Los Cincos Famosos – Camino Beginning

At preparation meetings in the previous Autumn, we had decided to call ourselves the Spanish version of The Famous Five, particularly given that our Julian was the oldest.  I think I claimed George, (wonder why), Nicola or Judith were Dick and/or Anne, and Graham was Timmy the dog. Julian and Judith had 2 years previously cycled a pilgrim route from Folkestone to Rome on their road bikes, and had also walked the Camino del Norte route to Santiago, so their confidence as to feasibility certainly carried me through at that stage.

On 4/9 I left Camping Villsom to move to Area Parking Caravane where, via very informal email exchange, I had booked my van for a storage stay up to 23/9.  It was one of those locations on one side of a dual carriageway, very easy to see and, if heading in the wrong direction, sail past the unlikely slip road it was on. I could envisage this shoot-past happening more than once, so was relieved to get to the entrance first time and everything was confirmed.  I would be on an electric hook-up spot for that night, it is possible to stay there for approx 20eu per night and for info they have a small swimming pool, but then I needed to move it to a storage spot after getting my bike and stuff ready before my set off the next day around 7:15am.

That afternoon I had a dry-run, cycling into the city to transport the battery to the other e-bike rider Nicola.  She and the other tres famosos had flown their bikes across from the UK, then having to put them together after the bike box disassembly requirements. Bike batteries are not carried by airlines however, (nor coaches, and regional trains in Spain) hence me transporting it along with mine in the van from the UK.

Overall I was feeling extremely weary, and in effect ‘less than up for’ this bike challenge.  I think this was due to the trepidation mentioned in an earlier post and the significant amount of decision-making, organisation both mental and physical, and underlying stress of anticipation of a lot of unknown in a relatively short space of time, after working very hard to round off my contract, in preparation and since I left the UK.  I was not able to summon up enthusiasm and excitement to match the others, and I have recognised in this hindsight journalling that my sentiments would not be what they wanted/needed to hear, dampening possibly the start of their long-awaited holiday. In my mind I was always ready for the bail-out options – by train or hire car from one of our visited towns – but I was concerned about the possibility of stuff going wrong with the electric motor when we were high up in the middle of nowhere. And I certainly didn’t want the others’ holiday to be affected which was a pressure in itself.

But, early the next morning, having packed the bike up, stilI feeling that I wanted to back out, I forced myself to go and cycle the approx 5 miles to the meet-up at Seville Cathedral.  I didn’t use the battery, but knowing from very shortly after our group set-off how I had to have the battery on the lowest ‘Eco’ setting to keep up with the others on the flat, this did contribute to the second day of ‘bloody hell, how am I going to achieve this’ blues.

No wonder my speed didn’t reflect the amount of time Google said it would take! and my washed-out look in our set-off photo captures it all well.

It was a glorious morning, as indeed were all mornings apart from one which was particularly cold and a wind across the plains for a couple of hours. Eventually a rhythm was reached as we left Seville and headed for the first overnight at a village called Almaden de La Plata, approximately 80km away. We were following the on-road route described by John Haynes in the Cicerone book of the Ruta Via de la Plata

The scenery was stunning, it was hilly countryside and there were significant climbs, and the heat increased. 

Unfortunately a good few kms short of the destination my bike battery suddenly ‘went’.  I had been monitoring it as it discharged and how the gauge was displaying.  Even though I had done a 60-mile ride around York, I had never come anywhere close to the display showing only 1/5th of battery left. Given this unknown on a very long ride, I had only been using the first 2 of 4 settings of motor power, only resorting to the 2nd when I had to to get up hills. 

Some of my luggage was taken by Nicola, and there was still at least a visible longish downhill section before a reasonably long uphill.  It’s seared into my memory, pushing my still very heavy bike & luggage in 38 degrees up the considerably steep hill, hanging a scarf from under my helmet to try and shelter from the relentless sun. With the encouragement of my own personal mountain rescue team member in the form of Graham, we got our bikes to the top and with tremendous relief, free-wheeled downhill into Almaden which we could see below.

For the first night we targeted the municipal albergue. Not able to book anything in advance, I was very relieved to see we would at least have a bunk. It was a very pleasant place with well-equipped kitchen, nice dining room, bathrooms etc with other pilgrims being 2 older women from Brazil, a 76-year old French woman and a young British guy walking.

Hilarity and giggles did break through and hope was there for a recuperating sleep as we navigated the set-up and settled down for the night.

The whole village had other ideas however, as they congregated after a pilgrim’s bedtime on public benches right outside the dormitory window on the ground floor. All ages remained there in loud (and happy) community until at least gone midnight. Those who know I’m a very light-sleeper may realise that even the trials of the day did not take me out of the misery of lying there awake for hours, ear-plugs not doing it. More about accommodation in the next post.

There are photos of me waiting for the rest of the team to finish their prep the next morning for set-off. My face speaks volumes, but I am too conceited to include an aged and weary ‘older generation family-likeness’ me here. Worse than the washout. Nevertheless, 24-hours of a long kilometer-wise Day 1 had been survived.

Learnings:  as suggested by some of the team, at every café stop I needed to ask and if necessary pay to get that battery plugged in.  I duly did so.