I woke at 7:30 and felt like I had nothing in the tank. This was going to be a hard day. I composed an email to the Trek shop in Seville in the hopes of getting my rear wheel rebuilt. My spokes are making a horrendous creaking. Besides making me crazy, it makes the dogs bark and the cows stare; the sheep don't care. I was hoping they would be able to respoke the wheel during my two night in Seville. My route planning today ended at the bike shop.
One other route decision involved whether to take the Camino path for 10km or so. It would be shorter but I feared it could get pretty rough. My bike is fine on dirt to a point. I planned the main road and put a detour to the Camino so I could check it out.
I was not feeling strong and prepared for the day with dread. Hotel Leo was bare bones but the bed was good, the bathroom was great and the hallways were wide. When I checked in last night the guy didn't mention the bike or bat an eye when I carried it upstairs. For all the charms and fancyness of the last 3 places this place was better when you are tired, dirty and hungry. A bathroom designed and built with decent stuff in the last couple of years just works.
I hauled my bike downstairs and went to the bar for a cafe and some sort of fried, cinnamon, custard, french toast thing. It was good but different. The girl told me what it was called but I can't remember. Looking at Google it might be leche frita but I would have remembered that.
On the road as soon as I got through town I had a long fast downhill. That boosted my sprits and energy. Soon I was passing another Hotel Leo and was coming up on the Camino. I paused at the sign and looked at the road. Here It was very ridable packed dirt road. I decided to go for it.
I had only gone a hundred meters when I saw my first peligrinos. I stopped with a "buen Camino". They were French. I asked if the road was good the way they came. They said it was good and I would go fast - faster than walking may be what he meant. I felt better about the decision and road on.
I stopped and chatted with some of the 2 dozen peligrinos I saw. I was surprised to see so many. Most were French or Spanish. South Korea was well represented. The was one America girl from New York - we talked for 10 minutes. She said she had just learned of the 88 Temples last night from a Danish couple who wanted to do it. I'm sure I am the talk of the albergue in Monesterio tonight.
The dirt road turned out to be good and fast and I was going mostly downhill. There were a lot of times my speed was in the high 30s km/h. There were a lot of potholes to dodge. I'm glad I didn't try it yesterday as a road like this when you are fresh and alert is lots of fun but can be deadly when you are tired. Most skiing accidents happen on the last run.
Soon I was in El Real de la Jara where I was supposed to get to yesterday. I got a cafe. More French peligrinos hanging around.
The next section was through a national park and was nice rolling hills. If I'd been fresher I can go pretty fast on that sort of road. I didn't quite have the legs to power to the top of the hills.
Soon I was in Almadén de la Plata where I stopped for a cafe and a jamon y queso sandwich.
There was a climb out of town and then a long descent to the 20km of flat before Seville. Somehow the drop included a few climbs but it went pretty fast. The flat was hotter and dryer and I was on busy roads now.
My route to the bike shop started on some really nice bike path beside a freeway. I thought it was great until it dumped me into a rush hour roundabout I had to cross. Seville has a lot of bike routes but they sometimes just end and in bad ways. The bike shop was surrounded by freeways and was really hard to get to by bike. That should have tipped me off
So I have to nominate the Seville Trek store as the worst - I've been to many in many places because they have always taken good care of me. These guys not so much. They seemed interested in selling expensive bikes to people who don't ride bikes. They told me is was impossible to change the spokes on my wheel because it was carbon. BS. I could do it if I could true a wheel. In SF my mechanic said it takes about an hour to do. A wasted trip to highway hell.
It was no fun getting back across the two rivers to my hotel downtown either.
My hotel is one of those no people hotels. I phoned a number on the door and got a guy who spoke about as much English as I speak Spanish. I had to get the room key out of a locked box ... box #3 ... combination 0003! The language and the handwritten tag confused me and I was trying to get into room 21. After trying to jam the key in for five minutes a guy in the room announced himself. I looked at the tag again and easily opened room 22. Coming back from dinner the front door was locked and after trying to jam the key in that door I called the guy again. The code for the door was 2021 - see I got room 21 from someplace.
I wander about town for a bit and settled into a not so great place for dinner. With all the tourists around it is hard to find good places to eat. Will do a better search tomorrow.
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