Day 6: Cadaqués to somewhere in France

Day 6 was quite a day. How can I start? Since I had to delay blogging for a while due to lack of internet connection I will rewrite what I had written in my personal notebook following my day:

“Where do I even fucking begin? Today has been a day.”

I don’t know if I need to go on…

But, I will.

Excitement levels were high leading into the day because I was crossing from Spain into France. Crossing the border was fraught with just that – excitement – plus mild panic, general unease, and a sense of impending doom. Vive la France!

The day started with the climb I was nervous about out of Cadaqués. Looking back on that at the end of the day, it was the least of my problems. Having ascended the climb I set off in hopes of the border. I stopped for a brief coffee in Peralada, a medieval town in Spain, and then carried on. All was well.

First of all, I should note that I felt very sluggish all day. I felt as if I was “pulling lead the whole way,” according to my notebook. Particularly this was the case when I was on a highway, the N-11 (I think), and it was basically a constantly increasing slope into a headwind the whole time. I had been floundering between the Eurovelo 8 GPS route and plain ol’ Google Maps. What have I found? Both are shite. It is unreliable to count on Eurovelo because there is no indication of whether or not the route will be paved or gravel. I made the mistake of following it nearish the French border and realized either I had to slash my way back to the main highway or I was probably going to die in the wilderness somewhere in a no-man’s land between France and Spain. Surprisingly, this is NOT where my tire went flat. More on that later…

Back on the highway, something very bizarre and unsettling happened. Within about a 10 km stretch I rode by 5.5 ‘ladies of the night.’ And it was 12:30 pm in broad daylight. The 0.5 refers to a women I am honestly unsure whether she was there for that reason or not. Either way, it was really surprising and certainly a bit upsetting. But it kind of made sense as I approached the border towns on either side of the Spanish-French crossing. They were pretty gross. Big mega outlet stores, sleazy casinos and bars, and every single store/man I rode by reeked of knock off cologne.

I was certainly glad to be out of the area once I had passed through the border. Even better was the fact that after a serious climb to get up and through the border it was basically all downhill to the town I was staying in.

Fast forward to me happily toodling along and realizing there is a bit of a dark patch in the sky threatening rain. Next, I hear the thunder. Luckily, I see no lightening. I carry on and hope that I can just make it before the skies open up.

Turns out, weather was not the issue I had to be concerned about. Roughly 6 km from my destination I feel a little off kilter (as well as feel like I am really slogging along and not moving too fast) so I glance at my back tire – definitely flat. Okay, so I have a flat. I am on a pretty isolated country road and not in a town. Maybe I can try to ride about 2 km to the next town and at least get some help. I try a few pedal strokes and immediately realize that is not going to happen. Fine, the tire change attempt happens here. I get all my gear, I flip the bike, I remove the tire, and I prepare the new inner tube. Everything has gone smoothly so far. The issue developed when I tried to use the CO2 canister. In short, it did not work. Well, at least I have a second one I can try. But instead of watching a youtube video or Googling instructions on how to properly use a CO2 tube to refill a tire, I just go for it. Yeah – it didn’t work. That’s two wasted cartridges and one idiot without a functioning bike.

Me after about 4 km of pushing my useless bike.

I wasn’t too worried because at least I was close to my destination and I could easily (?) walk the 6 km with my flat.

Again, fast forward to me hauling my dead weight (and my bike) up hills and, even harder, down hills, in incredible discomfort. Finally I arrived at a village only 2 km away from my destination and I went into the tourist info centre. They had a bike pump and I managed to change the tire and fill it with a hand pump. This got me down to where I was staying but in the end it again went flat when I had it parked.

The destination: I still don’t really know where I was. I was staying at a camp and bungalow park called Camping Des Albères and after the day I had the last thing I wanted was to go bloody camping. At least I had the foresight to book a bungalow that had running water. I had a shower for far too long. I am starting to really appreciate showers. I figured that my bike would have to be taken in a cab to the next town in the morning and fixed at a bike shop. Nothing really left to do tonight but go find some food and drink.

I walked back up to the town I had stopped in earlier, Laroque-des-Albères, and found a cute bar that was run by a Belgian. There I met three delightful women, two from Britain and the other from Sweden. They were all middle-aged and terribly inspiring career professionals with vacation homes in France – we got along fabulously. The best part was that Maria, the Swede, was kind enough to offer me a lift into town the following morning so I could get my bike fixed! So generous. I really enjoyed chatting with them and then set off to find the Creperie they recommended for dinner.

I was sort of half consciously following my Google Maps to get to the Crepe place when I spotted the biggest dog probably in the entire world (see DOTD)! This also happened to be at a very quaint looking eating establishment. I assumed it to be the Creperie and found a table.

Not until the waiter brought over the menu (giant blackboard she moved to each table when needed) did I realize I was actually at ‘Hotel Catalan Restaurant.’ No complaints, it was fabulous. I had gazpacho, pork cheeks, and creme de Catalan. Dear god it was good.

I waddled home, completely stuffed from dinner, to face the reality of my slumbering situation. The bungalow itself was cute but the sheets provided were… not. In three extremely small clear plastic packets I read the labels “Disposable Bed Linen.” What followed was me making my bed with hospital paper bedding. I thought, at least if there is some sort of middle of the night murder it will be an easy clean up.

My humble abode for the evening; all-inclusive with hot shower, disposable bed linen, and insects you couldn’t even dream up in your wildest nightmares.

The last thing I will say is that the bungalow had no air conditioning, no fan, no air circulator or cooler of any shape or fashion. However, I was also afraid to keep my windows open too far because of massive creepy-crawlies and other creatures. I decided I better just leave the windows open a bit so I don’t die of heat stroke. That back-fired hard when I went to grab my paper pillow and felt a bit of a prick and then in the grey scale of the night saw a massive black object against the white pillow. I threw it off the bed and then smothered it with the (definitely not infested with bedbugs and other scary insects) duvet.

After a fitful sleep of going from so hot I was going to sweat myself into a puddle to I am so cold I could hollow out my legs and use them as arm warmers, I woke up to check the corpse of whatever I had smothered in the night. And just like any good horror film, there was no trace left at all…