4. From Flamingos to Tapas

(Day 20-24, 2.150km cycled)

My Small Apologies

Let's be open and honest here. I am behind time with my blog writing. This blog is my space for creative writing and it is fun. I write it in the hopes of introducing humor and a deeper level of detail to my journey. So while I might take longer to write these than it takes me to trash-load you with my stories on Instagram or my sloppy Komoot pictures, ideally, the blogposts are more enjoyable to you.

Regardless of my blog-writing tardiness and before we get into my French beach holiday and my victory-ride into Spain, I want to take a minute to talk about my lord and saviour Bibendum.

Wait, wait, wait. Before you get confused and wonder what the hell I have been drinking - let me explain.

First. It seems that often, when people are unable to explain an event or in particular a cumiliation of such, they turn to a higher power or a fable for answers and explaination.

Why do humans exist? -> The answer is god.

Ships sinking in the ocean? -> Mermaids or a giant kraken.

I experienced something onfortunate? -> I ran out of good carma.

Now when it comes to cycling, it is unexplicable to me how punctures and flat tires come to be, at the time that they do, because there is no system to it. No rules, no law and order. And I am sure, many of my fellow cyclists will agree.

I haven't had a single flat tire for EXACTLY 1.000km on this trip, when at that very point, I heard the air forcefully exit through a cut in my trusty rubber. Coincidence? I think not. 🤔 I did check my tire beforehand , just to find a glass cut that had not yet ripped a hole in the tire coat. When I had my first flat tire, I thought it had been that cut that ripped. But it wasn't that.

Just a day later, a new glass induced penetration. Since then, I had only one more penetration which was a lot further down the line. What about the sketchy long cut I discovered 2-3 days into my journey? It is still holding up strong. You can already see, there are no rules to punctures. 

That alone wouldn't be reason enough to call for a higher power but if you cycled the shoulders of French and Spanish highways, you would know, here, the meta is: "All that glitters is gold glass". And the roads glitter like a disco ball at a 60s party.

I have been riding over so much glass on the roads. I have stopped on, and turned on glass, right next to glass-containers. What kind of glass you ask? Mirrors, broken bottles, shattered window panes, old tube-tv displays, stomped-on reading glasses from the school nerd, "whoops I dropped my rosé"-glass, you name it.

Yet after all this glass exposure, it seems like it needs only the tiniest piece of undiscript glass, as if it was destined to have that single purpose. My tire will lose air and I will need to repair it.

I wonder, how, I wonder why [yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky] my tires pop when they do. And I don't have an answer. So all that I am left to do, is to turn to the Bibendum...

(For all who wonder what the fuck is a Bibendum)

For my part, I pray to the Bibendum daily, hoping and wishing that the glass I overrun, stays blunt.

And for fucks sake, please throw your bottles in the container, not on the road. Please.

And now we continue with the normal blog.

From the Mountains to the sea.

I left Aix-en-Provence with a marvelously great Raspberry Croissant in my stomach and a feeling of strengh in my legs. The persistent turbo-head winds from the previous days had subdued and ahead lay a descent down to Arles and subsequently, sea level. Before I knew it, I had already passed through the former and found myself right inside the Camargue. A place that my mother had only good things to say about. I rode between fields of rice and a lush green flat landscape, always trailing the Rhône river making its way to the ocean. It was while riding here that I saw wild flamingos flying for the first time. First I mistook it for storks but it was flamingos. Later on, I had the chance to see them peck around the saltflats on the southern coast of France multiple times. 

Both the river and I had the same destination: Le Grau-du-Roi, an ocean touch-point. The biggest difference between us, apart from the obvious (me being a human and the river being, well, a body of water) was that while the river was received with open arms, as it is the water veine for rather wealthy and loose-walleted, dutch boat tourists into France, the poor cycle tourist was denied access to the campings. No joke. Although there is an abundance of campgrounds, not a single one had a space for me. For me and my laughably small 1m² tent. Why? That day, I found out about the concept of mobile-home campgrounds. It's like container houses but on a campground. So essentially you get a hotel room with a small garden.

