Scottish, pleasant, him fit, an ex-competition cyclist and she, ironic, funny and dealing with their apparently huge amount of washing. There were two conversations going on – the men talking about motorbikes, cycles and fitness and interjected conversations between me and her about the washing machine having broken down – I tell her she will have to buy a complete set of clothes now.
Later, after a few halting pages of Being and Time and swatting flies, I went down to the beach with my swimmers cunningly ready beneath my zip offs (in zipped-off mode; you see, I have saved bringing two separate pairs of trousers; the legs have colour-coded zips). I discovered its actually beautifully breezy down there and lay in the sun and sneaked into the sea which is cold. It’s the Atlantic not the Mediterranean. I also notice that while many people walk up and down in swimming costumes very few actually get into the water.
Postscript on my failure to find the lighthouse. The wonders of GPS and Google earth showed me just now exactly where I went wrong on the road. I need to decide whether to retrace my steps tomorrow or to take another winding coastal jaunt in a southerly direction down the coast to the Cape of Arousal. The attractions are obvious. Excuse me while I find my zipped-off legs.

Monday 2nd September Miles – none

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).
Stations of the Cross at Lauro, Spain
Stations of the Cross at Lauro, Spain
Stations of the Cross at Lauro, Spain
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.

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.

Going to any length to avoid duff campsites

From Cabuerniga to Arbon at EveryTrail

I headed off late morning after the age that it takes to pack everything up and move everything that got damp in the night into the shifting sunshine to dry off, and after 15 miles of small roads was spewed out onto the motorway A8 heading west. It was great to be riding at speed even though it could be thought of as a boring road.
North coast Spain
I’d got a campsite from Alan Rogers guide that seemed to promise something special, close to the coast, and small it said. I ended up needing to stop for petrol at a ghastly service station with no shade so made a quick snack of it by the bike, my carton of milk bought from the campsite, still drinkable, and some nice fresh bread, followed by chocolate just starting to melt on my fingers. About an hour later I arrived at the suburb where the campsite should be. There was something odd in the guidebook, it seemed the site had two different names and true enough at a small junction in the town there were two sites. I headed to where the GPS wanted me to go but found a rather nasty ASCI approved (i.e. full of Dutch in motorhomes) place with a grand entrance so turned around feeling smug heading for the other site. When I got there, it looked worse. The woman in the glass reception booth told me to park the bike and follow her but by the time I had, she was nowhere to be seen. I walked down to where a few tents were but the place was like a cross between a loud public swimming pool, a busy bar and a caravan site. This was no good, so in the car park I leafed through the guidebook (which I am beginning not to trust so much) and tried a few different ways to tell the GPS where I thought looked safe to go to, about 35 or so miles further west. I jumped on and enjoyed zooming off. But with so much road building here the GPS was hopelessly confused and took me on some lovely twisty roads believing that I was actually a couple of hundred feet above on the new motorway whose great concrete stilts I rode under, from one side to the other. As ever the route to a campsite gets more and more remote and you need trust to believe that it really knows where it is going. Close to where it should be I slowed down looking out for signs and noticed a queue of traffic just behind me. I darted off to the side of the road to let them pass and lurched to an undignified halt. Round the next few bends was the entrance, down a rocky track that Bertha laughs at.

So I am here. In some ways little different to the others – but subtly nicer – and I feel comfortable which is the point. The owner chain smokes roll ups and has Diablo tattooed on his forearm for a start, and explained (something) about the beer I just bought. I found a shady corner just flat enough to stand Bertha and I camped under orange trees. I just ate one that I saw fall to earth. They smell beautiful and fresh.

The guide book says they have a great restarant here. I’m enjoying a cool beer as I write this but I’m not sure I’m up for sitting alone to eat surrounded by the happy families here. I think I will stay a couple of nights all being well and perhaps Sunday will have emptied out. Tomorrow is 1st September and perhaps everywhere will be quieter from now. I want to get to the West coast.

Ride over to Fuente De via Potes

Today was a tiring ride of about 120 miles and riding for three hours of twisty hairpins over the mountain on the way there and less tight but busy roads on the way back. There’s a scary cable car at Fuente De which appears to take people into the sky and leave them there. Potes looked lovely. Its medieval apparently but it was heaving with not a spot to part Bertha so I kept on the move.

Tomorrow I leave here and head over West towards Galicia, aiming for a campsite near Cudillero, near the coast. It is mysterious to find: the GPS coordinates in the guidebook lead to France, my GPS doesn’t put the postcode and the address together and the road directions are ambiguous. Still, I feel like moving on.

Here’s the route I took today, there and back combined.

To Fuente De via Potes at EveryTrail

First proper day in Spain

From campsite up to the El Sopleo caves at EveryTrail

So, my philosophy is to take it easy. My last visit to Spain on the bike was the cause of some anxiety and a baptism of fire of tight steep hairpins. I went out, after mid day looking for medieval Potes but the road I was looking for wasn’t there. Kindly at breakfast two teachers from Portugal gave me some in depth – cave-orientated advice about what to see around here. Luckily the El Sopleo (it means breath or breeze I think) caves were part of their recommended itinerary so I made a sharp right and then a further right up a steeper road (there were cows with horns wandering on it on the way back). Some tightish hairpins today but only one gave some anxiety . There is a stunning view from the site and you can pay €12 for a guided tour of the caves which you start in a rattly old mine train something like the Waterloo and City line used to be – but open carriages. Once inside the show starts. A light show and loud synthesised atmospheric music, reminding me of Almodovar. At this point I remembered that I’d left my expensive movie camera on my bike. Annoying but I am burdened with too many gadgets anyway. The cave was cavishly amazing. At the final  part they played opera, loud and beautiful. Some families started to hug eachother and kiss. The guide said, I think, ‘Music and lights stimulate the frontal cortex’. Then we rattled back up the train back into the daylight. Photography was banned which was a relief. We have to concentrate and rely on memory. A potato salad and Fanta celebrated the safety of my camera.

Tomorrow I will try to find Potes. This holiday is going to be measured though the Portuguese did tell me Galicia is beautiful, though it rains there.

The weather is perfect. The 7pm sun on the roof tiles and bricks where I am sitting now are so warming. There are tourists – all Spanish – but nowhere is crowded and no one drove behind me today making me think I should ride faster than I want to. On my return I realised I’d lost one of my Zig bottles from the back of the bike (the one with vodka in it). I was fond of it.