Homage to Catalonia

I'm sitting here in Barcelona, dirty, smelly, and hands completely black from patching the flat tire I got about 20 minutes out of town. I'm swearing inwardly at having to learn yet ANOTHER keyboard. Feeling pretty super about the last couple of days though.

Where to start. I left Toulouse late, waiting for rain to subside and enjoying the company of the couchsurfers I visted so much that it was hard to leave. Eventually I loaded leuze up and hit the road after buying some new sunglasses and gloves, both of which items Toulouse had eaten. It was warm and sunny, and my brakes worked PROPERLY (and I mean, damn good!) for the first time since Rex died (a good thing it turned out). I stopped for dinner and caught myself smiling - I realized I was having realy fun again.

The trip from Toulouse to Saint Gaudin was nothing special - more rural farmland and pretty pastoral countryside. Anticipating scarcity in the days ahead I stopped at a supermarket and loaded up with food for the next couple of days, and then turned in towards, and then past Bagniers de Luchon, the town at the mouth of the Col de Portillon and Catalonia beyond. Think whistler village; expensive, touristy and boring. I spent my second night out camped half way up the mountain next to a bubbling brook and sleeping uneasily because I hadn´t bothered to hang my food and word on the street is that there are still bears in the pyrenees. I mean word on the street literally, as there seems to be a local debate over culling the bears going on in the area - spraypainted on the road at various intervals were 'non a l'ours' and 'oui a l'ours!'

So the pyrenees. These are some fucking mountains. The Massif central region of france was beautiful, and I'd never seen anything like those volcanos - but even there at the highest peak (higher, incedentally than I ended up climbing in the pyrenees) was a part of gentle rolling mountains. The Pyrenees don't fuck around. They are steep, jagged things - the bare bones of the world exposed for all to see. One of the rawest peieces of natur Í've ever seen, and you're hearing that from a BC boy here.

I woke up early the next morning and finished the climb to the col de Portillon (yeah, I cheated and did it over 2 days. Partly it was just the way things worked out, me rolling up at 6 pm the first night and all, needing somewhere natural to camp - but also, hey, that road was HELL OF STEEP). Altitude: 1293M. And then the decent. Oh my, oh my. Pretty much a half an hour of breakneck speed down switchback after switchback. The grin was plastered to my face. REALLY having fun now. Glad those brakes work like new.

Suddenly I'm in Spain. Painfully aware that the facility that I had in France, as a french speaker (however awkward my phrasing at times) had now evaporated. I was for all intents and purposes now a mute.

That wasn't the only sudden change - the pyrenees really are a natural border; as soon as you cross, you KNOW you are in a different country. The climate is completely different. Gone the wet lushness of france (even southern france seems 'wet and lush' compared to Spain), and thankfully with it that species of orange french slug that found a way to get in all my shit every night. Suddenly everything is arrid, dry pine trees and brown landscapes. I realize why the spanish took so well to Mexico and California - it must have been just like an extension of home.

I´ll let you in on a little secret - Catalonia, for all intents and purposes, is really just an extensio/ the foothills of the Pyrenees. On the french side there is one slope up to the top, and thats it for the mountains. In Catalonia they extend for kilometers and kilometers. I hitched a ride through a five KM tunnel (took almost 2 hrs to get picked up) that bored right through a mountain that must have a 2500 M peak. All downhill on the other side too, until I found a abandonned town on a penisnula overlooking a beautiful but artificial lake. The town had been cleared out and the land now belongs to the hydro company; the lake is catchment for their dam. Picturesque ruins. I stopped and made use of the lake to swim, wash some clothes, and cook. Then set my tent up on a cliff part overlooking the lake. Thankfully hidden away a bit as a suspicious hydro employee turned up (must have seen me poking about, taking pictures and whatnot) but was too lazy to get out of his jeep and really look around.

The next couple of days involved me challenging myself by taking on mountain after mountain. Like BC, this region is pretty much nothing but mountains and valleys. For some reason, rather than follow logic and trace the valleys with their highways, the Catalonians have opted to paint their roads up and down the spines of these beasts. Lesson: the harder, hotter, more brutally painful the climb, the longer, more winding, more thrilling the descent. I think I had one drop that went for 19 km and lost 7 or 800 meters. My maps are maked with a > symbol designating Hard Climb - usually averaging 8-15 km, often with a grade over 6 percent. Coming from a snowboard background I call them black diamonds. >> are double black diamonds, though I only ever tackled one of those at the Puy de Mary. I´ve been averaging two black diamonds a day. My legs hate me.

The murderous murderous sun.

Potable water is scarce.

The landscape is beautiful though, the skies are constantly blue and the roads sparkle.

Did I mention the murderous sun?

Unlike in France where there are cute little departmental roads that take you from small town to small town, catalonia seems to be connected by a limited network of highways (probably because of all the dammned mountains), so I am confined to car country a lot of the time. I get occasional and encouraging honks from passing motorists, along with a lot of incredulous stares.

Who would be stupid enough to bike through Spain in July?

The motorcyclists seem to like me particularly, and I think we share a kinship as to perspective on the road. I admit to being jelous of them, as that effortless power would make the flats, and moreover, the ascents on these delicious winding blacktops just as thrilling as the descents. Must get hot under all of that leather though.

I rolled into Barcelona around 1 oclock here and now need to get in touch with the couchsurfer I'll be staying with. My friend Earl (met about this time last year though bike love in portland - the movement never ceases to provide) emailed me from amsterdam and said he knows some squatters here too, so mayhap I'll luck out there too - I'd like to spend some time exploring the city and resting my brutalized body. I now have absolute confidence in my body and my ability to be self sufficient. Its nice.

Miss you guys and miss the sea - perhaps next task is getting down to the med and kissing the sand; its been forever since I´ve seen ocean.

Pics, as always, to come when they can. More spectacular than usual I think.