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November 14 Monday Bicycle touring France from Anglet France to Hendaye Spain Jail break! Yep, sometime during the night a padlock was put on the gate which we discovered when we tried to leave this morning. We then found that the campground is like Fort Knox with a seven-foot fence all around the compound. There is another gate at the other end leading to a park. We rode our loaded touring bikes down there and found it was bolted solid -- going right into the pavement and a huge lock on it. There are spikes on top of this one. We cycled back, checking along the side walls with no success. We pedalled back to the main gate. On one side there is a hill leading up to the stone fence. Sharon climbed over the concrete section and dropped, catlike, to the ground. I unloaded our bikes and then bench pressed her bike upside down over my head and, standing on my tippy-toes with my arms fully extended, I just managed to pass the touring bike to her over the top of the gate. Then I passed all her baggage over and repeated the process for mine. Splendid camping, indeed. We reloaded our bike panniers and cycled around the corner. Guess what we discovered? A municipal campground that was still open. Who knew? The sky was blue. We cycled along the coast. At St Jean du Luz we checked out their old church with gleaming saints lining the back of the altar. Two kids came over to me while Sharon was inside and I was staying with the bikes. Later, when I was inside, they came in too. The oldest one went into a back pew to pray as I stood admiring the stained glass, altar, and architecture. Stairs and railings ran to four levels of balconies. As I stood at the back of the church, the boy praying reaches back and feels my fuzzy fleece pullover. "Polyester?" he enquires. "Fleece," I say. He nods, gets up, and leaves. A few seconds later he is back. This time he indicates he wants to trade his grubby half-sweatshirt for my nice new fleece jacket. He can't be serious? I tell him I still need it. On our cycling route to Hendaye we had to climb a couple of hills. We had to stop for a scene being filmed for TV. We watched the actresses go by in a car with camera men clinging to the side of the car, standing on a little platform to get shots into the car with its occupants. There was a flagman halting cars (and foreigners on fully loaded touring bikes). He started to talk to us, but he didn't know English. He asked if we spoke French? No. Spanish? No. Italian? No. What do you know? Just English. Just English!? He couldn't believe it. He looked at us like, How can you even be alive, being so retarded? After cycling into Hendaye, we ate baguettes while sitting on a sea wall while watching a surfer in a wetsuit test some waves. Large surf was forming off in the north before two small rock island stacks. Lots of cyclists and people are cycling and walking along the sidewalk. We even saw a couple of guys in swimsuits by the Atlantic. Stupid tourists. This is the most tourists we've seen. We cycled across the border, or the frontier as they call it here, into Spain. The border crossing consisted of a wave from three policemen in a guard shack. We cycled up and stopped. They gave us a strange look accompanied by a kind of a laugh and motioned for us to continue. No questions -- nothing. They didn't look at our passports or even blink an eye. It was far easier than crossing between the US and Canada. I walked back to a bridge and took a picture of bridge arches reflecting in the river water. A train crossed as I was taking the picture. Buenos dias! We are in Spain! It is mucho different cycling here than it was in France. There are no little country villages. We are surrounded by mountains. Industry and pollution are everywhere. There is lots and lots of traffic. I bought a new map to show smaller roads, so that we could cycle away from the traffic. But the little roads are just as packed -- with the added attraction of being only two lanes, narrow lanes. Kids are everywhere. They come up and swarm around us when we stop our bikes, talking in Spanish and a few English words. They check our things out by poking and prodding both us and our equipment. Right away we notice people eating in public again. People walking down the street munching on sandwiches. We never ever saw that in France. Sacrilege. There is more junk food around, too. We cycled N1. There are not many roads through the mountains. No route signs. Roads have no numbers posted. We cycled until after dark. When the freeway lights came on we decided we should try and find a place for the night . We took an exit into T*. Industry and apartment complexes surround us. It is unreal how fast the change has been from our cycling in France. It feels so weird. We never saw anything like this when we were in France. Cranes, road building, and hotels are everywhere. Bridges and overpasses -- with nothing connecting to them. It's like a road building frenzy is going on. At the edge of town a fellow tells us there is no camping for 40 km. He directs us to a hotel 1 km away. We cycle off on our fully loaded touring bicycles and up from being on the outskirts of town to being back downtown. Swarms of people walk around the streets, arm in arm. Groups of them. It seems very odd. We get directions to a nearby hotel. A clerk at the hotel wants 6000 pesetas for a room, plus tax. Approximately 100 pesetas equals a Canadian dollar, so that's $60. Ouch. I went outside and tell Sharon. She agrees that's too much for a piddly room for the night. I go back in and tell the clerk. He offers me a lower price for a room without a bathroom. It is still too high. He indicates that's the lowest he can go. I ask if we can camp in the back. He takes me outside and shows me that we can't camp there because of the natural gas containers. The fumes wouldn't be good for us, he says, and they may explode. He points up the hill and says we can find somewhere up there. We ride off on our bikes up the hill. The freeway is on one side and hills are all around in the background. Apartment building high-rises surround us. We cycled past two huge mansions to get up here. Dogs are barking. At the top we find a small house, or maybe it's a shed. It's a tiny compound made from rocks and cement bricks. There is a garden in the back. Roses are in the front. A haystack is off to the side. After looking around, we decide no one can possibly live in this dilapidated little shed, so we unload our tiny bicycle touring tent and set it up in front of the doorway in the teeny yard. In the doorway of our tent we cook a supper of noodles salmon soup, with tomatoes and sauce. We follow this up with cheese, bread, wine, oranges, juice, chocolate, and Clementine oranges. Those habits that we picked up while cycle touring in France are hard to break. There is a crumbling rock fence around the little house that we lean our bikes against. Mucho gracious. |
