Tuesday September 2, 2014

Hills, hills and more hills – some daft American told me it builds character!!  (LOL)  We woke up early thinking we might get an early start and keep ahead of the heat.  At 6:30 it was still dark, so we had a cuddle and got up at 7:00 as usual.  We left at 9:10 with a tent wet from the dew.

We were told it was relatively flat from here – from a car driver.  Only believe what cyclists tell you – it was not relatively flat at all it was hilly.

We came into  Laredo and stopped to look at the map, an older gentleman asked where we were going so we told him Santander – the general direction – he told us it was a motorway, then said we could take the national route (which was the route we were planning on taking) then he got a few other people involved discussing which was the best route for us to take.  All we really needed to know was whether we were on the right road.  But the Spanish seem to like to have a committee involved in our route. If one of them can’t speak English, they stop other people to see if they can speak English and discuss the route together then carry on in Spanish. It is very funny.  Eventually the older fella decided he would take us to the road we were supposed to be on, to make sure we were on the right road and not the Motorway.  May be he had heard about the two touring cyclists that were on the motorway going towards San Sebastien!

We carried on going up and down hills until we stopped in a small town for lunch we had passed a group of Russian cyclists a couple of times and they passed us as we ate our lunch.  This group of 6 cyclists had major discussions at every roundabout.  The major roundabouts usually direct you to Santander via the motorway and the N route – two different directions.  Cyclists cannot go on motorways, all you have to do is follow the directions for the N route easey peasey.

The N634 is a national highway road, with no traffic on it, as the Motorway runs alongside it in some areas or they are working on building a major highway next to it.  There are some roadworks, but these guys were there to warn us to slow down.

We arrived in Solares at 1:00 and picked up our groceries for dinner, and checked for a campsite.

There was nothing in the Town, so we decided to wild camp. I knew there was a National Park nearby and figured we would be able to find something in that general area.  We didn’t figure on the fact that the National Park was actually a wildlife park with elephants and lions!!

We thought we might be able to camp at the campervan park, but the notice specifically said no camping and wild camping was strictly forbidden.  We were at a loss as to what to do when we spotted a Municipal Albergue.  We had asked at a couple of the restaurants if they had rooms –E70 to E80.  I asked at the last restaurant about the Albergue, he called a number told them we were touring cyclists and let us in to this hostel.  We are on our own in the hostel which has a kitchen, a common room, hot showers and lots of rooms – cost for this hostel E12 for the two of us.

We prepared our dinner in the hostel kitchen and then went for a nice walk after dinner.

Life is good.