Day 15 Camino Sanabrés off-road to Lalin

Today was a big adventure, I'm not quite sure whether it was a great day or a nightmare, but it was a big adventure.

Firstly a bit of context. When your travelling off-road in Spain without a guide you have no real idea what's around the corner. I have a route which is displayed on a map. The route was the best one I could find and the maps are the official Spanish ones. It's almost impossible to explain to an English person, brought up on Ordnance Survey maps, how bad the Spanish maps are. We are used to a path on a map being a path, a track being a track and a road being a road. These things don't apply in Spain where the maps are ancient. On the detailed maps motorways are not always there. So what looks like a track may turn out to have disappeared, be impassable or it may have acquired a lovely tarmacked surface. Particularly difficult to predict is when a track has become a “camino agricola” and has been given a nice gravel surface.

Unless you have a guide, cycling off-road in Spain is a bit of a gamble, particularly in the mountainous parts. Today I was ahead with my winnings, then I lost them all and was seriously behind and then, with one last desperate bet, ended up evens.

I had decided to split the 100km to Santiago de Compostela and stay somewhere cheap near a place called Lalin. Only 55km, so a nice leisurely start, no need to rush. Given the time I had, I was determined to stick to the off road version.

Day 14 Camino Sanabrés - off road to Ourense

I’m in Ourense, in a very nice hotel, with all my washing done and things drying nicely. After two days on wet, muddy paths everything is starting to get unpleasant. I've got a family suite so the bike has its own room, I'm tempted to put it in the shower.

Yesterday was grim but despite dreadful weather today, I've managed to get the miles in and feel good.

My decision not to cycle onto Laza last night was definitely right. It was a tough first two hours today with a long descent along a badly surfaced road. It was not the trip to contemplate if your knackered.

Day 13 Camino Sanabrés off-road to A Gudiña

Today was not good.

I had hoped to get to Laza which is about 90 km from Puebla Sanabria but only managed 55 km and ended up in A Gudiña. Things didn't go well.

So what went wrong?

Day 12 Camino del Sanabrés - off road to Puebla Sanabria

My perfect day in Spain now has a number of well defined ingredients. Start cycling around 9, or slightly before. Have a coffee con leche at about 10-30 and another at 12, ideally with a bite to eat, and then finish cycling around 3. This gives me time to check-in, have a shower, and then have lunch. I then do my washing and slob around. At about 6, I go out for some sightseeing, say two hours max, then find a bar, ideally with craft beer, eat some tapas and write this blog. All being well I'm back in bed by 10 getting ready to do it all again next day.

Day 11 Camino Sanabrés - off road to Tábara

In terms of the overall trip, the big news is that I'm no longer heading north on the Ruta Vía de la Plata, I’ve left that route and I'm on the way to Santiago del Compostela along the Camino Sanabrés. The plan for the guide is to provide two options, the first one based on the Ruta Vía de la Plata Association's route going north to Gijon and the second providing a pilgrim’s route heading northwest to Santiago del Compostela. As with the Ruta Vía de la Plata I want an off-road and a road version so I'm heading up on the off-road Camino and coming back along the N525. There's a new motorway so I'm hoping it will be as empty as the N630. It's about a 700 km round trip and after traveling 40 km north of Zamora to Granja de Moreruela I went 27 km along the Camino Sanabrés to Tãbara. So far so good.

Day 10 Ruta Vía de la Plata - off road to Zamora

There are all sorts of people heading to Santiago and I'm hoping most of them are not religious.  My attitude to the Catholic church is in the late Christopher Hitchens school and I have little or no empathy with a proper pilgrim.

Day 9 Ruta Vía de la Plata - off road to Salamanca

On paper today's route looked great.  It was quite long, 80km, but there were lots of places to stop. Apart from a climb in the middle, it looked fast and flat and there was even a good slug of road mixed in to keep things ticking along. The only question mark was that climb in the middle.

Well the question was answered.  The climb, about 200m on a badly broken track, was hard and the descent was worse. I was able to peddle nearly all the way to top, and I suspect someone a little younger would have done it easily, but it was the descent that got me. I had done the worst bit, the track was levelling out, when suddenly right in front of me was a bike trap. A gulley, impossible to see until the last nano second, dissected the track. Bang and I was flying through the air leaving the bike in the hole. Fortunately the rocky track had turned grassy but the ground was still hard and with all the wind knocked out of me I couldn't even curse.