Okay so I'm here at a stable computer for a while, so I can start to chip away at all the internet stuff I have to do. As you've no doubt noticed, the promised 'what I've been up to' post never materialized 'tomorrow' as promised. Well, c'st la vie. You're not going to get it tonight either. What you will get is:
-My latest route on Gmaps
-New Photos on Flickr (only some, as I've hit my limit for the month. I'll add more in a couple of days when its September.
-Some Bonus Videos!
First, standing on a bridge that crosses an inlet connecting a massive 'etang' (don't know the english word, but a lake-like body of water with mixed salt and fresh water)
And then, the Pyrenees where they meet the sea
Just getting all that crap and a couple of emails done took me all evening though, and I spent the day riding 100 km in wind, so strong at points, that I had to shift onto the granny (easiest) ring to go DOWN hill. So I'm tired and thats all ye gets from me. Now off to drink heinekn and watch poorly dubbed french TV.
Missin' you jerks as always.;;
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Roadmap
Latest Gmap route, Everything from Toulouse to Montpellier. I suggest zooming out to get an overall perspective. I did the math to subtract the distance travelled by ferries, and from Toulouse to Montpellier have put down an aditional 1307 km, give or take a few. I'll add that to the former total but I think I must be near 3000 by now.
More tomorrow- like on what I've been doing and stuff.
More tomorrow- like on what I've been doing and stuff.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Solo Formentara
On Ibiza right now, paying for overpriced internet while killing time; my ferry to Barcalona is delayed and wont get me back until after midnight. In the mean time, here are some highlights of ten days on Formentara, sunning it up and sitting in on Ian's amazing project. I've got lots to say about the Halve Maan (mostly about how awesome it is) but I'll save it for Barca where net access is reasonably priced.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Barca Triangle
I opened the door to find myself facing a squad of riot police in full combat gear. Some had sledgehammers and one had a battering ram.
I blinked a couple of times.
They blinked a couple of times.
I gather it normally doesnt go like this.
Recovering slightly from the shock, I tried to close the door, but was no match for a bunch of police. They kicked it back in and pushed me against the wall as they filed in, a real life and more ominous pack of stormtroopers fanning throught the building.
Sagrera, the four-house squat, home to about 15 people, and my temporary lodgings, was being evicted.
I was in full kit, leading my bike out the door when it happened. I'd planned on getting up early to hit the road and head south to valencia. As such I'd cracked the door just when the police were about to start bashing it in. It was july 31st, the last day they could do it before the justice system shut down for the august break (ah, spain). They lucked out and I did all the work for them. One by one they found sagrera's residents sleeping unaware (again, the luck provided by a silent entry), corralled us all towards the front of the house, took passports, and gave everyone about 2 minutes to gather their things before tossing us into the street.
I felt shitty for being the doorman.
The Sagrerans, no doubt, felt shittier. Their home was gone.
This was my exit from Barcelona. I'd tried to leave the day before but was tempted by offeres of a cava bar that serves tasty sandwiches and cheap bubbly by the bottle, as well as an afternoon of box wine in the ocean. Couldn't leave. The kids laughed at me joking about how it was funny to witness yet another get stuck in barcelona. Its rather easy I gather, and I wouldn't have been the first soul swallowed.
It really is a city that doesn't sleep. Dinner really does start around 10 oclock, and everything else follows that. Revellers - locals and the tourist swarm that continues to grow unabated every year - gather in the streets until the sun comes up, only broken up when the city crews come through with their trucks and spray the streets down nightly, wetting the decent places to sit and (thankfully) washing the ubiquitous streams of urine away in anticipation of tomorrows scorching heat.
Its hot - really hot - and the daily siesta (2-5 pm) makes getting practical things done difficult. Moreso, however, the laidback lifestyle and the way that the spanish days seem to slip into darkness before you notice makes getting practical things done difficult. I failed at my two main missions - shortening the stem on my bike (starting to get really nervous about carpal tunnel), and finding white gas for my stove. Not that I didn't try, but neither product seems to available in BCN. The language barrier was probably holding me back too.
I lucked out in hooking Sagrera up as a place to stay. A friend I'd met in Amsterdam had given me the name of a couple of her friends and slightly sketchty directions to their squat. Look them up if you're in Barca she told me. After a couple of nights of couchsurfing, and the failure to find another couch, and a night on a Barca Bench I went searching.
I'm a friend of Amanda's I said, to a couple of skeptical looks. Apparently when they heard 'Simon' was there asking for a place to stay, they'd thought I was someone else, a less welcome guest. I was told I could stay, and after a couple of days had made a house full of friends.
Connecting with the sagrera clan made BCN come alive for me. I talked a lot of political theory and refined some of my ideas and ideals; I lived in an alternative social space with a high degree of political awareness and came a step closer to harmonizing those ideals with actions, towards praxis.
Stopped for one week and stayed for three. Hitting the beach. Hooning it up in Barca's steady but rather laid back traffic. Taking a four day camping trip with new friends up near the french border - waterfall, swimming hole, campfire, wandering cows, and all. drinking box wine on the terrace till late in the warm summer air.
I'm sitting in an internet cafe on the Island of Formentara right now visiting one of my oldest and best friends - Its a wierd place, an Italian vaction colony and the refuge of the super rich yachtees who want somewhere more exclusive than Ibiza to park their floating hotels. But more on that later.
Next stop is a quick tour back through Barca, then up the Costa Brava, across the French border and eastwards. More from the road.
