Today started with what seems to be the typical Spanish breakfast in a local bar in Aljucen, a small rural village. One toasted bread bun with jam and a cup of coffee – not much to start the day with but it is the only thing available. I must say though that the coffee is great, makes Starbucks taste like bad water!
Because of the rain last night and the forecast for storms today we are warned to stick to the roads, as the trail will turn to mud.
We leave Aljucen with a long climb and fortunately the rain does not start until after we crested the hill. It rained steadily for quite a while until we came to a service center where we decided to stop to check the air in my new tyre. Again it seems someone is looking out for us. No sooner had we stopped under the awning when the rain started to fall in sheets of water and we were under the only shelter in the 20 km first stage. The downfall lasted 30 min before easing enough that we could head out
Here is a shot when it was not really raining.
As we rode along we could see the off road trail, it was a bed of mud and water, we could not have biked it.
After Valdesalor the sun came out and as we approached Caceres we passed two interesting castles. We took a short tourist pause to check them out.
Then into Caceres where we met Fiona, a niece of John’s wife Ellen in the Plaza Meyer. We had a lovely, long lunch in the square, luckily under an umbrella as the sky’s opened again in a downpour.
Leaving Caceres our route took us to the off road trail. John thought we should try it! Going against my gut I agreed as the surface was a sandy gravel and seemed sound. And we didn’t want to feel we were cheating on the off road nature of our ride.
This turned out to be a great choice. The cycling was more tiring but the countryside and scenery were worth it and we met an Italian man and a French couple along the way..
The approach to Canaveral offered more beautiful views augmented by a long slow climb up to the village. The shower waiting at the Casa could not be more inviting.
The ‘hotel’ really a converted old house is beautiful. We had to phone for someone to come and let us in. We met one other couple here also biking the Camino, from Brasil.
I thought I would finish today with a short rundown of our routine when we arrive at the days destination as sometimes the blog updates seem late.
Our order of stuff is
Check in, store bikes, haul panniers to room
Have showers
Do laundry – need to get it drying ASAP
Find place to buy water, maybe bananas for next day
Find places that do dinner and breakfast – not always easy eg tonight looks like the earliest for dinner is 8:30 and doesn’t look great
Get back and do blog
Transfer photos from camera to phone – had trouble with that tonight for a while.
Find Wifi to upload
Sleep!.
VDLPbyBike 
Thank you for another lovely blog. The photos are great and the landscape looks quite different to other days photos. Well done on completing another day. Hope you are getting enough food to compensate for all the energy you are expending. Good look tomorrow which I see has a lot of climbing.
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STILL SURVIVING… WOW!!! I will reas it all with calm next days, but compliments indeed, you are doing very well!
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What a day! Glad that you made it as I think that it was one of your bigger
hurdles. I guess you have no trouble sleeping these days! Goodnight from Breda
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Again the photos are great, it’s lovely that you met up with Fiona John. It’s great that you managed to do the trail as well as the road, hope that tomorrow goes really well, you will have covered a lot of the journey by tomorrow evening.
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As I did my ironing this morning I thought of you on your great adventure, hoping that the rains would be kind to you. I’m so delighted all went well today. Thanks again for all the info, the blogs are great and I’m sure you might think your time would be best spent sleeping but it’s great for us. I feel I’m on the adventure as you describe each day with so much detail and with my great adventure of ironing it’s not hard to expand my imagination. Best of luck tomorrow, you are great,
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Ann you are great for keeping in touch. People joke about how boring it is to have to look at other people’s holiday photos! Dermot is doing a great job on this. We have some serious climbing today I think and will have to see what the paths are like – more rain last night. I may be dreaming about a nice pile of ironing before long! John
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Brilliant photos and well done on a difficult day. Hope you have a comfy bed and a good breakfast with tomorrow looking very hard- then roll on Salamanca and Aaaaaaah Rest Day – Cheers Ellen
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I am loving the photos and updates – hope everything goes well tomorrow.
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Hi Sorcha, great to hear from you. Since I am writing this your wish came true.
Have a great trip to Stockholm and say hi to Aisling.
D
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I am addicted to this blog! I am in awe! I guess the “rain in Spain does NOT fall mainly on the plain” after all…
8:30 pm is a normal dinner time for Spaniards…you don’t see them on the road with their bikes at 6 in the morning, right? LOL
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Scenery looks fantastic. Sounds like you played it right by avoiding the off road during the worst of it. 101km is pretty impressive.
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Yes, but now come the real hill climbs!
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a little special inspiration for you… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O8oLqY2sxo
You’re welcome.
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Martin, your inspiration will have to wait. It is a challenge to get enough stable throughput to upload the blog so youtube videos are something for the future! Knowing you, dying to see it.
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Hey, Dermot. Looks like an amazing trip. Is the riding as tough as you expected? Did the Zoo ride yesterday and everyone was asking if you had started. Blog is great. Riding to the farm tomorrow, Friday, so I’m with you in spirit. Don’t expect to be riding through cattle and olive trees, though.
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Mark, great to hear from you! I would say that we were warned about the challenge of some of the off road but the reality does hit when you are actually on it for hours on end but I would want to have missed this experiece for anything. Just to see Spain like this is awesome and we are getting to know each other, meeting great people from all over the world and getting to do some awesome cycling! Who could ask for anything more!
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I am taking a lunch break as it happens just minutes from your home Dermot in chilly damp Toronto but feeling a wonderful vicarious bit of escapism looking at your amazing photos and imaging how much your legs must feel like lead after hours of pedalling through the rain soaking wet! Well done! I hope for drier paths for you both today:-)
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They say that the way a person handles adversity reflects their true character. None of the tough spots seem to have dampened your enthusiasm at all. Well done!! Great photos! Good luck!
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For my conquests i prefer
to get around by bicycle
my secondary school teachers
right prudes all
never wave back
the king of Sweden and Fidel on the other hand
raise their hands from afar
and the Chinese and the young girls
accompany me side by side through the park
my former teachers should know
that the bicycle appears
in the part that’s missing
of the Code of Hammurabi
peaceful gracious conveyance
later they built carts
drawn by horses
to trample people
hence how pleasing it was in God’s eyes
the Hebrews’ crossing
of the Red Sea by bicycle
and according to the apocrypha
he himself amazed the fishermen
pedalling on the water
so you see those uptight teachers
who refuse to wave upon seeing me ride
a conveyance they regard as corny
fail to love their neighbours
they’re social misfits
– Loving this blog
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Now that was a comment with style! Good to hear from you Danny.
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Hi Danny
Thanks for marvelous bit of poetry. I really loved it. I hope to print it off and hang it up at home as the ideal memento of this trip.
I hope you are still getting Dermot blog. We had a bit of fun today with the photos.
All the best for now. John
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