That concept of camping, proving very lucrative for the operators, drove the OG campers like me out of the market and into the streets. Which is where I slept that night. After being turned down everywhere, I simply wild-camped next to the Rhône river, watching a thunderstorm from inside my tent. It was an eerie night if you ask me but since I had a pizza in my stomach, I was ready for bed and a deep sleep anyway.

A bit salty (upset) about having to wild-camp, I started my day really early and got a mighty 25 km in before I even had my regular Pain au Chocolat breakfast in one of the holiday-home-beach towns. The ride down the southern coast of France was one of mixed feelings. It was a pretty one, I saw wild flamingos stork through the flat lakes and most of the time I could see the ocean on my left. But contrasting to that ocean beauty, the flat lakes also emitted a strong, constant stinking smell of rancid fish or salmonella. Unpleasant. The beachtowns filled with the eversame buildings also felt a bit dull and artificial. 

Crashing my way out of France

While I was flying on my bike, perpetuated by tailwinds, I must have gotten full of myself. Because after I left the coast, had stopped for lunch at a supermarket and was about to head off again to finish my long 140km ride, it happened. A faux pas, a costly mistake: My first accident. It was a spectacular stunt for me and all the supermarket-car park visitors. 

I used my insulin after I had eaten and was left with the little plastic syringe tip for my insulin pen. Something I wanted to dispose of before departure. My plan was simple. Get on the bike and toss the trash in the bin while passing.

In my head, that was an easy feat but in reality, while throwing the trash, my brain mashed and I threw like I had never operated my arm and hand in that combination before. This lead to me A: missing my throw, and B: steering myself directly into the bin. I then struggled as I saw the horror happen in slow motion. I did not manage to unclip my shoe from my pedal and crashed together with the large metal bin to the ground, making so much noise that before I knew what happened, three people were trying to help me up. Embarrassed as I was, Imumbled some French bits to excuse myself, rectified the bin and made my way out of there as fast as I could. One helpful woman send me off with the words "Plus doucement maintenant, mon fills" which roughly translates to "calm down now my child.".  I later realized it would have helped the recovery of the abrasion on my knee to cover it before riding the dusty gravel track. Maybe then I wouldnt have needed to ride around with a crusty, purluent wound for weeks. (Below picture is before that state) 

The Ride on raw Eggs

Crawling out of my tent the next day, the first thing I see is a tiny rudder-boat, from which, a puddle of yellow brown liquid emitted an unpleasant smell. I was relieved to see that the clothes I hung out to dry on my bike that leaned against the boat had not fallen into that... water. Contrasting to the relief, I saw that everything was covered by moisture. My tent and my clothes. Packing up my wet stuff would later gift me a whole clothing-bag of smelly clothes, no matter if they had been fresh before.

In addition to that, the moment I swung my ass into the saddle and feeling a stinging pain at my bottom, I realized that my constant long distance riding had found its first victim. Surely nothing that an extra layer of Vaseline could fix.

Nothing could dampen my mood on the day that I was going to cross the border to Spain. The first 100km of the ride were easy going and I even treated myself to a MC-Flurry after lunch to strengthen myself for the 200 meter ascend into the Pyrenees. There was only one little thing and that was the fact that an extra layer of Vaseline didn't make my ass-pain go away. Imagine it like trying to navigate a 45kg bike while sitting on raw eggs. One wrong movement and the egg breaks, or in my case, I experience pain. Carefully I keep shifting my butt left and right, front and back, trying to find the non-existent seating position that gives me some relief "a bajo". My only hope for relief was the 3-day break in Barcelona that I could see on the horizon as it was just one more day away.

And while I am already using Spanish pfhrases in this blog, a vast majority of that day, I kept myself entertained on the bike by trying to rake together the bits and pieces of Spanish that I had learned in 3 years in highschool.

Anyway, my final kilometers of the day now stood in front of me and with them the Pyrenees that demanded to be crossed. 

After two very exhausting climbs, I stood infront the abandonned police checpoint that marked the official border from France to Spain.

In the massive Border Supermarkets I found a worthy reward for my accomplishment of making it into this new country. I treated myself for once with a massive 1Liter bottle of chocolate milk that I drank celebratory.

