April 23, 2012 to April 25, 2012
Santillana del Mar, Puente San Miguel & Santander
windy and stuck beside the sea
In England he'd be reported by a member of the public and no doubt fired; in Spain no one notices. Clad in a give-away yellow fluorescent vest, the San Vincente city's street sweeper is in the bus station's café, having a small glass of beer. I see him a little later chatting to someone outside another café, having another tumbler of cerveza. By then it's almost noon.
Maybe breakfast is included but as it's just gone eleven when I wake and it seems pointless asking at hotel reception and once outside, feeling the strong wind and seeing the seriously overcast sky, I simply cruise the few hundred metres to the autobus station.
The timetable pinned up tells me there are a few hours until the next one going east, so after a coffee, I pop back and find a café with Wi-fi and stay until 1:30, listening to Elton John's greatest hits on the audio system, by which time the sky doesn't look so bad.
The side road inclines sharply after the long bridge out of San Vincente, but it it looks quieter and more scenic than the N 634 and wind blows me up the slope. It's a strong, gale-force blast that, even though going in the right direction, makes cycling tricky, with side gusts suddenly unbalancing me, especially when going fast downhill. My hands grip the bars tight.
The detour lasts 6 km before T-ing into the CA 131. This goes up and down too, and sights of the sea are lost as it veers inland.
Clouds are getting nasty looking - full of rain over the high peaks - while traffic is more constant, so cycling isn't much fun. It's mainly the wind.
My last Michelin photocopied map ends just after San Vincente, so it's a matter of just following the CA-131, up and down, with gusts blowing like crazy.
Once in Santillana del Mar, I stop for a drink and also to gather my thoughts. Rain looks imminent. Once the tourism office opens after the siesta I get the lowdown and opt to ride 4 km inland to Puerte San Miguel to get the train into Santander. The rain holds off on the short ride.
My luck was in. A commuter-style train is standing at the platform and leaves literally a couple of minutes after I've paid two-something euros for a ticket - no charge for the bike, which gets parked in the roomy section at the front. Twenty-five minutes later we're there.
The woman at the Santander ferry ticket office says there are no sailings due to the bad weather - not what I want to hear, but she reckons it'll be business as usual in a day or so, once the situation has calmed down and Britannia Ferries has sorted out the frustrated customers who've all been inconvenienced.
The first-floor pension is walking distance and the room is only 20 euros. Measuring seven by eight feet, the bed takes up the vast majority of space, while my bike gets slotted in the gap at the foot of the bed, leaving the one side for me to put my saddlebag. There's no window.
Tuesday
Back at the ticket office, it seems I'll be able to get on the Thursday ferry to Portsmouth - England. No, it isn't where I planned to go, but once there it will be possible to get a train west. That idea doesn't work out as the ferry is booked up when I return later to buy a ticket.
There's one sailing on Monday and the next ferry to Plymouth is on Wednesday, over a week away. Unbelievable. To add to the frustration, my laptop won't connect to the Internet, so getting any details about alternatives, such as flights, is impossible.
An hour is spent wandering around town looking for the cyber places the tourism woman has circled on a street map. They're all closed until after 4:00. When can I get to England?: the answer is blowin' in the wind.
I pay the pension owner for two extra nights and at around 6:00 PM go for a walk, armed with my camera, and become a proper tourist for a while; it's something unappealing but the room is cramped, has no chair and the whiff of my sweaty cycling clothes linger.
Going to a bar to watch Chelsea play Barcelona on TV at eight-thirty doesn't happen as I coan't be bothered to venture out again, The 14-inch flat-screen on the wall above my bike in my dinky bedroom serves the purpose.
Wednesday
The weather forecast isn't brilliant. Nothing new there.
However, it's impossible to stay sane in the room for a bloody week.
I buy a 101-euro seat ferry ticket for May 2nd, sailing to Plymouth that night, and walk back to the bus station just a block from my room and ask about getting up into the Picos de Europa. I reckon there's some unfinished business there and five or six days should be enough for me to get it sorted.
At 10:15 AM there's one bus going to Tama and on to Potes, both up the N621; villages shown on the shiny tourist map picked up back in Cangas. Either of those look good starting points. It's a plan. Sort of.
Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 2,264 km (1,406 miles)
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