Tempering expectations

February 21, 2022

Day 3 - Palas de Rei to Portomarín

It's only day 3. We are only human. We aren't the fittest humans. The terrain is by no means the flattest.

Honestly I don't care, it isn't a point of pride or anything. Despite pretending to be an adventurer like my heroes I've always said if it's horrible for some reason we can stop or take a bus.

I'm rambling. The plan for today is the 25km (I thought it was more like 15!) to Portomarín that we didn't do yesterday. Hills again are moderate or steep. We've got the hotel we booked there as we managed to move it without incurring fees which is nice.

The day started out fairly well, it was drizzling a bit and a little cold - but that's nothing to us Brits!

A moist mossy wood fairly typical of the area

Of course the hills hadn't gone anywhere. We cycled up out of Palas de Rei past some sort of hospital, on a cobbled stretch of the camino itself. Then more hills.

Then more camino! Alongside the road, beautiful gravel path between the trees.

We have been passing through a few tiny farmlets, with the usual composition of ancient tractors, giant barns, pungent smells etc. that we know so well, and a few less familiar, like what I take to be old fashioned food storage structures suspended on stilts (I'll try to get a picture next time).

Not so pleasant are the multitudinous perros who bark, sometimes extremely viciously, as we pass by. Luckily they have all been chained or fenced up, except for one or two who are obviously masters of their domain and don't bark but stand on the threshold and watch us pass.

Since getting it out of the box, the gears on my bike have been less than perfect - the chain was grinding a bit, and struggling to change up to the big ring. Today I thought I had had enough of this, and was going to use my little bit of knowledge to simply adjust the front derailleur until it was no longer noisy. How hard could it be?

Now, before you criticise, I want you to know that in my defense I believe I had nothing to do with the crank falling off! I had been turning the adjustment screws on the front derailleur and I had even thought I'd made progress, when the incident happened. I am fairly sure it was just a coincidence...

However despite our best efforts, and with no passing bike nerds to be found, the crank remained off. Well, it went back on for a minute or two before coming off again. Not sure what's going on there (that's obvious!). An elderly angelic couple stopped and called us a taxi, which miraculously fitted both bikes, both riders, and both sets of luggage.

Eventually, the bike was fixed and the whole convoy made it to our booked accommodation. More luck, as Portomarín is a nice little town next to a very beautiful river valley.

Today's ride: 9 km (6 miles)
Total: 86 km (53 miles)

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