Alegria or bust

 When I pack up and leave I often experience a desire to thank the spirit of the place for keeping me safe and sound. A few years ago I began attending a sweat lodge near my home in Berkshire, in the UK, and it occurs to me that going in and out of my little tent is very much like going in and out of the sweat lodge. According to native american tradition six directions are honoured and acknowledged before entering the lodge, N,S,E & W and also above and below. So it feels entirely natural to honour and acknowledge these directions when I'm leaving a place that has offered me refuge. It rounds things off for me, makes them more complete. I planned a two day ride to Valencia and had located a campsite in a place called Moncofa which was definitely open and about half way, so that was my goal for the day. For the first time I noticed orange trees growing. The mornings ride was pretty hilly and very rural but in the afternoon (I'd forgotten how high up Vilafarmes was, almost 4...

 Waking next morning it was obvious that it had been raining, not heavily, but it reminded me that I should check the weather forecast before making an attempt on the high pass at Ares. It looked ok for today but was definitely worse tomorrow, so without further deliberation I set out for the great ascent. The peaks on either side of the pass were around 1320 metres, much higher than I had ever been before, but thankfully there is a Camino rural, minor country road, that for the most part follows a valley so that there aren't too many steep climbs for the first 20km. The last ten ks are a different matter and I was very glad to have the isotonic energy drink at hand to help me on my way. The gearing on my trusty Giant (bike) meant that I didn't have to get off and push at all, despite the weight of all my gear. The pass was a very special place with two towering peaks on either side, I took a last look behind me towards the Ebro basin, through which I had been traveling for the...

There were some big mountains ahead of me, surrounding the basin of the river Ebro, and I spent a lot of time trying to work out which route would be the most bike friendly, and even if I could avoid them altogether. I have been invited to spend a few days with my friend Felix in Denia, South of Valencia so eventually I decided to take the Col de Ares and set out for the village of Forcall which lies at the foot of the pass. I was hoping to make the final climb in a single day.  The road to Forcall from Andorra starts off pretty straight, though not always very flat. Lorries outnumber cars by at least ten to one. I know because I counted them! Since I got to Spain I had been struggling to make sense of the local geology as it seems to be very mixed up. As if in answer to my unspoken prayer a sign appeared at the side of the road welcoming me to a UNESCO Geopark, or site of outstanding geological interest. I hope if you are interested that the following photos will explain themselve...

 I spent two nights in Belchite at the parking area for motor caravans, and really grew to like it there. The town itself was pretty small and some of the faces and personalities, like the buildings, became familiar even in the short time that I was there. Like the woman who worked in the cafe and had a second job in the supermarket. My neighbors were a retired couple from Belgium who made the same tour around the old ruins as I had done. Their Spanish was as poor as mine so we made up for it by speaking in French together. They left just ahead of me on Thursday morning and I set my course for Andorra, Teruel, not to be confused with the principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees. This was a journey of about 64km about which I was feeling pretty confident. The view of the enormous plane which I had seen when coming down from the mountains two days ago proved to be quite deceptive as the plane was in fact dissected in all directions by dry valleys and ravines, so the going was anything...

 This will be the hardest page of the blog to write so far because I have so many jumbled thoughts and impressions in my head from what has been going on today. And until today I knew nothing much about the Spanish civil war, so my learning is very incomplete and you will have to excuse any inaccuracies.  I discovered last night that there are two public tours every day around the ruins of the old town of Belchite , one at mid day and one at 5pm. I decided to go for the midday slot and spent the morning where I had slept in the new town of Belchite,  catching up on the diary and sorting out my stuff. I presented myself at the gate of the old town at mid day, to be greeted by this fellow in the 1937 Republican government uniform of the Spanish army.  Spain became a republic (for the second time) in 1931 but suffered from a lot of political extremism and violence in the years leading up to the civil war. Following the assassination of the official leader of the politic...