French version here

Yeah, finally, my first long distance cycling trip in autonomy. I left August 18th. Was supposed to go to Poland but no, finally let’s go to Morocco!

Hé ombre! Porque la Espana? No comprendo!!

Calm down buddy, It’s easy, Spanish is a language I like and I kind of potentially need it for my job. Weather is good, it’s cheaper and it’s beautiful so yeah, you got it?

Summary

Arrived at Hendaye, France, then meeting with friends at the beach. Summary: Beers, rosé, resto. I didn’t start to be gentle with my bank account as well as my alcohol consommation this day, well, let’s wait for tomorrow then! After some crazy games of pétanque, I had to find a camping site because the Ricard/Rosé/wine mix had an impact on my motivation on searching the perfect place to succumb in a twilight sleep and it started to be late.  After saying goodbye, I reached a camping 4km from there. Of course, we are in summer and this one was full so I asked a guy and he showed me a field, then meet another one who showed me the forest after the field. I founded there a nice clearing. Thing is I have to wait a few days because I am waiting a package from my hometown. Into this one, stuff for the bike but also my sleeping bad. So I had a cold during the first days because it rained as fuck all the night long. I finnaly get my package 2 days later

So, direction to Hendaye, at the border with Spain where I found a place to sleep at Lili and Viveca. First night calm then the next day will be at San-Sebastian, a cool town in Spain where a summer festival is playing. We are with friends of them,  nice people where friendship is slowly installing between us. We come back home drunk after had seen fireworks and punk concert with a nice mix of all kind of people.

The next day. Let’s go…. but at 2pm it’s not like you can do hundreds of kilometers. So, i speed up myself and hit the road. Goal: Straight to Valladolid where I will join a friend.

Irun, Spain as a first step, finding a map on a Sunday. I stopped at a gaz station. the guy sells maps but its super expensive. He speak only Basque or Spanish. He went at the back of his store and gave me a 2009 book with all maps of Spain and Portugal. He gave me that as a gift and, as a cyclist he is too, offered me a coffee. We then try to speak for about an hour then I took the road again. Gracias Proko!

Proko also printed paths for “the camino de Santiago“: a path for pilgrim that cross the whole country horizontally. Goal here is to go to Burgos more in the south and to switch for Valladolid. I am crossing great and atypic villages. Basque’s fingerprint is strong here. The Basque country have it own police and government. A country in a country in a way. Maybe a way for Spanish and french government to contain tensions?

The night comming, it’s time to find a camp. Next night at Anoeta, small village near Tolosa. I hardly find a flat spot because of mountains. I had slept by a road, nose on a wall of my tent because of a small slope.

The next day I arrived at Vitoria-Gasteiz: A very nice medieval city from where i am writing those lines sitting at a coffee table where a guy sitting next to me, an employee of the coffee,  is tranquilly rolling some pot. Vitoria-Gasteiz is at 90kms and it was the longest distance I ever did, yeah man. Before leaving, I need a Spanish number. I am going to Orange because they have a prepaid system. 10€ for 2go data, which is fine. I’ll use whatsapp and online apps to communicate. I’ll wait 45mn that the fatty kid in front of me had chosen his phone. I need now bread an gaz for my stove. Ill find only bread.  Starting to ride at 12. After 10km, my transmission is dying, I’ll loose one hour because I am missing some tools, as usually. The road start to climb severely and I am going from 100m of altitude to 400m before reaching Antzuola. My host gave me rendez-vous in a small town, one hour far from my final destination. The village is called Landa and it’s at the summit of a small mountain. 600m of altitude, I finally find my host and she shown me the way to her house by a wonderful path along the lake. I almost wanted to get laid with her by the lake, it was so beautiful, but you know I am a gentleman. At her place it’s late already and she work early. shower, salad and bed for a restful night. Waking up at 6h30 to continue the adventure.

Datas

Map

Synthèse kilométrique:

Cout:

Cout journalier: 20.08€

Hastaluego!