what I think is rain, is due falling from the trees onto my tent. The day dawns perfect. I rattle down steep hills, to an empty sunday morning town, save for the srunks, still yelling and staggering from the night thats been.
First ascent into sea mist surging over the summit. Crashes over the hills and dissipates inland. and its very calm and quiet. Swoop on the downhill along coastal cliff road. Something on my bike whistles, and with no traffic at this hour, I hog the lane, and make long arcs of the corners. For all the weight that rose carries, she moves gracefully most of the time, but at speed, she soars and banks as a b52 bomber might. In Deba I take coffee and watch a storekeeper lay out the fruit I will buy for breakfast. Foolishly or not I decide to summit the next peak before eating. I struggle up hill for the next two hours, until I am presented with a tremendous view and a descending path. And its some of the most challenging beautiful cycling I have ever encountered. It comes in short bursts up too steep inclienes, muscles tearing at their anchors, hands aching where they are fused to the handlebars. Those pilgrims new how to suffer.
When it happens breakfast is incredible. Its too late for porridge, so I take mouth fulls of banana, pan integral, peahc apple and honey. stuffed cheeks of seed and fruit. Luxury is making coffee in the middle of the road you are traveling.
the following downhill shrinks my brakes.
I make a wrong turn, but the riding is fine. I don’t know if I should head to Bilbao or the coast. It seems I am already most of the way to the city so I carry on. I hit a major road and frighten, retreat up a hill to Gorozika, my nerves in tatters. I couldn’t let such a splendid day end on a highway, or anywhere but the peace and quiet of the countryside.
At a restruant, not only does the proprietor listen patiently to my spanish, fill my water bottles, but also gives me wine. It is delicious and I am really cheered by the generosity, this bienviendo a Espana.
I climb one more hill before total collapse. I sleep a little cleaner, having naked bathed in a a river, and hunched over at its edge, ;like a brown gollum, washed some clothes. I make boats from orange peel, and drop them down a waterfall.
