So as we waved the less beautiful town of Carcabosa farewell, the band stops playing. I wondered if it was for us? Loud all consuming music from when we arrived until 07:45am. We still don’t understand what type of festival demands such a celebration but all we know it was a “muchos fiesta”. With the circus bed and the all night music, I slept surprisingly well. I woke up at 4am listening to Metalica and fell asleep again.
The route out of Carcabosa was slightly tricky but you need to keep the cannals and the bulls on your right at all times. And not the bull storming Mike – I think the red panniers did the trick.
We cycling for 38 kilometers witout seeing a bar, a band, a village or anything. The only non herbivores we spotted were 3 hikers, a Shepard and some black pigs. It took us about four hours to get to the town of Aldeaneuva which seemed a lifetime away. It was hot and dusty. At one stage I climbed over a farmer’s fence to stand under the sprinkler. Well, those sprinklers are slightly different then the ones we used to have in our front garden. I waited my turn in anticipation and when it hit, it hit really hard. The bit of water did not warrant the pain. Without much reward, my pour legs had to climb the fence being greeted by Mike’s “I told you so” face. At a water fountain I wet my hair which dried faster than you can say “heat wave”. We passed quite a few sad motels seducing us with the promise of a cool swimming pool and even colder beer. Don’t look, don’t get distracted, pedal on!
Oh the pleasure of seeing the beautiful town of Banos de Montemayor! We threw our bikes against the wall of the bar and fell into some chairs and ordered food. Our large beers made up for the small saucers of calamari, tortilla, ham and bread.
By the 3rd day our routine on the Via De Plata became: lunch first and then accommodation. What you learn very quickly on this route, is that you will always find accommodation (maybe not a private room) but finding food between 15:00 and 21:00 can be a challenge.
As it is a spa town with apparent healing hot springs, the average age was about 106. We decreased the town’s average age for the night but unfortunately did not experience the hot springs.
Our Emedos hotel was delightful. Our own roof top terrace, with a great view, the use of a kitchen (which would have been great if we could have got our hands on some food). If we thought finding food was a problem – try doing it on a Sunday.
We went to a bar around 19:00 and asked for some octopus with our wine. Well the portion was far too small and we realised we will be very drunk by the time we would be fed so we fell into a over-priced souvenir shop. We bought sheep’s cheese and slaughtered yet again another poor pig. Ham and cheese on the roof-top while dreaming of a plate of salad and a steak.
