Manyanitos.
SATURDAY 12th MAY.
Wasnt Dionysus the twice born? Is it enough to only be born twice?
So I went for a pequena vuelta (little stroll), not the fiesta Christian thought – but I was too hot under the jacket I had to use to cover my angry sunburn – there was a big band, playing in the Plaza Major – and the singers accent is almost invisible – until she sings fever – but then I think my own accent is getting worse –
Not really knowing my direction I go to the train station -disaster – its an international train with cabins and they dont have room for bicycles – and the attendants argue about how I could get around it but arent really much help – luckily G texts from London which puts a smile on my face (has it only been a week?) – so I tell him nice things and have an icecream ‘al dedo’ (never a spoon around when you need one)
Still I wanted to go to the Flour Museum and research the Monday of the Waters more but now I have to cycle out of town – boys laugh at me as I pass – its possibly these cycling shorts – 30km to Ledesma – its not really the road I wanted but I didnt read the map right – oh well at least theres a breeze and I m feeling up to it –
SUNDAY 13th MAY.
So my bicycle is parked beside a half-completed house (3 floors, the top is not completed, but there are people living in the other 2), I ve done 25km this morning before breakfast –
I slept close to the road last night, maybe too close, but nobody bothered me, the dogs go mad everywhere I stop, they can smell me, they can smell the journey and the wildness of it all.
The Guardia Civil stopped me again yesterday, near Ledesma, but this time they were nice, and Ledesma was glorious, gorgeous, like a Spanish Mostar with two strong Roman bridges spanning the River Tormes, so I m glad I got on that road after all.
And here, Lumbrales, before the border with Portugal, the bird of prey gliding with me as I entered the town, the orange-tipped butterfly beside the kilometre-marker, and now a perfect shady square and museums and interesting stuff, yeah, happy.
My dream was strange last night – strange, as if I were a child being filmed about my day, and my brother running for the school bus but me being left behind, I m sure I ve had that dream before and this time I am late because of the toast, and something about my bicycle going missing but finding the bicycles of other people I know, Bubu, Mapo (but then they re both bikes that I sold them) and when i looked closer they werent what I thought….
No real deep thought last night, just memories of how amazing the travel with Marek Marta and Stromec really was, the crazy guy in.. where was it? Corfu? who gave us a lift but stopped at every bar for a shot of grappa; the dogs outside Mostar
i m sure there was more
when drinking from a bottel, and the liquid bubbles, and the sun is reflected its like drinking in the sun, the best kind of liquid gold –
What next? I guess thats the greatest problem my mind is working on now, I can go back to London in July, stay with Tony, go to Kerry in Spetember, do my driving test, look after my mother after her hip operation, then what? Buy a van? Go back to college? Wwoof? Help Moli and Alex on their land? Stay with Grandad?
It is the nature of all living things to want to become part of something greater than themselves, this is why rivers run to the sea. Maybe in Vega de Terron or Barca da Alva I can get a boat down the river Douro? Probably not but its a nice thought, its rather hilarious how the railway line I wanted to get a train on is closed since 1986
And the book that I would write? Would it be about an orange lighter, or purple nail polish..
or a girl who finds beautiful, amazing people everywhere she goes?
Because those two dots was where I met Manolo.
And now: PORTUGAL !!
the downhill from Fregeneda, I m such a chicken I used my brakes, and the wind was so hot, coming round the bends, but now, the world is so special from the back of a bicycle –
the almond trees everywhere, now growing wild by the side of the Douro and to be greeted in Portugal by the best thing in the world: the smell of a fig tree, hot in the sun
i played my whistle for the valley and the 3 trees in front of me scattered fluffy seeds on the hot wind, the abandoned railway line with the little bench – I d love to stay the night here, to be honest, but la cena awaits
oh the air is thick with the smell of the fig tree, but they wont be ripe for months
and are those cactus growing on the other side?
yes yes. Portugal seems like the land of milk and honey.