I had crossed all of France. After roughly 1.900km cycled in France, I had a new exciting country to look forward to. New landscapes, climates, language, people.

My verdict about France is clear. Although France has a stigma for its inhabitants being cocks, most of the time, I experienced kindness (whereby I believe, speaking some French does help A LOT to gain sympathy points). The car and truck drivers are very very respectful towards cyclists, whereby that could be due to their pride of owning the tour de France. Please treasure this habit my French friends.

I don't understand why French restaurants do siesta like the Spanish do. Why is everything closed from like 14:00 until 18:00?! That's the window right where I want to do my lunch break! Which led me to eating supermarket-stuff like 500 grams of celery salad or a 4 pack of joghurt (because they don't sell singles).

Restaurants seemed very westernized in their food offerings. It's always Pizza/Pasta/Burger. Would have loved to see more authentic French cuisine. However, the problem isn't the French restaurants, it's me because I am too stingy and too poor to eat a seafood platter or a great steak every meal. It's simply out of my financial reach for a trip like this. So cheap pizza and burger it is 🥲

(Here is a collection of some food I had in France)

The EuroVelo8 Route in France was great, at least the bits that I cycled.

French summer is just wonderful. I can advise anybody who wants to experience France by bike to do so in the summer without hesitation.

I say "Au revoir" and make my way to Barcelona now.

Into Barcelona

A fat glass of beer and a free spicy-sausage tapas was my first night's dinner in Spain (and a self-brought can of lentil soup that the camping-restaurant "chef" was so kind to microwave for me).

Then, a night with loud music from somewhere close to the camping until 05:00 in the morning followed and I was off on my way to Barcelona. Since I had ran out of mobile data, my first stop was Girona's McDonalds to leech off their Wifi to plan my route on Komoot. 

After successfully "stealing" the internet, I made my way through Girona where I filled my belly with a well below average Kebab. Although the kebab wasn't particularly memorable in a positive way, talking to the owner was fun. A Spanish guy who had worked in Germany in a small town for a couple of years was so ecstatic to see me and talk about his plans to move back and work in a shisha bar. Sometimes I feel like if there was the equivalent to the american dream but only in Germany, it would very much look something like this. His kindness extended so far that he offered me that the next time I stop by, I could ask him for anything!! Maybe he knew that this wasn't going to happen any time soon. Or perhaps never. Still, you have to cherish the small gestures.

Komoot then tried to send me through a water drain to cross under a highway and after a very gravelly ride alongside the high speed train tracks, my exhausted legs and I made it to yet another rather overpriced camping. A camping that turned out to be a dirty place with broken camping benches next to a padel-club. While this new form of tennis and squash received much attention from the owner and players, I was left paying 20€ for a patch of forest ground right next to the train tracks. I now know that the trains in Hostalric run until 02:00 at night and from 06:00 in the morning.

Following a less spectacular ride through a riverbed that made me wonder if it is a trash dump because it had no river but an abundance of illegally discarded trash, and another frustrating flat tire fix, I reached Barcelona. There I was greeted by Lorenz, who was cheering me on like it's the tour the France. 

What followed in Barcelona was a 3-Day very non-touristy stay. Lots of tapas, empanadas, a sushi belt restaurant visit, Taco Bell tacos and beer followed. The glasses I lost, the granola bars I ate, my frame bag I broke and parts for my bike I was missing, all had to be catered to as well. And while I tried doing so while also recovering from a 8-day cycling run without a day break in between, I didn't find the time to sightsee.

The only touristy photo I took, my victory gem of conquering France and riding into Spain, I don't want to keep from you:

9 days after departing in Nice and after saying "Hello" to Marie-Pierre and Isi from Sekovio-Pierre-Pepin, I stood in Barcelona. Exhausted, with a bit more battered equipment and a sore sore butt. On the other hand with 760 more kilometers under the belt and the triumph of fully crossing my first whole country (even adding in some extra kilometers) 

Reaching Valencia and continuing to Gibraltar was my next goal and I was hot to get back into the saddle after 3 days in Barcelona! 

Tourupdate