I blinked a couple of times.
They blinked a couple of times.
I gather it normally doesnt go like this.
Recovering slightly from the shock, I tried to close the door, but was no match for a bunch of police. They kicked it back in and pushed me against the wall as they filed in, a real life and more ominous pack of stormtroopers fanning throught the building.
Sagrera, the four-house squat, home to about 15 people, and my temporary lodgings, was being evicted.
I was in full kit, leading my bike out the door when it happened. I'd planned on getting up early to hit the road and head south to valencia. As such I'd cracked the door just when the police were about to start bashing it in. It was july 31st, the last day they could do it before the justice system shut down for the august break (ah, spain). They lucked out and I did all the work for them. One by one they found sagrera's residents sleeping unaware (again, the luck provided by a silent entry), corralled us all towards the front of the house, took passports, and gave everyone about 2 minutes to gather their things before tossing us into the street.
I felt shitty for being the doorman.
The Sagrerans, no doubt, felt shittier. Their home was gone.
This was my exit from Barcelona. I'd tried to leave the day before but was tempted by offeres of a cava bar that serves tasty sandwiches and cheap bubbly by the bottle, as well as an afternoon of box wine in the ocean. Couldn't leave. The kids laughed at me joking about how it was funny to witness yet another get stuck in barcelona. Its rather easy I gather, and I wouldn't have been the first soul swallowed.
It really is a city that doesn't sleep. Dinner really does start around 10 oclock, and everything else follows that. Revellers - locals and the tourist swarm that continues to grow unabated every year - gather in the streets until the sun comes up, only broken up when the city crews come through with their trucks and spray the streets down nightly, wetting the decent places to sit and (thankfully) washing the ubiquitous streams of urine away in anticipation of tomorrows scorching heat.
Its hot - really hot - and the daily siesta (2-5 pm) makes getting practical things done difficult. Moreso, however, the laidback lifestyle and the way that the spanish days seem to slip into darkness before you notice makes getting practical things done difficult. I failed at my two main missions - shortening the stem on my bike (starting to get really nervous about carpal tunnel), and finding white gas for my stove. Not that I didn't try, but neither product seems to available in BCN. The language barrier was probably holding me back too.
I lucked out in hooking Sagrera up as a place to stay. A friend I'd met in Amsterdam had given me the name of a couple of her friends and slightly sketchty directions to their squat. Look them up if you're in Barca she told me. After a couple of nights of couchsurfing, and the failure to find another couch, and a night on a Barca Bench I went searching.
I'm a friend of Amanda's I said, to a couple of skeptical looks. Apparently when they heard 'Simon' was there asking for a place to stay, they'd thought I was someone else, a less welcome guest. I was told I could stay, and after a couple of days had made a house full of friends.
Connecting with the sagrera clan made BCN come alive for me. I talked a lot of political theory and refined some of my ideas and ideals; I lived in an alternative social space with a high degree of political awareness and came a step closer to harmonizing those ideals with actions, towards praxis.
Stopped for one week and stayed for three. Hitting the beach. Hooning it up in Barca's steady but rather laid back traffic. Taking a four day camping trip with new friends up near the french border - waterfall, swimming hole, campfire, wandering cows, and all. drinking box wine on the terrace till late in the warm summer air.
I'm sitting in an internet cafe on the Island of Formentara right now visiting one of my oldest and best friends - Its a wierd place, an Italian vaction colony and the refuge of the super rich yachtees who want somewhere more exclusive than Ibiza to park their floating hotels. But more on that later.
Next stop is a quick tour back through Barca, then up the Costa Brava, across the French border and eastwards. More from the road.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
invisible
Well now - I realize I've dropped off the face of the earth for a while now; don't worry, it just means I'm having fun. Barcelona has a way of swallowing you up whole, and I have met a lot of people living here who 'just stopped for a week or two' - a few months or years ago.
I'm out of here tomorrow to start heading south to Valencia. From there I'm taking a ferry over to Ibiza (where I plan to spend as absolutely little time as possible) and a connecting boat to Formentara where my long time friend Ian lives on a pirate ship. Beaches and bbqs anticipated.
Expect more details when the fever of barca wears off and I get back into road mentality.
I'm out of here tomorrow to start heading south to Valencia. From there I'm taking a ferry over to Ibiza (where I plan to spend as absolutely little time as possible) and a connecting boat to Formentara where my long time friend Ian lives on a pirate ship. Beaches and bbqs anticipated.
Expect more details when the fever of barca wears off and I get back into road mentality.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Aqui Bici
Fiets
Velo
Bici
New words at every stop for the bike. I love particularly how Bici sounds, being a BC boy myself.
Anyhow, not lots of net time here, but I managed to squeeze a few new photos up onto flickr (check the link under the map to the right). Slow to upload so maybe I can find a faster connection elsewhere and put some new ones up? Also maxed out my flickr space for the month so I'm going to start putting photos on the old midnight mass flickr site, www.flickr.com/
oh yeah, barca rocks.
Velo
Bici
New words at every stop for the bike. I love particularly how Bici sounds, being a BC boy myself.
Anyhow, not lots of net time here, but I managed to squeeze a few new photos up onto flickr (check the link under the map to the right). Slow to upload so maybe I can find a faster connection elsewhere and put some new ones up? Also maxed out my flickr space for the month so I'm going to start putting photos on the old midnight mass flickr site, www.flickr.com/
oh yeah, barca rocks.
Monday, July 9, 2007
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
